What year has been the best for iOS gaming 2nd Edition

Discussion in 'General Game Discussion and Questions' started by krisko6, Dec 20, 2012.

  1. krisko6

    krisko6 Well-Known Member

    Oct 11, 2009
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    Now that 2012 is about to draw to a close I want to ask this question to the TA community again. What year has been the best for iOS gaming to date?

    In 2008, games first started to appear on iDevices. While some of the early attempts at games were a little underwhelming, we did see a few early favorites such as Tap Tap Revenge, TouchGrind, Rolando, Hero of Sparta, Labyrinth, Dropship, and a few others. There were also some disappointments, as the hardware wasn't quite ready to handle the ways early developers pushed it, so as a result we got disappointments like Super Monkey Ball.

    In 2009, the momentum began to pick up. Many of 08's games recieved sequels in 09. Titles such as Rolando 2, Tap Tap Revenge 2, and Labyrinth 2 gave the iPhone it's first true platform-exclusive franchises. Three of the most iconic iDevice games, Doodle Jump, Pocket God, and Angry Birds, were all released in 2009. Angry Birds, the latter of these games, was eventually ported to other major platforms, including consoles. These games are still receiving updates as we speak, which gives the platform a distinct edge compared to other handhelds because the games were updated to include new content. These games also made casual and some hardcore gamers take notice of the platform.

    And speaking of hardcore gaming, the industry's AAA publishers, such as Square Enix, Activision, and EA, started to provide installments in their core franchises, such as Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles, Call of Duty Zombies, and Rock Band, to the iPhone. By the end of 2009, the iPhone was now competing head-to-head with the DS and PSP.

    Of course, not everything was peachy-keen in 2009.In the middle of the year, Apple introduced in-app purchases. While at first an app had to be paid in order to use in-app purchases, it didn’t take long for Apple to rescind that rule and allow free apps to have iAP, opening the floodgates for a highly criticized new business model: Freemium games. Early titles such as Eliminate and Touch Pets Dogs made players purchase upgrades if they wanted to continue playing. The trend continued into 2010, with titles such as We Rule, GodFinger, and Capcom Arcade.

    In 2010, a brand new addition to the iDevice family was introduced: the iPad, essentially a large-screen version of the devices that had come before it. This increased the market for Applications, and developers could charge more for the iPad version if they wanted to, but also add new features that simply weren't possible on the smaller screens. More hardcore franchises, such as Grand Theft Auto, Tony Hawk, and Rayman, also made their way to the iDevices, ported from their respective consoles.

    2010 saw some of the biggest original titles hit the iDevices. Chaos Rings, a title from Square Enix, officially broke the $9.99 price barrier and became a critical and commercial hit, proving that a market for premium productions was there as long as the developer brought their A-game along with them (and in the case of Chaos Rings, they did). Many other heavy original titles, such as Warpgate, Aralon Sword and Shadow, Real Racing 2, and Infinity Blade, also made their way to the iDevices.

    2010 also saw the release of the iPhone 4, with its signature "Retina Display", allowing for higher resolution graphics than ever before. Many developers were forced to scramble and rebuild their assets so they looked even better on the display. In addition, Apple released their Game Center, which allowed deveolpers to once-and-for-all use a fully-integrated social networking and achievements system for their games.

    2010 also added another new face to its league of Casual Evergreens- Cut the Rope, a simple but addicting physics puzzle game, debuted in October, and with it, its adorable green alien soon became another mascot for the iDevice platforms.

    There were some disappointments in 2010. Tapulous’ Riddim Ribbon turned out to be a massive flop, and even it's "reboot" later in the year ultimately couldn't save it. The loss of Riddim Ribbon forced Tapulous, one of the early leading developers for the platform, to be bought out by Disney. Mirror's Edge, while a fun game, suffered an agonizing five-month delay in it's coming to the smaller iDevices compared to it's iPad version, despite being the first version announced. In addition, people were getting even more wary with the continuous separation of iOS capable devices. But overall, 2010 mostly continued where 2009 left off- bigger and better games, pushing the hardware even harder than before.

    2011 continued the trend of bigger and better that had begun in 2010. More games started to use the Unreal Engine, first introduced at the end of 2010 with Infinity Blade. This game engine, a popular one on consoles and PC, brought iOS graphics closer to console quality than ever before. A few games that used this engine included Dream:scape, The Dark Meadow, Batman Arkham City, Infinity Blade II, and Epoch.

    2011 also added three new mascot-worthy iOS games to the platform, all of which are still being imitated today. Jetpack Joyride was an endless game with a mission-based experience system that made it really addictive, and many, many titles that came afterwards still use it today, including Skylanders Cloud Patrol and Punch Quest. After several false starts, Where's My Water? finally allowed Disney to have it's own iOS star: a cute alligator named Swampy. Where's My Water was so popular that it led to both a web series and a “Phineas and Ferb”-themed spinoff, "Where's My Perry?". Last, but not least, Temple Run took the endless runner genre forward into 3-D, and it hasn't looked back since. In addition, it FINALLY got freemium game balance right, combining addictive gameplay that's fun right off the bat with realistically achievable power-ups without having to pay. Temple Run's popularity led to a Pixar-themed spinoff based on their recent film "Brave". Other popular iOS classics included Tiny Wings, Tiny Tower, and Superbrothers:Sword and Sworcery EP, though that last one was a bit too arty for some tastes.

