FingerGaming

In its sixth follow-up report to the U.S. Congress regarding the entertainment industry’s marketing of violent material to children, the Federal Trade Commission noted concerns with the widespread availability of age-inappropriate mobile content.

Though the FTC commended the games industry at large for a reduction of mature-rated game advertisements targeting children and the effective enforcement of ESRB ratings, this marks the second straight year the organization has specifically commented on content available for smartphones and other mobile devices.

“Given the sheer volume of game applications currently available for mobile devices and the dramatic rate at which applications are proliferating,” the report notes, “in the near term, responsibility falls on wireless carriers and individual publishers to provide content information and effective parental controls.”

Analyzing the websites of several major mobile carriers, the FTC found that AT&T, Sprint, and Verizon offer no age rating information for their mobile games. Nokia displays age ratings and content warning icons, while games available in Apple’s App Store feature specific age designations and content descriptors.

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Tags: age ratings, app store, Apple, ftc, Industry News

Bolt Creative, developer of the episodic island life simulation title Pocket God, has disclosed the results of a user statistics tracking campaign, originally launched in April.

Bolt Creative’s stats reveal that over 50% of its users play Pocket God on an iPod Touch. The developer notes that iPod Touch users typically account for an average of 30% of sales for other applications, and claims that Pocket God has attracted twice as many iPod Touch users as the majority of games available in the iTunes App Store.

Pocket God’s user statistics also show that the frequently updated application has been opened more than 50 million times by approximately 1.5 million unique users since its debut in January of this year.

Pocket God co-creator Dave Castelnuovo notes that Pocket God continues to see thousands of unique users on a daily basis. “Astonishingly, we’ve seen quite a few days like September 3rd,” he says, “where 8,400 unique users launched the game over 352,000 times – an average of 41 sessions per user in a single 24-hour period.”

Tags: episodic, iPod Touch, pocket god, sales data, simulation, statistics

During a press conference held at today’s “It’s only rock and roll, but we like it,” event, Apple revealed that a total of 21,178 games are currently available for download from the iTunes App Store.

Apple compared the figure favorably to the number of software titles available on competing portable platforms. The Nintendo DS currently hosts a library of 3,680 games worldwide, while Sony’s PlayStation Portable claims a lineup of 607 titles.

Apple notes that the iPhone and iPod Touch software lineup will expand in the coming months with a number of releases from prominent publishers. Today, EA Sports announced the release of the iPhone and iPod Touch version of Madden NFL 10 ($7.99), which boasts a platform-specific control scheme and a full roster of NFL teams and players.

Other App Store titles scheduled for release this year include Gameloft’s sci-fi first-person shooter N.O.V.A., Tapulous’ music-based action game Riddim Ribbon, and an adaptation of Ubisoft’s Assassin’s Creed II, which will debut simultaneously with the console and PC versions of the title.

[Story and photo credit: Mac|Life]

Tags: Apple, Industry News, iPhone, iPod Touch

At today’s “It’s only rock and roll, but we like it,” event in San Francisco, Apple announced the release of third-generation iPod Touch hardware. The upgraded hardware sports a faster processor, and include many of the same features found in the iPhone 3GS.

Like the iPhone 3GS, Apple claims that third-generation iPod Touch devices will load and run applications up to 50 percent faster than the current second-generation hardware. New iPod Touch devices will also feature support for OpenGL ES 2.0 graphics API, which allows for speedier framerates and richer graphics in downloadable games and applications.

Since the release of the iPhone 3GS in June, few App Store titles have taken advantage of the OpenGL ES 2.0 API, likely due to compatibility concerns — applications that use ES 2.0 are incompatible with earlier iPhone and iPod Touch hardware revisions. Now that the iPod Touch hardware has effectively caught up with the iPhone’s, it’s likely that more games will begin to support the ES 2.0 standard.

The 32GB version of the iPod Touch is available for $299, with a 64GB edition retailing for $399. An 8GB version is also available at a cost of $199, but Apple notes that only the 32GB and 64GB versions include a faster processor and support for OpenGL ES 2.0.

Tags: Apple, hardware, iphone 3gs, iPod Touch, third generation

[In this feature reprinted from FingerGaming sister site Gamasutra, Leigh Alexander reports the winners of the second annual Independent Games Festival Mobile, held yesterday at the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco, California.]

The second annual Independent Games Festival mobile announced its winners yesterday, and Subatomic Studios’ tower defense title Fieldrunners took home the prize for best game.

iPhone and iPod Touch platforms dominated across all categories, although the festival invited entries for platforms including Nintendo DS, PSP and mobile handsets as well.

The winners share $30,000 in prizes across 7 categories, including Innovation in Mobile Game Design, Achievement in Art, Technical Achievement, Audio Achievement and Best Game overall. This year, two new categories were added: Best iPhone game and Next Great Mobile Game.

The Audio Achievement award was given to Secret Exit’s Zen Bound, which uses music and sound effects to build an aural atmosphere. “Traditionally mobile audio means that you have to work with a myriad of craptastic mini handsets,” said the designer as he received his prize. “All I had to do was make it work on headphones — so iPhone is kind of changing that.”

Firemint’s Real Racing, launching next month, took home the Technical Achievement award, while Subatomic Studios’ Fieldrunners took home a second prize with the Achievement in Art award. “It’s amazing to be at this forefront where gaming technology and hardware allows us to create these wonderful things that were only possible on high-end console systems,” said Subatomic Studios as they accepted their award.

