Introduction
As with all other forms of media, mobile games aren't just a genre under the large umbrella of the gaming space. There are several sub-genres within it that you'll see when looking at the App Store, like hyper-casual, drawing, and world-building, as well as more traditional games. While there are a lot of iconic genres in the mobile space, there's no genre as recognizable as the endless runner. There are so many different versions of the same game format, whether it's 2D as it is with Jetpack Joyride, Banana Kong, and Burrito Bison, or 3D like Subway Surfers and Agent Dash. There are even numerous big franchises that have made an endless runner spin-off of their own, trying to get a piece of the mobile gaming pie. This includes Sonic, Despicable Me, Crash Bandicoot, SpongeBob, Ryan's World, and even the Gummy Bear. There are even other classic mobile games like Talking Tom and Cut the Rope getting in on the action. We all know the characteristics of most endless runners: you have a character running in a 3D space with the camera following the player.
The Rise of Temple Run
Today, we're talking about the game that popularized this format, Temple Run. But rarely do I ever see people talking about it in the modern age; instead, its more successful successor, Subway Surfers, is more prominent. So, what happened? Today, I'm going to go through the history of Temple Run to attempt to find out what series of events led to the sudden fall of one of mobile gaming's oldest classics. What killed Temple Run?
Our story starts in 2009. A game developer by the name of Adam Stoltzman creates an indie game named Cannonbolt. It's actually the very first game to kick off the endless runner genre, and it has you in a 2D environment, jumping from rooftop to rooftop to escape a city being destroyed by robots. The reason the formula works so well is pretty easy to understand. When designing a mobile game, a big hurdle to jump through is how you go about the controls. While it's not uncommon to just toss in a virtual joystick and some buttons and call it a day, the most successful mobile games tend to be the ones that use more unorthodox controls. Making a game in the endless runner genre allows for different but easy-to-grasp controls, having you swipe the screen and/or tilt the phone to control your character. The game was fairly well-received, but more importantly, it paved the way for a private indie mobile game company to swoop in and advance the genre. That company was Imangi Studios.
Imangi Studios was founded in 2008 by Natalia Luckyanova and Keith Shepherd. They started out by releasing games in the Imangi series, little word puzzle games. Then they shifted their focus to motion-based mobile gaming, a style that would become all too familiar later on. They kept making mobile games with a limited amount of success until August 4th, 2011, when Temple Run was released. While it started out as a paid game, it switched to the freemium model before the end of the year, allowing it to be accessible to anyone with a smartphone, and that's what really made the game take off. The game is exactly as you'd expect an endless runner to look like: you play as an explorer named Guy Dangerous, and you have to run away from eight demon monkeys for as long as possible. It expanded on Cannonbolt by making it 3D and also having gyro controls to move left and right. In the first six months of its release, Temple Run got over 36 million downloads, a very impressive number only made more impressive as Temple Run was only their seventh game released. But much like Cannonbolt, Temple Run's success inspired many other games with various levels of originality, with some of the earlier ones being games like Zombies Run, Running With Friends, and Pyramid Run.
Competitors and Successors: Subway Surfers
There was no other endless runner as iconic as Subway Surfers, released in May 2012. Subway Surfers was one of the few endless runner games to really stand out, offering a unique urban environment as well as original characters and an alternative form of movement. Instead of tilting the screen to move left and right, Subway Surfers would have a three-lane system where you have to swipe the screen to switch lanes, jump, and slide. With that being said, there was still a good amount of criticism levied towards the game for its perceived lack of originality, but there was a substantial way that Subway Surfers differentiated itself from Temple Run, and that was with its business model. Temple Run was a full and complete experience from the get-go, but since its release, Temple Run never got any content updates. Subway Surfers, on the other hand, uses a model of constant updates and changes, always giving you a reason to hop back on and check out the new additions. Because of this, Subway Surfers 2 was a game that doesn't and probably never will exist. Alternatively, Temple Run has several sequels. Even though most people only played the first game, there are actually six other games in the series, most of which have been deleted over the years.
The first one was released in June 2012 when Imangi partnered with Disney to make a game to coincide with the release of the Disney Pixar movie Brave, which is not so creatively called Temple Run: Brave. While it's technically a spin-off, it's really more of a reskin than anything else. The gameplay is mostly identical to that of the first game, with the only new addition being these targets you can shoot at as you keep running. Graphically, it's just a model and asset swap, and even the UI lines up. In early 2013, we got the actual sequel, Temple Run 2. The general gameplay largely stayed the same, but there were a handful of differences. Instead of a pack of demon monkeys, Temple Run 2 has you running away from one big one. There are zip lines, new obstacles, and even separate maps and new unlockable characters, all designed to keep people playing longer and expand on the original in every way. Its success largely mirrored that of the first game; in the first four days of Temple Run 2's release, it was able to get a staggering 20 million downloads. After the release of the sequel, they actually went back and renamed the first game to Temple Run: Classic, I guess to avoid confusion. This also happens to be the time when Subway Surfers would hit its first peak. While it didn't quite reach the heights of Temple Run 2, at least at the time, the following years would be very successful for Subway Surfers and its developers.