    As fun as these games were for both casual and core players, gamers looking for more console franchises certainly weren't left out. Before 2011 was out, Dead Space, Sonic CD, FIFA 12, Sid Meier's PIRATES! and many more big-name games made their way to iOS. With the power of these devices increasing by the year, all of these games came much closer to the console versions than was ever thought possible.

    Two major events shook up the iOS world in 2011. First was the introduction of the iPhone 4S, arguably the least substantial upgrade between iOS generations to date. Apple finally broke their yearly release cycle and did not release the phone until October, a full four months after their traditional June launch. Many, many iOS owners, including myself were hoping for the iPhone 5 to arrive, but sadly that wouldn't happen.
    In March of that year, the iPad 2 was also released. A bigger, badder, and better version of the original, the 2 added features such as a front-facing camera that made it a more attractive option for prospective buyers.

    The second major event was the passing of Apple's founder and CEO, Steve Jobs, only a day after introducing the 4S. Jobs was a big part of Apple's culture and PR, and his presentations were always a joy to watch, even if the products themselves weren't always exciting. Jobs' passing sent shockwaves throughout the entire electronics industry, in perhaps the biggest public death since Michael Jackson's in 2009. Jobs will forever be missed by those who owned and loved any Apple products.
     
  2. krisko6

    krisko6 Well-Known Member

    Oct 11, 2009
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    But that leads us into 2012. With a different CEO at the helm, Apple decided to take their iDevice line in new directions this year. First was the release of the iPhone 5, with a radical design change to the standard screen size. The widescreen display allowed for a 16:9 aspect ratio, allowing gamers to see more in their apps than ever before. The screen's bigger display meant that many developers were to once again scramble to re-configure their apps for the new standard of device. As of this writing, there are only a few apps that have been re-configured to take advantage of the new screen size, with many still stuck in the standard display mode. The iPod Touch, which had not seen an update since 2010, also received a similar upgrade.

    The second new product was the iPad Mini. Bigger than an iPhone, but smaller than an iPad, the Mini encapsulated the full iPad 2 experience in a smaller form factor. How the public has responded to this new device is still up in the air.

    Finally, Apple launched not one, but two new full-sized iPads in 2012, not even 8 months apart from each other. Both of these iPads featured Retina Displays, with resolutions that exceeded many TVs on the market. Apple really launched themselves into hardware overkill in 2012, but it resulted in yet more new users and more demanding games. And more demanding the games indeed got.

    While there were a few games released in 2011 that required the iPhone 4 and up, 2012 was when they REALLY started to hit. The World Ends With You, Shadowgun:Deadzone, Ravensword Shadowlands, Drakerider, Horn, Lili, Bastion, ARC Squadron, and countless others all required the iPhone 4 and up, or even worse, the 4S and up. With these increasingly demanding specs, many iOS owners, especially those with iPod Touch devices, were simply left out in the cold for much of 2012 unless they decided to upgrade their device. The tradeoff for increasing device restrictions was more impressive looking games. Many of the games listed had graphics that could easily rival those on consoles.

    With that said, there were plenty of games released in 2012 that didn't require such hefty devices. Some great low-requirements games released include Vergence, Rayman Jungle Run, Button Brigade, Kingdom Rush, and many many more. Draw Something received plenty of attention early in the year, eventually leading to a multi-million dollar purchase by social gaming giant Zynga, and a game show adaptation in the works.

    Rovio really kicked things up this year, earning both praise as well as disdain in the process. They released no less than THREE Angry Birds titles in 2012, as many in one year as they had released previously. Angry Birds Space, Bad Piggies, and Angry Birds Star Wars all recieved critical and commercial praise, but many TA forum members felt burnt out by all of the birdy goodness. Regardless of how you may feel about the franchise, Angry Birds simply dominated iOS this year. But they didn’t stop there. In a controversial move, Rovio purchased a third-party game called “Casey’s Contraptions”, had it pulled from the app store, and re-branded it as a “new” game called “Amazing Alex”. While the original game was an iPad exclusive, Amazing Alex was available for all devices. Still, it seemed a little shady.

    Another iOS classic showed up quite recently. Punch Quest was a freemium game that combined the brawler with the endless runner, and got a lot of attention on TouchArcade forums. However, it's attempt to make the freemium pricing model as non-intrusive as possible backfired on its developers, Rocketcat and Madgarden, forcing them to make the game a paid app in order to make some money, and further highlighting problems with the Freemium model. Nevertheless, the game is ridiculously polished and incredibly addictive, and is worth downloading on any device that can run it even if you have to pay to do it.

