The iPhone, perhaps better than any other gaming medium, can respond to cultural trends quickly thanks to shortened development time and its wider net of clients. If developers wanted to cash in on the zombie wave, the iPhone was the platform to do it.

"Zombies games, like zombie movies, are not typically deep experiences--the stories can be thoroughly exciting without having to tell much story or do much explaining," explains Lauren Jones "This suits a platform like the iPhone perfectly; single serving games go hand in hand with a mobile platform." While many iPhone games have extensive budgets and robust development periods, Jones point is irrefutable; zombie games appear on the platform because the platform supports simple games. Zombies not only are simple-minded monsters, but offer a simple plot and gameplay setup.

There is a bit of copy-cat development going on as well. People see other iPhone games succeed, so they copy the formula. "The success some zombie games have enjoyed [on the iPhone] has probably contributed a bit to their popularity, and I expect the zombie onslaught to continue in 2010," explains Dr. Höchsmann. If it's a formula that works, developers will stick to it.

But this doesn't mean that the developers themselves have become mindless drones bent on propagating themselves. There is still originality in the zombie sub-genre.