About Us
Mission Statement
Slide To Play is a premiere web source for iPhone game reviews, previews, news, and analysis. Our editorial staff has spent years immersed in the mobile games business as critics, analysts and developers. We are also Mac enthusiasts who have followed Apple Computer's exploits since Steve Jobs' original stint as CEO. We know mobile gaming, we know the Mac development community, and we know the iPhone.
Our main goals are to help consumers choose which games to buy, to get them hyped about upcoming titles, and to provide a venue to discuss all things related to iPhone gaming, from technical details to hints and tricks. There's plenty of wisdom in the App Store's crowds of user reviews and ratings, but it's largely anonymous and presented in a somewhat scattershot fashion. We hope to supply focused information and expert opinion to supplement it.
We also want to help developers and publishers research the marketplace and refine their games. The traditional function of games journalism is to keep consumers from buying bad games--and we will certainly strive to follow that directive--but we also recognize that the App Store's update mechanism allows developers to improve their products, if they are so inclined. We would like to become a useful source of feedback for this purpose.
Reviews Policy
Slide To Play grades games on a four-point scale. The scores and their associated meanings are as follows:
1: Avoid. This score is reserved for games that are broken from a technical standpoint or are otherwise unplayable due to poor design. Such games have no redeeming qualities and provide no enjoyment whatsoever. A game that gets this score should not be downloaded by anyone, even if they're a fan of the theme or the genre. It's a waste of your time and money.
2: Caution. These games are playable and occasionally even fun, but they come with major caveats that may make for a bad experience overall. Control problems, uneven gameplay, inferior production quality or an unreasonably high price can all land a game in "caution" territory. Games in this category should not be avoided in all cases. Some players will find value in them. However, we strongly recommend reading our full review (and playing the demo, if available) before purchasing, so you'll know what you're getting into.
3: Good. In order to earn a "good" rating, a game must fit three criteria. First, its gameplay must be entertaining, if not necessarily original. Second, it must have solid production values, meaning that its graphics and sound are up to industry standards, its controls are serviceable, and its level designs have had some thought put into them. Third, it has to be sold at a fair price, based on the price points of competing games in the App Store. This rating is our seal of approval. Although a "good" game isn't perfect, we're confident that you're going to have a good experience with it, and there will be no nasty surprises waiting for you post-purchase.
4. Must Have. This category is self-explanatory. When we give a game this score, we're saying that everyone who plays games on their iPhone or iTouch should buy it. To enter this elite club, a game must be truly extraordinary in one or several respects; for instance, it must have a mind-meltingly gorgeous presentation, or an amazing story, or make innovative use of the iPhone's unique capabilities, or be built around a brilliant new gameplay mechanic. These games represent the very best the App Store has to offer, in our opinion.
Why are we grading games on an unusual four-point scale, rather than using the more common five-star or one-to-ten rating systems? We feel very strongly that the entire video games business--journalists, developers, publishers, and consumers--have fallen into the self-created trap of score-mongering. Numerical scores are a necessary part of the reviewing process, but over time, their importance has been overinflated at the expense of the actual content of the review. Basically, we think that the four-point scale conveys exactly enough information about a game to get you, our reader, to read and digest the whole review. This is especially true for the many games that will fall in the 2-3 range. Separating a high 2 from a low 3 is a very difficult responsibility, and we are taking it seriously. We won't take the easy route of offering mediocre games three stars out of five; we will give them a 2, along with a detailed explanation. This site's real value is in that text, not the number.
Besides, here on Slide To Play, those numbers can, and will, change. As alluded to above, we believe that the iPhone's ability to seamlessly update applications should be factored into the review process, so we will use "Review Updates" to keep our information as current as possible. Substantive improvements to a game, as well as any price changes, will be noted in these updates. We will also revise a game's score upward, if warranted.
We will concentrate our reviewing resources on paid games, for obvious reasons. However, we intend to cover free games in other ways--through blog posts and features, for instance.
If you notice a specific factual error in one of our reviews, please click on the author's name and notify him or her. We will research the claim immediately and update the review as appropriate.
Staff Biographies
, Editor and Publisher:
Before founding Slide To Play, Steve spent two years as Chief Editor of Wireless Gaming Review and GameSpot Mobile. During that time, he reviewed and previewed hundreds of mobile games from around the world, moderated many important panels at industry events, and administered The Mobies, the first international awards show for mobile games. After leaving GameSpot, he founded an independent consultancy, Foci Mobile, to work with mobile games publishers on design, marketing and localization issues. More recently, he served as Vivendi Games Mobile's Editorial Guru, where he developed new concepts, conducted competitive research, produced several games, and wrote episodes for the award-winning Surviving Hollywood and Surviving High School franchises. Steve holds a BA in History from Dartmouth College, and an MA in International Relations from the University of Chicago. His first computer was a Mac LCIII, and his all-time favorite computer game is Myth, followed closely by Marathon Infinity.
, News Editor:
An experienced developer and systems administrator, Jeremy has a hands-on appreciation for good hardware and software—and what it takes to make and use both. At Slide to Play, he brings this perspective to bear on developments in the iPhone gaming world and at Apple, Inc.. A long-time Mac specialist, Jeremy has a good sense of Apple's history and corporate culture. He has a BA in History from Whitman College, with a minor in Economics. His first computer was a Mac Classic II, and his favorite game is Marathon Infinity, at which he routinely beat Steve in network games.
, Engineer and Review Contributor
After pursuing a litany of interesting but financially useless fields of study, Conor wound up choosing a career in web development. He is a fan of almost every type of game be it a video game, table top game or game of death. Conor was a developer and occasional editorial contributor at GameSpot and has had a keen interest in the video games industry ever since. He was also born with a Mac by his side and thinks that we should get Marathon Infinity set up in the office to settle this once and for all.
, Reviewer Extraordinaire
Kevin has spent many hours in a leisure capacity gaming for all systems since an early age, and STP has finally given him a chance to do so professionally. Having bounced around from one employ and country to another, Kevin is settled in the Bay Area, where he writes and edits for a living. He brings a gamer's perspective and a complete lack of a college degree to Slide to Play, and while he grew up on PCs and only started console gaming with the SNES, he's entirely sure he would destroy the STP staff at Halo 3.