The history of mobile games based on movies is littered with underwhelming or plain rubbish titles, and the frequent suspicion that operators and publishers care more about a big brand than they do about game quality.
Maybe that's why film-based games have been pretty rare on iPhone so far - an environment where word-of-mouth and user ratings play more of a role than they have done on other platforms.
However, we've noticed something interesting this week: Paramount Digital has two movie games in the UK App Store Top 20 paid games list: Shooter and Iron Man.
(Or SHOOTER - THE OFFICIAL MOVIE GAME and IRON MAN: AERIAL ASSAULT if you want the official titles).
So what - besides shouty capitalisation - is fuelling their success? One interesting aspect is that despite both games having seemingly-high production values, they cost £0.59 / $0.99.
It's too early to make bold statements about movie studios seeing mobile games as (almost) pure promotion rather than big revenue streams in their own right, but that's certainly one implication of the two Paramount titles.
But it's also a warning to anyone who likes to generalise about "cheap 99-cent iPhone games" - even the biggest brand-owners are now looking to play in this space.
News
Contributing Editor
Stuart is a freelance journalist and blogger who's been getting paid to write stuff since 1998. In that time, he's focused on topics ranging from Sega's Dreamcast console to robots. That's what you call versatility. (Or a short attention span.)
Top Stories
Feature
May 17th, 2024
New release roundup: The best new mobile games from a battle royale to a console classic remake
Feature
May 16th, 2024
Behind the scenes: How adding sandwich offers to an idle merge game boosted three metrics at once
Events
Valencia Indie Summit 2024 | Europe | May 16th |
Digital Dragons | Europe | May 19th |
GamesBeat Summit 2024 | North America | May 20th |
Mobidictum Meetup Tallinn May 2024 | Europe | May 21st |
Nordic Game Spring 2024 | Nordic | May 21st |
Impact 2024 - Indie Games | May 23rd | |
MomoCon 2024 | North America | May 24th |
Morocco Gaming Expo | Africa | May 24th |
Popular Stories
Feature
May 14th, 2024
53 top mobile games in soft launch: Squad Busters, Battle Guys: Royale, Plants vs. Zombies 3, LEGO Hill Climb Adventures, and more
Feature
May 13th, 2024
Hot Five: Dubai's new Gaming Visa, April's mobile game charts, and Xbox studio closures
Feature
May 14th, 2024