Spin-offs and Sequels
March of 2013 saw the release of Temple Run: Oz. This is yet another movie tie-in game which was used to advertise Oz the Great and Powerful, yet another Disney movie that was released the same year. Since it was released after Temple Run 2, this one has the animation quality of the second game, but it lacks any of the gimmicks that Temple Run 2 has. That means there are no zip lines here. In October of 2017, both Temple Run: Oz and Brave were delisted from the App Store, with Disney Interactive, the company that worked with Imangi Studios on the projects, claiming they want to focus on newer experiences rather than updating them to work on the new iPhone X. Temple Run VR was released on December 23rd, 2014. This was actually a release for the Samsung Gear VR. This one's just the classic endless runner gameplay adapted to be in a 3D space. Making an endless runner work in VR takes an added amount of work, as a game in that genre being played in first person on a screen right next to someone's eye may cause motion sickness. Overall, it's pretty interesting to see that there were two classic mobile games that made an installment for the Gear VR, but more importantly, it shows that Imangi is starting to branch out into other genres and mediums.
In 2016, Imangi Studios gave another mobile game company, Scopely, a shot at making a spin-off for the series. They ended up making a match-3 game with Imangi's popular IP. Why does every mobile game company end up drifting into hyper-casual? The game was titled Temple Run: Treasure Hunters, and it got a soft launch in late 2016 but was later reworked into another title, Temple Run: Puzzle Adventure. It's the same game, but now it's on Apple Arcade. It looks like Imangi is even continuing this branching out themselves with their newest release, Temple Run: Idle Explorers. This one is a waiting simulator, an idle game that works by you letting the game play itself. It features a lot of the staples of a typical 2022 mobile game, even featuring a simplified style—just look at the design of Guy Dangerous. But the most interesting thing here isn't the game itself but the details surrounding it. The weirdest thing I've noticed with this game is that it doesn't seem to be getting advertised. They haven't mentioned it a single time on their YouTube channel, and it's not even on their website. Regardless, it was still able to accumulate a hundred thousand downloads even with what seems to be no advertising whatsoever.
The Decline of Temple Run
So how was the series as a whole holding up throughout all this time? Well, not that great. After the success of the second game in early 2013, the Temple Run series, as well as all other endless runners, would start to largely decline in the following years. That is, all except for Subway Surfers. While there was a pretty significant decline for that game too, it was never as harsh of a drop-off as Temple Run or the other games. Even then, in June of 2022, Subway Surfers had a massive rebound and it even became more popular than it ever was. So what killed Temple Run? The decline seemed to begin after the release of the second game, which means the series had a solid run of about two years or so. But what exactly changed from 2011 to 2013?
I think the lack of interest directed at the Temple Run series all starts from the way the game was designed. Without updates or events, people don't have a reason to keep playing the game for years to come. While the game had massive heights between the first and second games, people got bored and moved on. Subway Surfers, on the other hand, had a far more gradual drop-off, with the game continuing to receive updates to this day.
Then there's another issue. As I mentioned earlier, Temple Run inspired many other endless runners, and I believe that having so many games that play exactly the same easily led to an oversaturation in the genre as well as an increase in competition. So it makes sense that people weren't crazy interested in Temple Run specifically or even endless runners as a whole. Once you've played one of these games, you've practically played them all.
Lastly, I think a decline for the series also has to do with the fact that they haven't made a traditional endless runner since 2013. While branching out is important for longevity, you have to remember not to let your original formula die. That's exactly why I make documentaries as well as my old mobile game review format because there are still people who want to see that. So instead of solely focusing on these hyper-casual games, they probably should have put out another one or two endless runners, especially while their two spin-offs were being removed.
The Legacy of Temple Run
Nowadays, even though Temple Run has largely fallen into obscurity, Subway Surfers continues to remain one of the most popular mobile games on the market, even after more than ten years. Much like Cannonbolt did before it, Temple Run paved the way for many more games to come, and Subway Surfers advanced the genre to get it to where it is today with the gyroscopic movement being replaced with the more streamlined action of swiping. While there are still some people playing Temple Run today, I feel like there isn't enough love given to this classic release in the modern age. Subway Surfers is still doing incredibly well, showing that endless runners can still stick around even in today's market. But the thing that separates Subway Surfers from Temple Run is the fact that Subway Surfers always had some sort of event to entice you to keep playing, as well as a large variety of interesting characters that you can strive to get. Not to mention, Subway Surfers just being the goofier game allowing for meme potential to revive it, much like what happened with My Singing Monsters earlier this month. Hopefully, Guy Dangerous will be able to continue running in the opposite of an endless runner: our memories.
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