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iPhone gets Dope Wars clone cut with location-MMOG dealing

Drugs Lords is selling on the go

iPhone gets Dope Wars clone cut with location-MMOG dealing

Expected on the App Store soon is an iPhone game that plans to pick up where the classic Dope Wars left off. Like Dope Wars with its 'addictive' gameplay, Drug Lords has the potential to become a viral hit.

A quick recap: back in the 1990s, amidst the enthralling anti-glamour of Trainspotting and emergence of heroin-chic, came Dope Wars. It was a trim little game, and fitted neatly on a floppy disk and was thus super easy to distribute to friends - apt given that Dope Wars was primarily concerned with dealing drugs.

Yes, it had you buying and selling quantities of drugs across a variety of grimy locations. Of course, strip away the narcotics and urban locales and what was left was a compelling economics sim: buy low and sell high, it's all about making money and managing your accounts. And since even the most boring books needs balancing, it's so much more appealing to have such a risqué subject matter.

Significantly, this sort of thing was the first mini-game that was revealed for the DS-bound Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars too.

Due on iPhone in a matter of weeks, Drug Lords takes the basic cut-and-thrust of Dope Wars and adds location-based massively multiplayer online gameplay.

So as you travel through the real world, you'll get to delve in to the seedy criminal underbelly of your actual location - trading with other players in your locality. But, as advanced as all that sounds, it'll actually be the second location-based MMO to hit the iPhone, as fantasty-themed Parallel Kingdom hits the App Store on 31 October.

Of course, how these type of games will actually work in practice, we'll have to wait and see. Clearly, certain locations - New York, LA, London and Paris etc - are likely to have many more players than most other places, which may limit how exciting such features actually turn out to be.

But as with Parallel Kingdom, Drug Lords' developer will be encouraging everyone to get involved as the game will be freely available on launch. Just be careful where you choose to play it. Real drug dealers like iPhones too, especially yours for free.