Inside Social Games

Over the past couple of months, SGN has released its series of Wii-like sports games for the iPhone: iGolf, iBowl, and iBaseball. The quick success of these three applications has effectively entrenched the company as the leader in the remote-controlled sports space.

For those that are unfamiliar with SGN’s family of iPhone applications, the 3 aforementioned titles emulate their Wii Sports counterparts with simple motions that turd the iPhone into virtual golf clubs and baseball bats – and basically act like a Wiimote.

iFun actually turns your iPhone or iPod touch into a controller for your PC or Mac at home. The first game to use the app is iFun Golf, and you play the game as if you were playing a golf-based game on Nintendo’s Wii, except now the phone is the actual controller.

The setup is not too difficult either. All you have to do is log on to the game in your browser and load up iFun on your iPhone. So long as you have a wireless connection, the two should sync up automatically and you are ready to play.

It’s nice that a number of game elements are on the iPhone itself as well. From your makeshift Wiimote, you can select your clubs, options, and adjust your shot angle, thus adding a nice convenience factor to game play (as apposed to pointing a Wiimote at a screen). As with iGolf, you swing the iPhone like a golf club to hit the ball and your actual swing affects the shot in game. The control is very smooth and intuitive; which is to be expected considering the three games that came before it.

Here’s a full demo from Shervin Pishevar, CEO of SGN:

SGN says they may license other online games to add to the iFun platform. Furthermore, they also plan to release an API for other developers to create their own titles on iFun as well. Will this be a new movement in mobile games? One can only hope.