iGame Radio

Been so busy, I haven’t had a chance to put out a watch list for a week now. So, now we have dice and bling.

Blister’s Dice Game reminds me of Cosmic Wimpout. And basically, that’s what it is, wrapped within a simple story interface (you are hiking). But the gameplay is the same. I love Cosmic Wimpout!

Diceworks is a simple matching game. Match sets or straights of dice and you get points. The game keeps playing until there’s no more matches. The game has a wonderful steampunkishness to it, and has a potential that I don’t quite see realized yet. Maybe if the developer stretches his mind to what he can do…

In the need for bling? Get yourself a Gangstar! Gameloft’s long awaited sandbox action game for the iPhone is now available. The screens are certainly impressive, the game world is immense, and Gameloft promised online play and social features over time.

Freeverse has started a cool contest to promote their upcoming iPhone game, Warp Gate, a 3D space trading and conquest game. Winning the contest will allow you to name and describe a planet in the game. All you have to do is follow Freeverse on twitter, then tweet your submission with your entry, @freeverse or the word #warpgate somewhere in the tweet. The winning entry will be announced September 7th, 2009 Freeverse’s twitter feed, and will be seen in-game upon release along with a special in-game item named after the lucky planet creator!

Podcast Episode 78 is now available. No commentary this week. But, three important things to remember:

1. RSS Feed update: Now you can subscribe to both the blog post feed as well as the podcast feed. Catch every blog post so you can reply with comments!
2. Facebook Fan Page: I’ve created the iGame Radio Facebook Fan Page, because the groups thing was too limited. Become a fan, and keep track over the coming weeks. I’ll post things there that I won’t post here.
3. PAX 2009: Next week is PAX. If you want me to cover something, or ask a question of the game developers and publishers I’ll be interviewing, now is the time to let me know!

Also:

• A review of The Path by Tale of Tales. The Path is a unique horror game, a superb example of atmospheric interactive storytelling, and a fabulous example of what Indie developers can do when they put their minds to it. A game to experience, not conquer.




• A review of Ranch Rush, Fresh Game’s first foray into iPhone games. A great port of a farming time management game.
• A review of Pocket Fish, a fish simulator by Controlled Chaos Media. Cute fish caught in a bag, this simulation toy has great potential to be so much more, and Controlled Chaos intends to take it there.
• An interview with Max Thornton and Emmanuel Marty of Big Fish Games about BFG’s foray into iPhone games.

Thanks very much to:

• Bobby “Glorian” Slavov and Victor Stoyanov for featuring music from Eschalon: Book 1
• Michael Hu-wong for featuring music from Fizzball

Shrapnel Games, indie publisher of strategy and niche titles, is having a back to school sale on all of their titles. Not all of their titles are available for the Mac, but all of their Mac titles are for sale. Check out the savings:

Dominions 3: The Awakening, normally $54.95, only $46.70!

BRAINPIPE: A Plunge to Unhumanity, normally $14.95, only $12.70!

Salvo!, normally $39.95, only $32.95!

Weird Worlds: Return to Infinite Space, normally $24.95, only $20.58!

The folks at id have opened up Quake Live for the Mac now. Woot! For those of you who loved Quake 3 Arena, Quake Live is basically a reworked version of it set in your web browser using a plug-in.

Users create an account and play against each other. The game features more than 40 arenas and five game modes. You can play against other gamers or practice and compete on your own against “bots,” or computer-controlled players.

System requirements call for Mac OS X 10.4 or later and Safari 3.0 or later. Id Software notes an issue with “the very latest version of Firefox on Mac,” so this release is intended for Safari only.

Unfortunately, one system requirement that is not mentioned is Intel Mac. Yeah, say goodbye to your PPC Mac.

Wanted to let everyone know that I’ve updated the RSS feed links in the right sidebar. You can now subscribe to both the podcast feed and the blog feed, so you can catch every post I make about the world of Mac/iPhone gaming, not just the podcasts. Link up!

