Rovio Titles Among The Most Addictive Games For Kids, Study Finds

 

 

Despite a burgeoning market filled with educational children’s games and apps which aim to turn smartphones and tablets into tools for learning, when it comes to time spent actually playing games, kids are still gravitating to games that are more “fun” than instructive. At least that’s what the folks atKytephone  recently discovered. The startup, which offers tools that turn Android phones into kid-safe devices with parental controls, found that Rovio’s Angry Birds Star Wars is the most played game since its release, and several other Rovio titles top the charts in terms of time spent gaming.

Kytephone pulled this data from a sample size of 13,000 children, aged 8 to 14 years old,  located in over 70 countries. Kytephone co-founder Anooj Shah says the team didn’t find any major differences in app usage between regions. “Everyone seems to love Rovio games, regardless of where they live,” he says. The company looked at this data during the holidays and then again in the new year to see if anything had changed.

During the holiday season, the company found that children were spending 51 percent more time in Angry Birds Star Wars, compared with Angry Birds, despite only having 40 percent of its install base. They spent 197 percent more time in the Star Wars version than Angry Birds Space, despite having only 57 percent of its install base.

The most popular games, in terms of time spent playing, were as follows:

• Angry Birds Star Wars


• Angry Birds


• Bad Piggies


• MineCraft (demo)


• Angry Birds Seasons


• MineCraft


• Angry Bird Space


• Temple Run


• Logo Quiz

In the beginning of January, usage changed slightly, and Kytephone saw an increase in Bad Piggies, which then moved to become the most addictive game. The top three games now remain Star Wars, Bad Piggies and the original Angry Birds.

Angry Birds Star Wars has an install base that’s 60 percent larger than Bad Piggies, Shah noted, and during the holidays it increased that base by 50 percent while Angry Birds Star Wars increased by 60 percent.

But in terms of hours spent playing, Bad Piggies wins as it’s played an average of 1.12 hours per install. Star Wars is a close second with 0.8 hours per install, and the original Angry Birds is played 0.27 hours per install.

These figures are a different way of looking at the kids’ mobile gaming market than those studies where only downloads or even “actives” are measured, because Kytephone’s rankings are based on how long kids are playing these games, not necessarily how often. But to be clear, they’re not representative of an overall mobile trend in children’s gaming, since Kytephone is currently an Android-only service. The iOS platform has a wider variety of games and kids’ apps, we should mention. In addition, Kytephone’s service is targeted at slightly older kids, because it’s for those who have their own Android device on loan from their parents. That is, it can’t tell what games kids play when they just “borrow” mom or dad’s phone for a few minutes, as many younger children do. It also misses out on the entire iPad gaming market, which a number of kid-friendly app makers have specifically targeted.

That being said, what these numbers do show that Rovio has managed to increase the stickiness and addictive nature of its games over time, at least in terms of children’s preferences.

 

Temple Run 2 review

In 2011, Temple Run took Canabalt's forever-running blueprint and installed it in a colourful 3D world where you recreate the opening scene from Raiders of the Lost Ark over and over again. Like Professor Jones, the protagonist of Temple Run is trying to escape with a sacred idol looted from an ancient ruin. Unlike Professor Jones' adventure, however, there ultimately is no escape - you will always die, and the reason for playing again is just to get a little farther before your grim demise. Somewhere, Kafka chuckles.

Temple Run 2 does not mess with Temple Run's formula. Given that Temple Run and its Disney-commissioned spin-off Temple Run: Brave were collectively downloaded over 170 million times, there's some pretty defensible logic at work there. Mechanically, the sequel is identical to its predecessor: swiping to take turns in the road, jumping over or ducking under obstacles and using your phone's tilt controls to lean one way or the other. Temple Run 2 is an unapologetically casual game that can be played on the train or the bus with one hand. Your average run won't last a minute - perfect for killing time in a lift or during a television ad break.

Another developer might have been tempted to shoehorn cut-scenes or role-playing elements into Temple Run 2, but Imangi Studios has been far more restrained than that. The additions slot perfectly into the foundations laid out by the original game. There are new power-ups and abilities to purchase with the gems and coins that you collect as you run, a more detailed graphical engine and a brand-new environment, a Temple of Doom-inspired mine cart sequence and (most significantly) an overhaul to the way the game makes money.

The original Temple Run featured in-app purchases that you could buy to resurrect your adventurer or give you a head start on your run - but these were sold rather unobtrusively. Temple Run 2 sticks its hand out a little more prominently, reminding you after every death that "GAME OVER" is only a problem for tightwads.

Still, it's hard to be too bothered by the way Temple Run 2 has implemented its payment model. The coins and gems used to purchase items and resurrections can be earned through play - it's entirely possible to put a lot of time into Temple Run 2 and never spend a penny. As in-app purchase schemes go, this is still on the more generous end of the spectrum.

Price and availability

• Free with in-app purchases


• iOS universal app out now on the App Store


• Android version due this week, according to Polygon

It's inarguably a very pretty game to look at. The new setting, a lost city in the clouds, is unique and vibrant, the new ziplines are exhilarating to slide down. These graphical improvements come at a cost to performance, however. Woe to the Temple Runner who receives an SMS or a Twitter mention whilst playing - something that killed me more than once, even on the (relatively) beefy iPhone 4S.

Temple Run 2's most unfortunate change seems like a minor one. The sequel omits the original's mile markers that showed when you had passed the longest run of a Game Center friend. I genuinely miss the sense of competition they brought to the game, though I suppose that now it's possible to keep avoiding death for as long as you're prepared to spend on gems, Temple Run 2's leaderboards are better for identifying spendthrifts than anything else.

The biggest flaw Temple Run 2 betrays is its conservatism. The amount of work that has gone into the game is evident, and it's hard to fault an accessible, thrilling game that offers itself to you for free - but it's so similar to its predecessor that it ultimately feels a bit unnecessary.