Ever Beat a Dead Horse?: iMafia III New York Review

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Copycat

It does not take a financial genius to see that if you can expand the market of a single innovation then you can make a larger profit from it. This is much of the logic that has brought a wave of franchised event films over the last fifteen years. As companies become more integrated, they are able to handle the film on all platforms, every aspect of merchandising, and every other commercial platform that property can be sold on. The central theme here is that they can create a whole host of multiple industries based on one creative idea.

This principle has been applied on a micro scale to the iPhone where many developers are taking a single idea and using it as a jumping off point to create clones that they can re-sell. PlayMesh is one of the most prolific and well developed of all the developers creating MMO text-based iPhone RPGs. Their iMafia model is definitive of the genre and different enough that no other developer has copied it completely, except themselves. Each of these titles is used to sell PlayMesh Points, which players use to cheat inside the game.

The more titles available, the more PlayMesh Points they have to sell. This brings us to iMafia III New York. This is exactly the same game as iMafia III, but with a snazzy new name. Will this actually provoke people into downloading it? Maybe it will, but for those that do there really is no hope.

What is the Purpose of iMafia III New York

The missions are the same. The real estate system is the same. The iMafia III New York PlayMesh Points even work the same. Largely all the names of every element remain the same. Yes, the iMafia III New York system is far improved from its previous version, but does it really serve to reason that there should be more than one title that are so similar? It is hard to judge iMafia III New York in a sense because it is equally good to iMafia III.

You could easily say that since iMafia III is a good game, then the same should be said about iMafia III New York. Instead of that, I am going to go ahead and say that just because it worked one time does not mean that we should have it repackaged for us. One out of ten stars.

This post is part of the series: Reviews for PlayMesh Generation 3 Games

Here are some reviews for PlayMesh’s new third generation.

  1. The Blind Swordsman: Ninjas III Review
  2. PlayMesh Generation 3: iMafia III Review
  3. iMafia III New York Review: Ever Beat a Dead Horse?
  4. Once Again: iMafia III Los Angeles Review
  5. Street Racers 3D Review