Apparently, iPhone developers like it when you use headphones. It’s probably because they have taken the time to mix the sound and music to perfection, and they want your entire focus when you are tapping away at the screen on your phone. They want you, the player, to devote as many of your senses as possible to the tiny four and a half inch screen resting in your palm. They can’t do anything about smell and taste (yet), but vision, hearing, and to a lesser extent, touching, should belong exclusively to them while you are investing your time and emotion into their main source of income.
The other possibility, is that Apple is encouraging these developers to promote the use of headphones, so more people ignoring the world in favor of their iPhones, pretending not to care about anything (i.e. cool people) will be associated with thin white wires hanging from their ears.
Here are the best and not-so-best forms of headphone encouragement.
I don’t remember what game this is from, and I don’t want to look, because it is totally ineffective. Whatever game this is, it is getting played without sound. This image could comfortably be placed in front of any game. It’s totally generic. The developers probably found it using Google images.
Pirate’s Treasure
There is a cool pirate guy up there — there is literally no way to deny that — but the headphone request is relegated to some tiny text shoved into a corner. You forgot to emphasize headphones, so I forgot to listen to the music, which I am guessing was pirate themed.
Beat It!
The headphone request gets lost by the end of the equation. All that comes across to the player is that, "Yes, beating it is it good. Thanks for the reminder."
BIT.TRIP BEAT
Maybe it’s all the colors, or maybe it’s the fact that this game is a music title. Either way, I am not forgetting the headphones.
Canabalt
I don’t know what it is about this headphone screen. Maybe it’s the cool pixelated headphones, or the borderline threat of an incomplete experience, but everytime I play Canabalt, I have to play with headphones, and on the occasions that I don’t, I feel bad.
There you have it; Canabalt earns top honors in earphone encouragement on the iPhone, and our ears are thus kept not only safe from the evils of tiny, tinny speakers, but also maximally awesome, as Canabalt so eloquently describes each and every gaming session.
