The 10 most significant iPhone games of 2009: part 1
While gamers and critics love to spend their time debating top 10 lists of the best games of the year, what's more interesting to consider is those games that for various reasons can be defined as being the most significant.
Of course, this doesn't necessary mean these games are great, or even good in terms of the offered gameplay experience. Only that they encapsulate an important trend in the iPhone games business.
So let's get down to business with numbers 10 through to 6. The second half of the run down is available here.
10. Terminator Salvation (Gameloft)
No, the reason for Terminator Salvation's inclusion is it demonstrated to the big publishers how incredibly sensitive gamers had become to pricing.
A short game - at about an hour long and with little replayability - Gameloft was forced to cut the launch price of $9.99 to $5.99 within days. It was down to $4.99 two weeks later, and since has experienced 10 changes of price getting as low as 99c on five occasions.
The silver lining was this was a lesson that Gameloft learnt well, as it proved with the games it released in the last three months of 2009.
9. Flight Control (Firemint)
Simple to play, with a clean interface and an addictive quality, the air traffic control sim was the first iPhone game to announce it had sold a million, and has since gone on to sell 1.5 million. There is no free version, but sales momentum has been maintained since its July release with six updates that added extra planes and airfields.
The only downside is the fact its success has spawned dozens of generally inferior and more complex clones.
More widely, it was also one of the first 99c app success stories that encouraged developers to flood the App Store with all manner of cheap and simple games; something that lead to massive price deflation during the latter half of 2009.
8. Spider: The Secret of Bryce Manor (Tiger Style)
Sure, plenty of people attempted something similar in 2009, but with Spider: The Secret of Bryce Manor, Tiger Style managed to combine their previous professional experience with gameplay and an art style that perfectly matched the platform. Indeed, the success of the game demonstrated the opportunity for developers committed to taking their time and making something special. Spider took eight months to develop.
Equally important, Tiger Style also proved it understood the App Store business model by releasing the game at $2.99, maintaining the price throughout, but supporting it with the release a free promotional game in the shape of Spider: Hornet Smash.
7. Pocket God (Bolt Creative)
Selling over a million units mainly to teenaged boys who owned iPod touches, the driving force of its year-long sales drive was the commitment of US developer Bolt Creative to keep churning out free content updates. Such was the burden of this, combined with the game's 99c price point, programmer Dave Castlenuovo started to worry about the company's longterm sustainability.
Luckily the decision to implement in-app purchases for additional content, which arrived with Pocket God's 26th update, proved successful. Still, Castlenuovo says the team's next game (which will also use IAP), will be released at a higher price.
6. Rolando 2 (HandCircus/ngmoco)
One aspect that didn't help was Rolando 2 only supported the then just released iPhone 3.0 OS, limiting take up until 2.1.1 OS support was added two weeks later.
Once again though, wider sensitivity to the $9.99 price point was a major factor, especially with the first game available for $5.99. (Interestingly ngmoco's attempt to remove the first game from the App Store to drive sales of the sequel was knocked back due to fan pressure).
The title eventually gained a high chart placing however as it became the first free game to support in-app purchases: another reason for its inclusion in this significance list.
You can read the top 5 most significant iPhone games of 2009 here.