Someone has described the world of iPhone games as the "wild west," for some very good reasons. Whether one is dealing with the proliferation of games themselves, or the way they are hyped and promoted, until quite recently the attitude has been that pretty much anything goes. The reason for this fervor isn't surprising. The 2008 iPhone release, with its wide screen, touch controls and powerful processing capacity, allowed small individual applications to be downloaded onto the phone. And among the many applications, or apps, created by independent developers, games quickly became a very big thing.
There are about forty million iPhone users, and chances are that there are just as many interested in games, as there are gamers using other technologies. So a certain percentage of iPhone users are satisfied with just a few basic games, as they are for their home computers. On the other hand, the primary iPhone downloads of other users are games created specifically for this device. Game applications have proliferated wildly, even for the earliest version of the iPhone which had to be hacked for any non-original programs to be downloaded. The iPhone 3G and 3GS versions that now allow downloads can accommodate Apple-approved games placed in their online store, and many others downloaded by those who've hacked their iPhones.
And because gaming is such a huge, profitable industry, iPhone games have been subjected to another sort of "wild west" tactic, much the same as other products have been in this consumerist society. Apple's store and tech blog sites allow people to write iPhone app reviews and rate the applications. But many companies promoting games have actually written to reviewers, offering to pay for favorable reviews, in the hope of increasing sales. This leads to doubts, both about the reliability of any reviews at all, or how good the games actually are.
However, new Federal Trade Commission (FTC) regulations may curtail underhanded iPhone games promotions. At the end of 2009, the FTC instituted rules requiring disclosure of payments, services, free products, or other considerations given by corporations to those who have written product reviews. Since the reviewer can be fined a large amount for non-disclosure, hopefully games rated the top iPhone apps will now be reviewed and rated more accurately, in ways users can trust. Gradually, the regulators hope to rein in the "wild west" atmosphere and make the gaming situation for portable devices a little more predictable and controlled.
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