Temple Run 2 Hits 20 Million Downloads in Four Days

[The Wooster]

Temple Run 2 Hits 20 Million Downloads in Four Days

Temple Run 2 might have a shot at knocking Angry Birds Space off its perch.

It's always funny to watch "hardcore" gamers struggle with unashamed casual games. "You just run and jump!" they lament, clutching their copies of Dark Souls to their chests. "How can anybody like this!?" It's even funnier when those same casual games go on to make massive piles of money.

Temple Run 2 a game in which you quite literally just run and jump, is one such success, having clocked up 20 million downloads in its first four days of availability on the iTunes App store. Released on January 17th, Imangi's sequel to 2011's iOS hit is the current top free app. But is it making any money? Well, it's currently the second most top-grossing app in the US.

Those 20 million downloads mean Temple Run 2 is in with a shot at replacing perpetually successful, disgruntled Avians simulator, Angry Birds Space, as the fastest-growing mobile game to date. Rovio's effort managed a record setting 50 million downloads in its first 35 days of release last spring.

Despite the success of Temple Run, Imangi is still a tiny company, boasting only three employees; husband-and-wife duo, Keith Shepherd and Natalia Luckyanova, and artist, Kiril Tchangov. For comparison, Rovio had a staff of nearly 300 as of 2011.

"We've had the opportunity to grow a lot, but we value our independence and ... the small size of our studio," Shepherd told Polygon shortly before the release of Temple Run 2.

I, for one, welcome our new casual overlords.

Source: Polygon [http://www.polygon.com/2013/1/21/3900028/temple-run-2-ios-20-million-downloads-in-four-days]


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[PurpleLeafRave]

Wasn't the first Temple Run just running and jumping too? How is this any different?

 

[In Search of Username]

Well that's pretty depressing.

 

[The]

I will await an android release.

 

[JaceArveduin]

maybe people will eventually learn that free and easy to learn time wasters have a place in the world. I mean, that's basically what Tetris was.

 

[an annoyed writer]

maybe people will eventually learn that free and easy to learn time wasters have a place in the world. I mean, that's basically what Tetris was.

This exactly. I play lots of games, and the little time wasters like Angry Birds have their places in my gaming library, just like the bigger games like Far Cry and Halo. It's not like we can haul consoles and desktop PCs around and only pop them out for a few minutes during a wait at the doctor's office or the bus stop. Different games, different times. Besides, we wouldn't get gems like this if these games didn't exist:

 

[Rule Britannia]

bunch of my friends have it already, I didn't get the first one, not gonna get this one. It looks like good fun but I don't want to spend however much it is on something I won't play much once another game like it comes along; of course I'll re-apply the same idea over and over though

 

[Owyn_Merrilin]

http://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/gaming/2013/01/21/game-review-temple-run-2/1851381/

Looked up a review because I was curious about what had changed since the original, and it actually looks pretty cool. There's an entire little genre of casual games[footnote]They're called "Runners," if anyone cares.[/footnote] that Temple Run is the poster child for, but in the time since it came out, it's been surpassed by games like Subway Surfers and Jetpack Joyride. This looks like a step towards the more varied and interesting gameplay of those two, and I'm now kind of looking forward to the inevitable Android release.

 

[SteakHeart]

I fail to understand why the sad people that call themselves "Gamers" hate games!

Thank you so much for saying that. Just... have all of my money. Please.

Honestly, a gamer is just defined as "one who plays games." If someone plays Dark Souls and gets 100% completion, or if they like to play a game of Angry Birds after work, they are a gamer. This exclusive "fake geek," "casual" bullshit is what ruins gaming as a culture. Y'know what games were at first? A yellow dot eating smaller yellow dots and avoiding colored blobs. If Pac-Man were released today, I guarantee that the hardcore demographic would blast it as casual as it soared to the top of the App Store. Is there a difference between Dark Souls and Angry Birds? Yes, but the difference is one simply of depth and difficulty, not of whether or not it's a true game.

