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Civilization Revolution hits the App Store top spot

Wolfenstein RPG and Duke Nukem 3D also fired up

Civilization Revolution hits the App Store top spot
By Jon Jordan
|
iPhone
| App Store Analysis

This week, the US App Store Top 100 was characterised by big console brands crashing into the top 50.

The big news was Civilization Revolution ($4.99), which despite its much discussed crash and performance issues is now #1.

Duke Nukem 3D ($2.99), overcame similar problems and is currently #21.

The other big licence entrants were: Gameloft's Guitar Rock Tour 2 ($4.99) in at #36; EA Mobile's The Game of Life: Classic Edition ($4.99) at #46; and id software's EA Mobile-published Wolfenstein RPG ($4.99) in at #48.

However, there were also new entries without big licenses attached that did well.

10 Pin Shuffle (Bowling) is at #17, despite costing $3.99. Spider: The Secret of Bryce Manor ($2.99) is at #61.

And as PocketGamer.biz's detailed analysis shows, these changes saw the average price of games in the US App Store Top 100 rise 6 percent from $2.70 to $2.86.

The effect was most noticeable in the top 10 and the top 20. The average price of the top 10 games rose 29 percent to $2.69, and was up 34 percent for the top 20.

Gameloft and EA's gridiron battle

One interesting marketing move came from Gameloft which cut the price of its NFL 2010 game from $7.99 to $4.99, with the effect that it leaped 23 places to #18. EA had recently announced it was holding back the iPhone release of rival game Madden NFL 10 until September.

Still, EA did some of its own marketing, tweaking the price of Tiger Woods PGA Tour - dropped from $6.99 to $4.99 - which saw the game jump 21 places to #40, due to the US PGA Championship.

As for games which re-entered the charts thanks to being updated, these included Parachute Panic, The Creeps, Crazy Choppers, Synth Racing, Sentinel 2: Earth Defense, and old favourite Cro-Mag Rally.

The release of episode 4 of Harbor Master didn't seem to work as planned though. The game dropped 50 places to #86.

 You can check out our full analysis, which compares the average price distribution of the Top 100, as well as the frequency of price points, and the ranking of publishers, over on PocketGamer.biz.

Jon Jordan
Jon Jordan
A Pocket Gamer co-founder, Jon can turn his hand to anything except hand turning. He is editor-at-large at PG.biz which means he can arrive anywhere in the world, acting like a slightly confused uncle looking for the way out. He likes letters, cameras, imaginary numbers and legumes.