I'll be writing columns from time to time for publication on The Score of Cool Springs' website, within our Facebook group, as well as for this blog. Here is the first such column, on video games and the iPhone.
Video games dial up a new friend: the Apple iPhone
Bradley Metrock
President, Score Holdings LLC
General Manager, The Score of Cool Springs (4091 Mallory Lane, Suite 124, Franklin, TN 37067)
December 2008
While no one can deny the tremendous impact video games have on American culture, many people are still unaware that video games, as an industry, have far surpassed music and movies in revenue. Whether you live here in Music City USA, or in Silicon Valley, or anywhere inbetween, video games reign supreme as the de facto choice of entertainment.
Many reasons for this video game dominance exist, but the main one is economic: video games, at $50-$60 a pop, offer a much greater return (in terms of hours of entertainment from the product) than movies in the theater, DVD movies at home, music CDs at home or in the car, concerts at the Sommet Center, or virtually any other type of existing option. A family of four would spend $50 going to see Bolt at the local theater, especially if any concessions are involved. The same family of four could spend about the same amount on Rock Band, Scene It, Mario Kart, or LittleBigPlanet, and get 10 times the amount of recreation for the money. It’s a no-brainer.
Video games are so popular that they are moving from the living room, which they conquered long ago, to mobile devices such as the iPhone. The flock of capital to iPhone application development, of which a significant portion is funding game projects on the device, is nothing short of amazing and a true indicator that video games are only going to continue to rise in popularity and ubiquity. Nintendo’s DS handheld platform, and to a lesser extent, Sony’s PSP device, have enjoyed a sizable market share in the portable gaming market for years, but the iPhone is not just a serious threat to that share, but is creating an entirely new paradigm for gaming on the go.
One of the most popular games on the iPhone is Fieldrunners, a ‘lite’ strategy title (from developer Subatomic Studios) that asks the gamer to place a series of towers, cannons, and other weaponry on a field in an attempt to thwart the bad guys trying to cross from one side of the screen to the other. The game features gorgeous graphics, deep and addictive gameplay, and a price tag of just $4.99 for hours of mobile fun. So fun, in fact, that Time Magazine ranked the title alongside Grand Theft Auto IV, Gears of War 2, and Spore – games that were much, much more expensive to create – in its Top 10 Video Games of 2008 list. As most video gamers are aware, that’s quite rare air for any mobile title, and though Apple won’t disclose how many times the game has been downloaded, Fieldrunners has remained high atop Apple’s most popular list in the App Store for months.
With the hyped Warfare Incorporated just released to the platform, and Electronic Arts’ SimCity heading to the iPhone in mere days, the quality titles keep adding up for continued market dominance for the iPhone against its competition in the mobile device sector. In fact, it could very well be the perfect “Storm” to doom RIM’s Blackberry product line. After all, competition is just a game, and as long as Apple’s devices feed off the seemingly-infinite demand for video games within the domestic market, they’ll keep winning.
