Furthermore, the success of games like Sonic on the IPhone may foreshadow greater things to come from the once rulers of gaming, Sega and Nintendo. Also the Mario-esque design of Flappy Bird hints at a general feel of old-school in the world of casual gaming. The recent success of the Rayman Run game (a parody of temple run) shows that the yearning for old-school games is apparent and in the minds of casual gamers. As this momentum gains more speed, I could see classics like Crash Bandicoot, Rayman and (dare I say it) Super Mario making their way into the App Store. Most of these games were built out of compromise so they would be perfect for the technological limits of the IPhone. Sega and Nintendo classics like Megaman X, Streets Of Rage, Sonic and Mortal Kombat are selling extremely well on the App Store right now and I could definitely see a rise in retro games. I also think despite the fact that high-score gaming will remain a mainstay for casual gamers, retro gaming is definitely due for a comeback. Was Pac-Man, Asteroids or Space Invaders ‘dumb gaming’? No, it was creative, doing a lot with the little resources that the programmers had at the time. Think of the original high score era of gaming. The question could be raised however “If casual gaming takes over, will this end in the dumbing down of games?” and to that I say: not really. in console gaming is still a big factor of the industry, the casual gaming market is taking over and, slowly but surely, high-score culture is gaining more and more dominance. This just goes to show that although graphics and storyline etc. If you weren’t paying attention, you could have missed the COD release, but you’d have to be living under a rock to not even have heard of Flappy Bird. Now of course, in theory COD deserves much more publicity, but in practice this was not the case. Call Of Duty Ghosts (the latest COD release) didn’t have anything close to the amount of hype as Flappy Bird has had. On the topic of consoles, yes it is still true that console gaming is still a huge part of gaming as a whole, but think about this. This goes to show that even Call Of Duty is not exempt from the grip of the casual gaming market. I am by no means a heavy gamer and I am terrible at Call Of Duty but despite this, I played the game a fair amount specifically in the Modern Warfare 2 era. Now arguably, the Call Of Duty players are not in the same category as IPhone users gaming-wise, however Call Of Duty is one of the most casual gamer friendly titles out there! Its pick up and play nature and simple controls may be difficult to master, but certainly are understandable to casual gamers. However looking back now, I can see that this was the pre-cursor to the high score obsessed gaming revolution we see today. The player will then be able to show the rest of the gaming community that they have achieved the highest level of skill in the game (even though then can then repeat the process to achieve 1 st prestige, 2 nd prestige etc.) At the time, I was puzzled why my friends often chose to do this as I found it strange to discard all of the weaponry they had spend hours and hours earning, simply to impress strangers online. The term ‘prestige’ is a term used in Call Of Duty online multiplayer where a player can achieve the top level of skill, attaining all of the possible weapons, and then discard all of their weapons to ‘prestige’. The rise of multiplayer on an online level also paved the ways for what gaming would become. Storyline and playability were also aspects of the saleability of a game, but essentially these factors could be overruled by outstanding graphics. Ironically, the generation with less technology opted for the more technologically reliant aspects of gaming but nonetheless, the gaming industry revolved around how good a game looked. In the early to mid-2000’s, a games trump card was always its graphics. This is in stark contrast to the previous graphics-obsessed generation of gamers. Games are no longer made to be clever or interesting they are created to be about getting a high score and nothing else. The design of Doodle Jump is purposefully simplistic and the graphics seen on Flappy Bird are charmingly pixelated. The games we see now are primitive, almost proudly so. IPhone culture has also significantly shaped the direction of the video gaming industry. Flappy Bird is now a part of youth culture and the simplicity of the game is coming to shape aspects of millennial culture in general.
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