Girl Wars: iMob Swaps Its Guns For High Heels
Girl Wars: iMob Swaps Its Guns For High Heels | TechCrunch

		
		
Last January, Y Combinator startup Addmired released the game iMob for the iPhone, tapping into the immense popularity of text-based mafia games on Facebook and other social networks and bringing them to Apple’s hot mobile platform.  That game has fared quite well, peaking as the App Store’s fourth most popular game (other companies like Zynga have since released their own mob-based games).  Now the Addmired team is looking to capitalize on the craze by building clones like iVampires, which swaps out the Mafia-themed gameplay for one that focuses on the creatures of the night.  And today they’re launching a version that is focused on an entirely new demographic: the tween girl crowd.






Dubbed Girl Wars (iTunes Link), the game replaces the gritty guns and knives of iMob with stiletto heels and handbags. Founder Gabriel Leydon says that the gameplay is similar to Addmired’s other games, but that it has been made significantly easier (presumably to appeal to a younger audience), allowing gamers to unlock items much more quickly.
Let me make one thing clear: after playing Girl Wars for five minutes, I have no intention of ever touching it again.  The game’s ridiculously colorful interface gave me a headache almost immediately.   And frankly, I won’t be surprised if some women find the game’s focus on clothing, malls, and ‘cat fights’ to be sexist.
But Girl Wars does exactly what it sets out to do, offering the addictive gameplay of iMob and its ilk in a form that will appeal to tweenage girls.  And Leydon believes that it is the first MMO on the App Store that is geared towards the tween crowd, which may help it reach the explosive growth iMob achieved three months ago, though we can certainly expect knockoffs if the game fares well.


		

		
		
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		Jason Kincaid is a writer, tech pundit, on-screen video guy, and occasional conference host with ambitions of getting into comedy.

Before becoming a cliché, Jason worked as a writer at TechCrunch from 2008-12, spanning some of the site’s most formative years. There, he wrote over 3,000 posts, met with countless entrepreneurs, and interviewed key figures including FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski, Senator Al Franken, Google VP (and now Yahoo CEO) Marissa Mayer, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, Dropbox CEO Drew Houston, and many others. He was the cohost of the weekly-ish talk show OMG/JK and the co-creator and host of TC Cribs.

Drawing on his experience at TechCrunch, in late 2014 he published his first book: The Burned-Out Blogger’s Guide to PR.

He has appeared on CNBC, BBC America, NPR, and G4, moderated several panels at SXSW, regularly serves as the emcee of the Startup Battlefield portion of TechCrunch’s Disrupt conference, and recently played himself on the hit HBO show, Silicon Valley.

He attended UCLA, graduating with a BS in Biology and a minor in Society and Genetics.	


	
	
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