Via GamePolitics, I read about an Australian study regarding a link between pathological gambling and video game playing. The study has not been published yet, so I can’t review the actual data and comment, but I have a few choice words to throw at the researcher and journalist just based on this interview which, if it does not represent the actual data, was badly done.

This new research apparently reveals that teenagers who regularly play video and arcade games are more likely to develop anti-social behavior that can lead to problem gambling. Or so the research claims. Reading through the interview, that is not quite what comes across. The researcher, Paul Delfabbro, interviewed over two and a half thousand Australian teens, and found more than half had gambled in the past year, but only 2% had become pathological gamblers by the time that they reached 18. He brings this up several times. He also mentions that “teenage problem gamblers played arcade games three times more often than non-gamblers and played hand-held and internet games twice as often.”

At no point in this entire interview is there any causal link made between teenagers who are pathologically addicted to gambling and their video game playing habits. In fact, it almost seems like he is assuming that because one has gambled in the past year (apparently this is defined as “problem gambling”) and one plays video games (as most teenagers do), that the link is obvious.

Um, I bet that you will find that people with higher blood pressure play video games three times more often than those with blood pressure within the norm. That doesn’t mean that having high blood pressure will cause you to play video games. Though you could probably make a case for high levels of video game playing causing high blood pressure.

Who knows? Maybe “problem gambling” causes you to play video games.

Update: Reverb Communications VP of Public Relations, Tracie Snitker, has responded with a comment (that is the same as the one from Mobile Crunch, TechCrunch’s mobile division). I’ve posted it at the bottom of the article in full, along with a comment response.

This article from TechCrunch about cheating on the App Store with gamed reviews is not a surprise to me. Gamed reviews rampant? You better believe it! The App Store just makes the cheating so much easier.

According to the article, a tipster (“Developer Y”) dropped some documents into TechCrunch’s lap regarding the services that Reverb Communications, a PR firm, provides to their developer/publisher clients on the App Store. The documents reveal, among other things, that Reverb provides “interns on Developer Y products to post game reviews (written by Reverb staff members) ensuring the majority of the reviews will have the key messaging and talking points developed by the Reverb PR/marketing team“. The documents go on to detail key demographics targeted with the reviews, the time period over which these reviews would be released, and that these reviews would be “positive reviews – not over the top – but endorsing the game as a good product”.

TechCrunch has done a pretty good job of pulling out the data and showing it, and I’m inclined to believe that the documentation they have received is accurate. For example, one of the user names listed in the chart TechCrunch created, Troofbtld, I decided to research further. I discovered this name on another game, Toy Bot Diaries 3 by Iugo Mobile Entertainment. And who does Iugo use for PR? Reverb Communications. Of course, the review was 5 stars.

TechCrunch lists several developers under Reverb’s wings, including Pangea Software, which has a long history in the Mac game community (developer of such classic games as Enigmo, Nanosaur, and Bugdom II). Pangea Software released both Enigmo for the iPhone and an iPhone only game, Antimatter (both released last year).

I spoke with Brian Greenstone of Pangea regarding this. Brian insists that never once did he consent to any kind of gaming of his reviews. The documentation he received did not contain any of the wording as that posted in the TechCrunch documents. As Brian said, “All they did for us was write the press releases, arrange interviews with the media, send our demo copies to reviewers, and act as our agents with Apple to help negotiate some marketing deals with them.” According to Brian, Pangea Software has not been affiliated with Reverb “for a while now”.

Brian feels that writing bogus reviews would have been irrelevant anyway because of the tens of thousands of user reviews he has had. Of course, many of those reviews for Enigmo belong to the Mac release. And perhaps a few good reviews in the beginning for the iPhone version would make a difference.

And that is really the big question. Just how much of a difference does a few good reviews make in the beginning? Reverb would have to provide a whole hell of a lot more than just 5 to 10 to counter the hundreds or thousands, as some of these games have received. For example, Toy Bot Diaries 3, mentioned above, has received a total of 133 reviews so far since it’s December 08 release. Enigmo has received a whopping 2790 reviews. Would 5 to 10 five star reviews in the beginning make a difference?

