Inside Social Games

Just in time for the World Series, Social Gaming Network has released the its 3^rd Wii-like sports title for Apple’s iPhone. Of course, considering that there have been well over 2 million downloads for iGolf and iBowl, it’s not entirely unexpected that SGN would pursue more titles in the family.

As with SGN’s other iPhone titles, iBaseball uses the built in accelerometer as the primary input control for the game. You start by pitching either fastballs or curveballs in an attempt to strike out three batters. As you might expect, you play by actually “pitching” your iPhone, and the accelerometer picks up on the speed and angle of your arm. Furthermore, the game tends to enhance each of your pitches to more “professional” speeds that average over 100 mph, so you don’t have to worry too much about hurling your phone through a window (assuming you haven’t all ready).

After you have struck out the three batters, it is your turn to bat. The batting is simple enough as you just watch the ball come down the plate and swing at the appropriate time. If you manage to connect, you will hit the ball into ground-ball, pop-fly, or line drive and based on the timing of your swing, you will either knock the ball fair or foul.

The game also allows you to challenge your friends, but as with the other titles, the challenges are asynchronous. According to CEO, Shervin Pishevar, however, head-to-head play will be coming soon.

With the development of this 3^rd Wii-like title, there has been a little bit of interesting debate about SGN’s series of sports games for the iPhone. While a large number of people do enjoy the games, more and more are beginning to request deeper game play that provides more than a few minutes of entertainment, as the initial novelty is beginning to incur some diminishing returns.

Now with three titles, a number of people are hoping to soon see improvements to each of these titles as far as competition, smoother controls, and more in depth game play (check out the touchArcade forums for some of the latest banter). Of course, at the same time, people are still hoping to see new titles as well.

Considering SGN’s track record for quality games, it is unlikely that these concerns will be ignored. Multiple improvements, as well as new games, are no doubt on the way (some are already known for sure), and with these three games serving as the backbone for SGN titles on the iPhone, the quality of new applications or even iterations of old ones is bound to be outstanding.

All that is needed now is one of those Wii-Mote rubber sleeves for the iPhone….