iPhone Chart Toppers: Less Is More

Today, via Kotaku, we're running down the current Top 10 iPhone Games.

Check out the post, and tell us, if you don't find it a little bit funny that despite the progress in animation and quality of development, much of the same type of games that could be found on more primitive mobile devices several years back still reign supreme.

Hanging at #2 on the Top 10 is EA's is Rock Band for mobile, which is an obvious contender, seeing as how the virtual instruments franchise is the hottest one on the market. But, what about games like Bejeweled 2, Scrabblte and Tetris (all three are also Top 10 contenders)?

Weren't one-point-perspective casual games that didn't require toggling between multiple screens just as popular before the advent of a wide-screen PDA mobile device? We definitely played a couple of those on our black and white screen Nokia back in the day and we definitely find it a bit amusing that so many years into the advent of mobile gaming, players really do just want a colorful, casual, familiar experience. It is for that reason we think everyone should download our newest mobile product and casual game, Decades for iPhone, right here!

Enjoy!

We're On The Winning Path!

We're pleased to tell you that our newest mobile creation for Android, Decades, has been selected as a Top 20 app in the "Casual Games" category for the Android Developer Challenge. 

 
HOW TO VOTE

The Android Developers Challenge is a user-voted competition where developers from all walks of life submit their finished apps in order to win the title of "best application" in a certain category. So, since we're so close to victory we can taste it, we ask that if you own an Android-based device:

1) You download the ADC2 Challenge app via the Android Market by searching Android Developers Challenge 

2) Or scan the following bar code (your device will instantly recognize ADC2 as the app to download).

Let's get Decades into the top spot! We appreciate all your support ;)

And The Hits Just Keep On Coming

All week, we've been reporting about the rocky terrain in virtual instrument gaming these days (see here and here) well, today, Activision, despite the fray, has decided to push forward with the addition of three new bands to their Rock Band Music Store.

The White Stripes, Kasabian, and legendary band The Damned will all have tracks available for purchase through XBox 360, PS3, and Wii next week and we can only hope that none of these acts find fault with the silly Rock Band avatars we'll all make up to sing their songs (although, we have tried very hard to keep our Rock Band style of dress pretty slick).

The individual tracks should run you about $2 a pop and a full package of tracks should square off around $4.50. Seems like a solid deal to us. You can check out the full announcement via VG247.

Leggo My LEGO

So, if you read yesterday's post, or managed to tune into the bloggosphere late last evening, then you'll know that Activision is getting heat from yet another musical act they worked with as part of the Rock Band and "Hero" series of games. Today, it seems, is no better for the firm as a member of the development team for LEGO Rock Band reveals that half of the staff of the animation staff on the project were against its creation.

 

Matt Palmer, a head animator on the project, explained that "People were saying, 'Oh, they're flogging a LEGO license again...about 50 percent of our studio were for the idea, and about 50 percent were against it."

So, how did the project eventually come to fruition? Well, for one, "Many of us started realizing that we weren’t just skinning one franchise on another," Palmer explained. In the end, hired developer TT Fusion also found unique ways of developing the game's characters through key-frame and hand-drawn animation, which ultimately breathed new life into the classically block-y characters and boosted both the LEGO and the Rock Band's brand.

Of course, the game, since has had tepid, at best, public and press reception. But, perhaps, now that there's new controversy surroudning Activision's virtual instruments product line, they'll thrown additional thought onto future releases.

Full article via Develop Online.

No Hero for No Doubt

Sigh...we don't know how to say this to No Doubt, other than they just "get over yourselves". Apparently, the band, who, as far as we can tell, all have clean mental records, have decided to follow in the footsteps of the perpetually irrational Courtney Love and sue Activision for "fraudulent inducement" of their band's image (read: we actually think Court is very smart, but, maybe needs to ease up on the drugs sometimes). 

 

The band's disagreement with the video game firm stems from the fact that they signed a contract for the production of three avatars bearing the band's resemblance and were in turn made into a "virtual karaoke circus act". Question. Isn't one of their butts hanging out in that photo above?

The fact that ND have spent the majority of their career portraying themselves as crusty pre-punk, ragga outsiders, makes it that much more hypocritical to feign being prim and proper now that they've accepted corporate money and in turn had their artistic identity back at them. What were their expectations exactly?

For their part, Activision responds by saying the following: 

 "Activision has a written agreement to use No Doubt in Band Hero – an agreement signed by No Doubt after extensive negotiations with its representatives, who collectively have decades of experience in the entertainment industry. Pursuant to that agreement, Activision worked with No Doubt and the band’s management in developing Band Hero. As a result, Activision believes it is within its legal rights with respect to the use and portrayal of the band members in the game and that this lawsuit is without merit."

We think the problem here is that, whether its Courtney Love or No Doubt battling for accurate representation in the video game realm, the marriage between the music and gaming world always seems to get rocky when the artist becomes directly involved (not so much with third party music track licensing). So, we pose the question to you? Does a band have the right to sue a gaming company after signing a contract that does not explicitly beak the rules of the agreement? Should they mediate all of their contracts through a third party without signing directly? Discuss...

...and catch the full story via VG247.

Congregate to Kongregate

A bit of self-promo today as we wanted to let y'all know that our newest brainchild Repo Depot is now playable through Kongregate.com for free!


 

Stalk the city streets in search of cars to repossess! Avoid angry owners and drive your car back to the Depot to earn some sweet moolah! Visit Kongregate to check out the game here.

N-o More N-Gage

Although some in the mobile gaming market are launching new bids for dominance and some already seem to have it, Nokia has announced yesterday that it will cease production of new gaming content for its N-Gage platform and cut off sales for the existing games in late 2010.

The shuttering of the platform does not, however, mean that Nokia gamers will not be able to get their fix via their mobile handset period. Instead, all sales and new mobile gaming product will become available via the company's Ovi applications store. In order to throw a bit of a positive spin on the forthcoming changes Nokia issued the following comment: 

"It's much more convenient to have one place to get all your mobile games, and this it what Ovi Store provides."

"Mobile gaming is one of the most popular activities in the Ovi Store, with games being the second most downloaded category for premium content." 

With competition stiffening up in the mobile market at large, and Nokia being a long-time mobile device industry leader (one well ahead of Samsung and LG), it's hard to believe that the switch to Ovi will be a permanent solution for their customers mobile gaming needs. How the company will re-brand it's gaming division, however, remains to be seen.

Full article via BBC News.

As iTunes Leads, Mobile Gaming Sales Could Reach Billions by 2014

Coming off this article via Game Daily, we're really happy to read what swift progress mobile/portable applications are making in the gaming world.

According to a series of new reports from DFC Intelligence(an idepedent field research group), the "mobile" (we'll just call it that for brevity's sake) gaming market could reach sales of up to $11.4 billion by 2014. This doesn't mean "the end" for console gaming, those systems are expected to continue to reign, but, mobile gaming, lead by what is predicted to be a 24% market share for iPhone/iPod Touch, has grown to the point where a whopping 54% of DFC's surveyed U.S. residents had played a mobile game on their phone in the past year. In Europe the number was at 69% of surveyed mobile users.

The news is a boost for the moral of the industry for sure, and just another milestone in the evolution of gaming we all knew would happen.  

To check out some our most recent mobile games for yourself see: Red Wire Blue Wire, Tic Tac Paddy Whack, and Decades.