What gets you into the App Store top 100, or top 10, is high sales. Overall, a few good reviews doesn’t make a difference. But in the beginning, it could make a very big difference. If you saw a game that had an average of two stars for a review, you probably wouldn’t be all that interested in picking the game up. But in the first 14 days, adding 5 to 10 five star ratings could pump that game up to an average of four stars…for nothing more than a few greenbacks (or maybe a lot of greenbacks..I don’t know). And that might make the difference in obtaining those valuable pennies from the majority of iPhone game purchasers who just browse and buy. At least in the beginning.

Because long-term sales are based on a good product. Ultimately, if people don’t like a game, they won’t recommend it to their friends. And no amount of five star reviews are going to change that.

TechCrunch infers that the wool is being pulled over the eyes of the consumer with these falsified reviews. But assuming that this documentation is real, I wonder whether the wool is being pulled as much over the eyes of the publisher who believes that long-term success can be gained this way.

I’ve asked Reverb Communications for a comment, but as of this posting have not received one yet. When I do, I will update this post to reflect it.

Update: Reverb Communications response:

Reverb would like to clarify a few items regarding the MobileCrunch story about our agency that ran this weekend. The article “Cheating the App Store” is unfortunately full of emotion, logical holes and for the most part untrue. Here are the facts:

1. The writer [Gagan Biyani if MobileCrunch] forgot that Reverb Communications is not just a public relations agency, but is also a sales and marketing agency. Reverb’s marketing department has interns that do social viral marketing.

2. Our interns do not post reviews on iTunes. Our employees don’t post fake reviews. It’s common for Reverb team members to purchase the games and write a review in iTunes using their personal accounts AFTER they have played the game. In many cases Reverb has provided technical feedback and gameplay guidance to the app developer, long before these games hit the App Store, so we know these games extremely well. We also like these games or we wouldn’t take them on as clients. The entire list of iTunes accounts in your story are from staff members who have played the games.

3. 1 person=1 iTunes account=1 credit card. We do not have hundreds of accounts to “trawl” through iTunes – it’s simply untrue. We have 10 staff members who choose to post on the games when and if they have played the game. We have to buy and play the game in order to have an opinion.

4. This same writer [Gagan Biyani if MobileCrunch] contacted several of our app store developers wanting negative comments from them regarding Reverb. They all gave positive feedback, but the writer left this aspect out of the story.

I would like to point a couple of things out based on the above response. A company may firmly believe in a product, but that doesn’t mean that the individual employees all do. I would still find it strange that all employees who purchased, played, and reviewed the game gave each game five stars in their review. Where are the three or four star reviews? Do those employees not feel that they can write those reviews? It does make one wonder.

…but it won’t be Apple’s. Via the iPhoneGamesBulletin, Archos has announced that it will unveil the Android tablet and associated app store (called AppsLib) at an event in Paris on September 15th. The tablet will use the Google Android OS and features OpenGL graphics. Pocketables notes:

According to the development guidelines on the site, the new device (puzzlingly referred to as the Archos 5 Internet Tablet throughout) will feature a 5-inch WVGA touchscreen, 720p video support, HDMI output, and natively embedded OpenGL libraries. This is in keeping with all the early info, so it may be safe to assume that the rest of the details (up to 500GB storage, 7-hour video battery life, Cortex CPU, 3.5G connectivity) still hold true as well.

That’s a mighty nice looking tablet. And that OpenGL aspect is going to be interesting to a lot of folks, mobile developers included. Creating cool games on the Archos tablet? 3D graphics with 7 hour battery life, 3.5 G wireless, 720p video, Cortex CPU? You betcha! Especially as more and more games are going to abandon the traditional downloadable or retail box format and go to the online play method.

I hope Apple is listening. Cause that Cortex CPU is going to look mighty inviting to iPhone developers who might just want to try and hack the iPhone OS onto the tablet and see what happens. I know I would.

PopCap Games has announced that they are working on an iPhone/iPod Touch version of Plants vs. Zombies. The game should become available around the end of this year. Unfortunately, no other details are available, so we’ll have to sit tight and wait for more info.