Despite its relatively powerful videogaming capabilities, my personal preference for games on my iPod Touch is toward simpler, retro- or retro-inspired titles. That’s my preference for videogames in general, but especially for the iTouch, as the device itself is too small to comfortably interactively play anything reeking of cinematic-like complexity.

Which explains why I just bought Classic Qong, a blatant Pong clone. It doesn’t get more retro than two straight-line paddles and a bouncing dot, accompanied by blip-blip-blip sound effects!

What really sold me, though — and persuaded me to part with 99 whole cents — was the game description the developer provided on the game’s App Store page. I’m reproducing it here because, given the bit-for-bit similarity to the original, I’m sure Atari will be invoking its intellectual property rights and cease-and-desist this little gem out of existence soon enough:

We all know Pong – it’s fast, fun and addictive. And back in 1972 it was ahead of its time with:

- Ground breaking 1 bit graphics
- Crisp functional block based artwork
- Ability to count your score for you
- Revolutionary two player mode
- Anti theft: too bulky to want to take anywhere

But sadly, now Pong comes in many flavours of flashy graphics and bizzare gameplay. In fact, some have gone so far that they are no longer fun.

With ‘Classic Qong’ you’ll get a much closer rendition of the original pong. Goodbye flashy graphics, hello satisfying gameplay that you can actually take with you in your pocket…

Play anywhere where there’s someone to play against:

- Boring lectures
- Dull meetings
- During christmas dinner
- Outside
- Inside
- During your wedding ceremony (this may have undesired effects…)

It’s not exactly Madison Avenue-grade copywriting, but it gets the job done. This is a great example of how a persuasive description tells a great story, peppered with sarcastic humor and nostalgic sentiment, to sell a product. If more of the developers putting up stuff in the App Store took the time to write something like this, they’d see their sales triple, at minimum.