Hooked on Games? New Android App Suggests New Ones

Looking for the next “Angry Birds” or “Words with Friends” craze?

 

A new app called Hooked offers Android users game recommendations based on their playing habits and other players’ recommendations. Think of it as the Netflix of Android gaming.

 

Hooked uses its own formula to introduce gamers to new games they are likely to enjoy. Hooked recommendations are derived from users' game-play history and their rankings of the games they’ve played and matches them with new games from the Android Marketplace, much the same way Netflix  recommends movies for its customers.

 

"It was apparent that most consumers get their recommendations from their friends or they simply look at the list of most downloaded apps,” Prita Uppal, Hooked Media’s CEO, told TechNewsDaily. “The same games keep getting played over and over and consumers are rarely exposed to something new.”

 

The more a consumer uses the Hooked app, the more relevant the recommendations become because the app will 'learn' their preferences to deliver them a customized list of games, Uppal said. Hooked also lets users build a Netflix-style queue — a listing of saved games in their accounts to install and play later.

 

On average, 34,000 new apps have been added to the Marketplace each month since the beginning of the year, according to online stat-keeper AndroidLib. The Android Marketplace  now has more free downloads than rival Apple’s App Store. Hooked aims to help users find games they might otherwise overlook among the store’s thousands of offerings.

 

The app also provides an eye-opening look into a player’s gaming habits and shows how many games have been played and how much time has been spent playing each game.