{"id":256,"date":"2009-03-30T08:45:08","date_gmt":"2009-03-30T08:45:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.goneabitbursar.com\/?p=256"},"modified":"2009-03-31T20:26:40","modified_gmt":"2009-03-31T20:26:40","slug":"casual-gaming-economics-of-play","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.goneabitbursar.com\/?p=256","title":{"rendered":"Casual gaming, economics of&nbsp;play"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>While browsing the iPhone AppStore, came\u00c2\u00a0across\u00c2\u00a0a game called <a href=\"http:\/\/www.firemint.com\/flightcontrol\/\">Flight Control<\/a>, and purchased it on a whim. It&#8217;s a\u00c2\u00a0simplified\u00c2\u00a0ATC simulation, based on defining routes for aircraft using the touch screen, and a great concept executed to a polished sheen &#8211; art, sounds, etc are all there, on top of a classic repeatable game mechanic with a good balance of infuriating chance and experience-based play.<\/p>\n<p>The game is horribly, horribly addictive. Each game might only last forty seconds or a few minutes at most, but that&#8217;s pretty much perfect for a casual phone game.<\/p>\n<p>A few interesting points here &#8211; firstly that when browsing the store, $0.99 \/ \u00c2\u00a30.59 is definitiely a price point at which I will <em>impulse<\/em> buy &#8211; especially if there&#8217;s some decent reviews. This is, after all the price of a chocolate bar. Secondly the &#8216;entertainment value&#8217; of that money is ridiculously high (give that I&#8217;ve got at least an hour&#8217;s play out of this thing, cummulatively), compared to a pub-quiz machine, going to the cinema, purchasing a triple-A game, etc.<\/p>\n<p>Thirdly, the whole mechanic of browsing the AppStore, with the <em>possibility<\/em> (not even the intent) to purchase is a very different way of interacting with the market of possible games than before. Better discovery mechanisms are needed, and I&#8217;m still waiting for the market to produce more variety (bring on an X-Com clone please), but it&#8217;s still a completely new way to treat software &#8211; except, maybe, if you&#8217;re browsing a street-market in China where every illegal disc costs $2.<\/p>\n<p>Fourthly, the game mechanic really needs the touch screen &#8211; you could build the same thing in Flash, on the web, but I don&#8217;t think it would have the same physical joy of dragging the little planes around. Maybe that&#8217;s just me.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>While browsing the iPhone AppStore, came\u00c2\u00a0across\u00c2\u00a0a game called Flight Control, and purchased it on a whim. It&#8217;s a\u00c2\u00a0simplified\u00c2\u00a0ATC simulation, based on defining routes for aircraft using the touch screen, and a great concept executed to a polished sheen &#8211; art, sounds, etc are all there, on top of a classic repeatable game mechanic with a [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14,20,3,6],"tags":[47,85],"class_list":["post-256","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-aviation","category-gaming","category-geek","category-toys","tag-apple","tag-iphone"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.goneabitbursar.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/256","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.goneabitbursar.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.goneabitbursar.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.goneabitbursar.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.goneabitbursar.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=256"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/www.goneabitbursar.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/256\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":258,"href":"http:\/\/www.goneabitbursar.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/256\/revisions\/258"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.goneabitbursar.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=256"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.goneabitbursar.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=256"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.goneabitbursar.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=256"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}