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Tags: fieldrunners, firemint real racing, galcon, igf mobile, iPhone, winners, zen bound

Rating:

• Price: $5.99 (Get it)
• Version: 1.0
• Official Site: Namco Networks

On-rails shooters are a popular genre on the iPhone and iPod Touch. After all, they make sense in the context of the hardware, demanding little more interaction than tapping, and they’ve always been a tempting genre in the arcade setting, where prices are similarly low and the fun quick and disposable.

So the thought goes that a conversion of Time Crisis would be a great idea, especially as the requirement that you duck to avoid shots adds an extra level of interaction that the iPhone/iPod Touch’s accelerometer can play a role in.

I don’t know about you, though, but while I’ve always expected on-rails shooters to be easy to play on my iPod Touch, I’ve usually found them a bit inaccurate. Because the system relies on pudgy fingers to strike at baddies – who can often be small on screen – I often miss in my urge to strike as fast as possible.

Then there’s the fact that my finger then obscures the screen for often crucial milliseconds. So although you’d think tapping at a screen would be easier than aiming and shooting with a plastic gun, I’ve found it harder. So with a game as reliant on accuracy and speed as Time Crisis, can the iPhone really be as good a platform for it as it would initially seem?
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Tags: Action, iPhone, iPod Touch, reviews, shooter, time crisis strike

Rating:

• Price: $1.99 (Get It)
• Version: 1.0.1
• Official Site: Com2uS

It sounds daft, but the reason I was attracted to play Trapped: Undead Infection was explicitly similar to the reason I didn’t think I was going to like it.

It’s all to do with the very fine pixel art that went into its graphics. They’re immediately attractive to me – I just really like the “16-bit” look (I lament that the upcoming Oregon Trail for iPhone looks to be using updated, cartoony graphics rather than the lovely pixel art for the original mobile phone version) but at the same time, they scream out “Java conversion.”

I haven’t been able to find any information online about Trapped: Undead Infection being originally sold for ordinary mobile phones, though. It’s possible that it was always intended for iPhone, but I’d swear if it wasn’t at least sold in Asia as a mobile title first, it was converted mid-way through development.

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Tags: Action, adventure, iPhone, iPod Touch, reviews, trapped: undead infection

Rating:

• Price: $4.99 (Get it)
• Version: 1.0
• Official Site: Persuasive Games

Like many other journalists, I do a fair amount of travelling. And like many other gamers, I have a secret addiction to getting achievements.

I know they’re lame and completely pointless-oh how I wish I could convert my Xbox 360 achievement points into marketplace points (I’d accept a 10 to 1 ratio) or at least clothes for my avatar (though he’s got a natty Scotland top on now, so that’s good) but they’re addictive, and Jetset ups the ante by requiring you visit 100 airports in the real world to receive all of the “achievements” (called “souvenirs”) that the game has to offer.

I shudder to think about how much that would cost in air travel, and I know that even as a jet setting journalist I’m not going to get to Nairobi or Buenos Ares any time soon. And there’s no way to cheat; you actually have to be in the airport for it to count (so I can’t get the souvenir for even my local airport without physically going there.)

Despite the (arguably rather limiting) requirement to receive souvenirs, they’re a neat idea and a cute way to give a game with an airport theme real-world context, making it far more likely that I’ll have a quick go the next time I’m in an airport. The question is if the game is worth playing more than that.

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Tags: Airports, iPhone, iPod Touch, jetset, reviews, Souvenirs, strategy, time management

Rating:

• Price: $0.99 (Get It)
• Version: 1.0
• Official Site: Parallel

Now, I’m not one who has ever been willing to talk fondly about my school days — especially not my time during high school. Not that I’m one to hold adolescent grudges long after they have relevance; I’ve just never considered them interesting or remarkable enough.

However, Place Your Bets reminds me of the short but glorious period of time when computing students in their final year were given their own private computing lab. It was where we spent most of our free periods — and even a few periods that weren’t free — rarely doing anything other than wasting time.

As we were saddled with Macintoshes locked up tight so we couldn’t install anything, there wasn’t a lot of gaming to be done in the lab, but we did manage to find one game that worked — a little application called Snail Race.

In Snail Race, there were six racing snails that you could bet on, and it supported several players, so often we’d find ourselves crowded around one of the Macs, literally screaming in encouragement trying to get our snail to the finish line before our opponents — until the reliable point where we were told off for disturbing other classes. No money ever changed hands, but it was about as enjoyable as a group experience could get, and it was this I was hoping for from Place Your Bets.

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Tags: Gambling, iPhone, iPod Touch, Place Your Bets, Racing, reviews

Rating:

• Price: $5.99 (Get it)
• Version: 1.0
• Official Site: Cowboy Rodeo

To a certain strata of gamers — those who owned an Amiga in the early nineties — Pinball Dreams is legendary. So legendary, in fact, that I doubt any who currently own an iPhone or iPod Touch should need any more than the knowledge that a direct port of the title is now available to stump up the $5.99 it costs and envelop themselves in some truly nostalgic gaming.

Of course, there are many gamers out there to who the name means nothing, in which case a history lesson is required. Pinball Dreams is one of the first titles developed by Digital Illusions CE, who we now know as DICE — best known for the Battlefield series (and the recent Mirror’s Edge).

So now comes to the point to where I have to own up to which I am, and that’s the former. I played the hell out of Pinball Dreams in the early nineties, and the minute I heard that it was available for iPod Touch I had to have it. And I haven’t been disappointed in the least. Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: iPhone, iPod Touch, pinball, reviews