by John Atchison

Created on: January 24, 2013

There was a time when the video game industry was dominated by gaming systems like the Wii, PS3, or any number of handheld gaming offerings. The hottest video games debuted on those systems, costing gamers anywhere from 40 to 60 dollars. The times are a changing though, with smartphones and apps becoming the hot ticket for the consumer these days. Need some proof of that?

On January 18 of 2013, Temple Run 2 made its debut on the Apple App Store. After four days of being available in numerous different markets, the game has already been downloaded 20 million times! Hard to believe that figure, but the folks at Imangi Studios released that figure to give folks and idea of the game's popularity.

Should it come as a surprise to smartphone gamers and industry experts? It Probably is not that shocking, as the original offering of Temple Run was downloaded over 170 million times by gamers using Amazon Marketplace, Google Play, and of course the Apple App Store. One could only imagine the money that the game must be bringing in with all of those downloads, until noticing that the app is a free download for users to get.

For those that do not remember, the Temple Run series are considered endless runner action game. It features explorers who venture into a temple and discover an idol, which they steal. That turns out to be a lousy deal as it causes them to be pursued by a pack of demonic monkeys, who are evidently there to protect the temple and its goodies.

That 20 million downloads in four days are impressive, but there are some other notable statistics that should be mentioned. It took the game a mere eight hours to go from new release to the number one free release game/app in the world. It is also number three on the top grossing apps at the current time. Serious players will look at the 20 million figure though and think it is not that prominent a number when compared to some other popular releases.

The problem with that is the statistics do not tell the whole story. Perhaps one of the hottest free downloadable games has been Angry Birds. One would think that Temple Run cannot be close to the numbers that those pesky birds brought in. Well, looking back at Angry Birds numbers after its three day run showed that they were only downloaded ten million times. Temple Run did 6 million in day one of its release, so that says a lot about how it stacks up against the big boys.

The only complaint at this point has been more about the game play. Some fans have been critical of the offering on gaming sites, where they mention the game not having enough depth to it. Others moaned about the fact that beyond a few new characters and some graphical changes, the game did not differ much from its predecessor. With 20 million plus people downloading the game, the developers must have done something right in the end.

Learn more about this author, John Atchison.
Click here to send this author comments or questions.