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Here's a question we don't consider enough: what happens when a studio pulls the plug on its micro-transaction fueled games? The answer is obvious and a bit unsettling. You don't get to play anymore, and all those ad impressions you handed out, all of those extra games you downloaded in exchange for precious in-game coin, and all the real money you spent just disappears into the ether.

Unfortunately, we bring up this subject as a result of a recent ngmoco decision. The studio has announced plans to "shut down" Epic Pet Wars [Free], Epic Chef Wars [Free], Epic Crime Wars [Free], and Titan Wars [Free] on Jan. 16, 2011. After this date, these games will "no longer be playable."

Epic Pet Wars was one of ngmoco's first major acquisitions as part of a larger acquisition of developer Miraphonic in 2009. At the time, ngmoco's Plus+ platform was a fledgling one and the studio presumably wanted to flesh out its offerings utilizing Miraphonic's comparatively massive player base. Now it has dozens of Plus+ games, most of which support in-game purchases, and many which enjoyed boosts on the top download charts thanks to in-game offers from Wars games.

Games with expiration dates are a new-ish concept, though we should realistically expect all our cloud-based, online-focused romps to come to an end at some point. Business is cold and hard and if the numbers don't line up? Well, this is what happens, though I can't imagine anyone, especially the fans of these latest casualties, can be happy about it.

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While our iPhone game of the year took tons of deliberation, the iPad game was far more clear cut. Since the device's release, we've yet to really see much in the way of killer iPad-exclusive content. Most developers instead have somewhat understandably have chosen to use the iPhone and iPod touch as their target platforms, then either eventually release a universal update or a completely separate "HD" version of the game. 2D Boy really knocked it out of the park in releasing an iPad-exclusive version of their hit indie PC/Mac/Wii game World of Goo [$9.99]

We really couldn't say enough good things about it in our review, as adding a multitouch interface to the game enhanced overall gameplay more than I could ever have imagined. On the PC/Mac, you built up huge towers of goo balls utilizing the mouse pointer, which seems to be impossible to go back to after being able to hold a single goo ball with each finger while panning the camera around with the other hand.

If you own an iPad, this is a game you need to have. If you've played World of Goo on another platform, it's still worth playing through again just because of how much better of an experience it is on the iPad.

Runner Up: Plants vs. Zombies

We had a great time with Popcap's Plants vs. Zombies [$2.99] for the iPhone, but we thought the game was substantially better when played on the iPad with Plants vs. Zombies HD [$6.99]. Very similar to World of Goo, we enjoyed Plants vs. Zombies a ton playing on our computers, but with the multitouch screen of the iPad, the game turns in to something else entirely.

Plants vs. Zombies is an incredibly casual tower defense game that's easy enough for people who have never played a tower defense style game to get in to with any more explanation than the tutorial offers, yet deep enough for even hardcore players to get in to. Progressing further in to the game unlocks additional seeds to use to plant your defenses, and the seeds you choose offer a surprising amount of variation to the game and it's balanced well enough that you can generally focus on using the seeds you like instead of using the seeds that are the "best".

This is a game that everyone with an iPad needs to own, and it's available on so many platforms, if you haven't yet you really need to try Plants vs. Zombies on something.

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Rovio has put us in an interesting predicament with our end of the year coverage. It's impossible to not somehow mention Angry Birds [99¢ / Lite / HD], but strictly speaking, it is a game released in 2009. December 10th, 2009, to be exact. The game's appearance on the App Store was without much fanfare, as it was (and still is) published under Chillingo's Clickgamer brand. Established in late May of 2009, Clickgamer is Chillingo's secondary brand to offload casual titles and other games they wouldn't label as an "AAA title" like iDracula [99¢], and other top games of the time.

From the original press release:

“This moves allows Chillingo to focus the Chillingo brand on AAA titles, and at the same time allow us to leverage our marketing resources to promote clickgamer.com to support the publishing of high quality titles across various genres in the App Store” said Joe Wee, Director and co-founder of Chillingo.

Chillingo's decision to relegate Angry Birds to the Clickgamer brand seems to be a clear indication that they had few expectations of the game which has since become their flagship title, and likely played a major role as a bargaining chip when EA acquired Chillingo for $20m. Looking back at the original thread on our forums and our own review, Angry Birds was unanimously loved, but many mentioned there "only" being 63 levels and the lack of any kind of online leaderboards as things that detracted from the game.

Obviously, Rovio didn't give up on Angry Birds, they stuck to their guns and released a constant stream of updates through 2010. Angry Birds charted in one way or another since its release, but it wasn't until late February that it got a foothold on the top of the charts– A position it's more or less held on to since then. A HD iPad version later appeared, as did a new self-published seasonal game, Angry Birds Seasons [99¢ / HD] which has enjoyed similar success.

Graph courtesy of AppAnnie

Rovio has basically rewritten the definition of success both on the App Store and in the world of Android. Earlier this month they announced that they've reached 50 million downloads, and in a recent interview with Tech n' Marketing mentioned that over 80% of people keep the game installed. Some other amazing statistics are mentioned in the same interview. 200 million minutes of Angry Birds is played every day which compares favorably to basically every other form of visual entertainment including primetime television.

Next year Rovio has plans to bring Angry Birds to home consoles, and in a interview with the BBC, they even confirmed a sequel was in the works. While Rovio remains guarded with their exact plans for 2011, the fact remains: With a pool of millions of Angry Birds fans, anything they release will likely also rocket to the top of the charts.

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The App Store mouse seems to have hopped back on its wheel after the recent holiday freeze of iTunes Connect, and we're starting to once again see new games, updates, and price drops becoming available. Right off the bat there is a noteworthy sale that caught my eye, so if you still have a dollar left over after gorging on the massive list of holiday sales that we posted last week (many of which are still going on, by the way), you'll definitely want to pick up Game Dev Story [99¢/Lite] while it's at its lowest price ever.

Chances are pretty good that you've heard of Game Dev Story by now. This port of Kairosoft's 1996 PC game puts you in the role the manager of a brand new game development studio. You'll need to hire staff, come up with game ideas, and then bring those ideas to fruition all while staying within your budget and available resources. Then you market and sell your games, hopefully getting positive reviews from critics and bringing in a profit so your studio can expand and work on future titles. We were quite taken with Game Dev Story when we reviewed it, and it turns out we weren't alone as it subsequently went on to create quite a buzz across the gaming blogosphere.

In the App Store world, anything more than a dollar can be a hard sell to some gamers. After seeing the nearly 15 year old graphics that are used in Game Dev Story, I imagine that there were a lot of people that found it hard to part with the $3.99 that the game originally cost, despite the mountains of praise it received. Even with the recently launched lite version, I'm willing to bet that there are gamers that were steadfast in their willingness to wait for a 99¢ sale. To these people, your time has come! Game Dev Story is now just a buck, and you'll be hard-pressed to find more bang for that buck in practically the entire App Store. So stock up on food, buy a few cases of Red Bull, and get sucked into the divine addiction that is Game Dev Story, which will give you a chance to hone your skills for the upcoming Game Dev Story 2.

Update 1: It seems the price has been increased back to $2.99.

Update 2: For whatever reason, the price seems to be fluctuating from $2.99 to 99¢.

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