    Although console franchises still showed up on iOS, some of them simply weren't up to the standards that gamers expected of them. Mass Effect Infiltrator and Borderlands Legends in particular disappointed many gamers due to their lack of resemblance to their counterparts. Still, many good ports were released in 2012, including The World Ends With You, The Last Express, Bastion, The Walking Dead, and Lunar Silver Star Story.
    Overall 2012, was perhaps one of the busiest years for iOS gaming yet. Between the massive hardware overhaul and the increasingly high quality of games, 2012 proved one thing: iOS gaming is getting better by the year.
     
  3. JBRUU

    JBRUU Well-Known Member

    May 9, 2012
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    Wow. How much time did you spend writing this essay up? :p
    Enjoyed it quite a bit, and learned some new things. Didn't realize that IAPs were originally only for paid apps.
     
  4. krisko6

    krisko6 Well-Known Member

    Oct 11, 2009
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    I actually wrote half of this back in 2010.

    Yes, as odd as it may seem, apps used to be paidmium. I remember when Tap Tap Revenge 3 came out, it was controversial because previous games in the series were free yet they wanted to charge for licensed songs, so they made the game paid for the first few months that it was out. I think about a week after the release is when Apple changed the rules for iAP, which made me very mad.
     
  5. Exact-Psience

    Exact-Psience Well-Known Member

    Jan 12, 2012
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    Yeah great read indeed. But since i started iOS gaming in late-2010, I have to say 2012 simply blew me away.
     
  6. backtothis

    backtothis im in ur base killin ur d00dz
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    Jul 13, 2009
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    I'd still say 2010. The genres weren't all so over-saturated yet. Imagine this: Angry Birds had to work to break into the top 10 that year. Best December ever as well.
     
  7. crex

    crex Doctor of Game of the Week-ology

    Oct 18, 2010
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    For games alone, this year no doubt. With releases like The Walking Dead and Bastion, the app store was really pushed to the limit. They just keep getting bigger and better. As for the market as a whole, I'd say 2010 as well. It was when iOS gaming truly took off, and IAP was nowhere to be seen. Top it all off with plenty of iOS originals that launched during that year.
     
  8. I started this year, but I have to say this year has been absolutely f#cking AMAZING.
     
  9. SSquared

    SSquared Well-Known Member

    Jan 27, 2009
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    Wow! Nice nostalgic look back. Thanks for the write up.

    Perhaps this year from strictly the level and quality of games.

    But I feel 2009 was a pretty spectacular year. Everything was still fairly new and developers were showing what the device was capable of. The touch aspect of gaming was a new concept and was brilliant seeing how devs used this. One game not listed in the history was Flight Control. This game blew everyone away. This was really the first game to take the 'touch' aspect and integrate it perfectly. It spurred on a whole new genre. It was games like this that really sparked 2009 to new ideas and made 2009 a great year for iOS gaming.
     
  10. krisko6

    krisko6 Well-Known Member

    Oct 11, 2009
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    Forgot about that one, but yes, absolute classic right there.
     
  11. smegly

    smegly Well-Known Member

    Mar 27, 2012
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    I didn't have an iOS device before 2012, but based on top lists from past years and apps from past years that I've played, each year seems to be improving upon the last. At this point, the only possible competition 2012 has, besides likely being trumped by 2013, is 2011, but I think that's mainly for sake of a handful of A-list titles like Infinity Blade II.
     
  12. Aventador

    Aventador Well-Known Member

    Jan 16, 2013
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    I am still new to iOS as iPad 4 is my first Apple product, but before I got it, there was a lot of reading about it and App Store involved from my side.This text was a joy to read as I didn't know anything about beginning of game distribution on iOS and you summed it perfectly.On a side note, as I did some research into emulators for iOS, I did find iDOS that was once available in App Store and from old report on some forum/ site I found out people managed to even run older Windows in it :rolleyes: Crippled version similar to it is available even today , under the name "Aemula oldies" .
    Concerning this year, it will probably be a blast, starting from release of Kickstarter projects that look more than amazing , to some indie games announced for this year and even bigger companies have started to pay more attention to iOS and release games in shorter periods of time.
    I firmly believe THIS is a year that will skyrocket iOS game market into much bigger orbit.
     
  13. undeadcow

    undeadcow Well-Known Member

    Dec 4, 2010
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    For a gaming ecosystem dependent on technological advances wouldn't the answer to this question always be the current or most recent year?

    The only deterrent would be an increase in freemium or F2P business models that would restrict actual content.
     
  14. coconutbowling

    coconutbowling Well-Known Member

    Dec 8, 2008
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    I miss the days pre-fremium. The appstore was much easier to navigate and wasn't cluttered with useless games. Now whenever I look up rpg games in the app store I can't find actual rpgs, just the fremium crap.

    Luckily I have TA for that, but still...
     
  15. Rafark

    Rafark Active Member

    Apr 16, 2011
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    Personally, 2010 was the year i most played, though, I think it's just the beginning of something more than interesting we are about to see in the coming years.
     
  16. currymutton

    currymutton Well-Known Member

    Oct 16, 2008
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    I would say: next year.

    As a board/collectable card player who have not touched any physical version for over 20 years (oops, age secret revealed!), iOS boardgame starts to boom in 2011 and in the pipeline, there are still many great titles (by Playdek, Big Daddy, etc). As long as there are great games available, I am sticking with iOS...
     

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