 

[Phlakes]

Hey.

You want to hear something really crazy?

I don't know if you're prepared for it.

I've been gaming since I was all small and shit over maybe a dozen consoles. I've played most of the best games out there and still keep up with recent releases like anyone else.

I downloaded Temple Run 2 and enjoyed it.

HOLY FUCK RIGHT I'M DESTROYING THE INDUSTRY I'M JUST ANOTHER ONE OF THE CASUAL SHEEPLE I DON'T KNOW REAL GAMING

[sub][sub]But seriously, grow up. Do you go out to a fancy restaurant for dinner every night? No, you don't, and you're not ruining them for just getting a fucking Big Mac once in a while. What people enjoy is what people enjoy. People play Temple Run because they enjoy it, not because they're brainwashed. And that's okay.[/sub][/sub]

 

[cerebus23]

yea whats all the hate on time sinks every game is a time sink, sometimes i want a mindless relaxing game like zen mode in bejeweled or something when i am not in the mood to fire up arma2 or E.Y.E. or dota2 or something more hardcore and takes more skill and practice to get good at all.

count me another that has played games since pong console was the only video game out there, had nes, genesis, ps1, pc, etc played countless games on each system, and while i not tried this title i assume there i some merit to theses games if sales are pushing this hard on what i assume is people telling their friends about the game.

there is enough room for all styles of games, the success of ftl and hotline miami and super meat boy show he hardcore market is alive and well and getting good games still even if we do feel let down by the big developers and the direction main stream games have taken. and i still got loads of mindless dumb games for when i am too tired or just too unmotivated to work at gaming.

 

[baconsarnie]

You want to know what annoys me about this?
That i didn't make that game and am now rolling in piles of money.

 

[mysecondlife]

Its weird that I've never even heard of Temple Run. and now its sequel comes out and its one of hte hottest thing ever.

 

[bananafishtoday]

I fail to understand why the sad people that call themselves "Gamers" hate games!

Preach.

The best thing about the so-called casual games is that by reducing the barrier to entry, many who might otherwise never touch a game play games like this, and games like this can be a vector for entry into the medium as a whole.

My mother never touched a game in her life... until Wii Sports and Angry Birds. Until that point, she'd always been kinda "Eh, not for me" toward the entire medium. But finding games she liked, simple though they may be, made her more open to games as a whole. So when I visited for Thanksgiving, my mother, father, sister, brother, and I all sat down for multiple hours a night every night for nearly a week having a blast playing Street Fighter 4.

So anyway, good for Temple Run. The invented casual/hardcore divide is silly, and there's no reason to look down on those who like "casual" games. Instead, you can use that exposure to games to get them into stuff you like that you think they might like too.

 

[Lionsfan]

Wait....I thought that all games were originally just "running and jumping". Shouldn't we be happy more people are playing some kind of game?

 

[VanQ]

Wait....I thought that all games were originally just "running and jumping". Shouldn't we be happy more people are playing some kind of game?

Exactly this. Isn't that basically what Mario was in the beginning? It's hardly surprising that such simple games are so popular on iPhone/Android just like it's hardly surprising that Donkey Kong was so popular in 1981. What it comes down to is control scheme. A tiny touchscreen is hardly any different in effect to an arcade machine with a directional stick and three buttons. "Hardcore games" tend to make use of much more intricate and flexible control schemes to play with and that's the only real divide I see between app games and handheld/console/PC games.

I hardly see the need to be hostile towards hardcore games. I haven't played Dark Souls yet because I didn't really get into Demons Souls but this game holds zero interest as well. I'm happy for the small studio making a profit out of it. It might prove to the bigger publishers that throwing money and people at projects won't make them automatically good.

 

[PsychicTaco115]

Good for them, I guess

Isn't this the definition of insanity?
"Insanity:doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results."

Eh, somewhat. I mean, you get farther and farther, but we all know that cold death awaits you no matter how well you do

*Please don't quote me and bash me for being wrong, I know it probably is, but the lolz man...*