The sandbox adventure title Payback has emerged as the latest original title to achieve a significant degree of success on the iPhone platform. James Daniels at developer Apex Designs has posted App Store sales data recorded over Payback’s first two months of release, revealing that the title has sold 65,000 copies so far for a revenue total of $400,000.
Daniels notes that Payback has surpassed the sales achieved by previous iPhone successes Trism and iShoot in their first two months of release. He also details the title’s lifetime sales performance in a graph, reprinted above.
“The second peak roughly in the middle of the graph is when the game was featured on [the iTunes front page category] ‘new and noteworthy’ in the US,” Daniels notes. “You’ll also notice there’s a dip in this peak and then it goes up again – this second spike was when we reduced the price from $6.99 to $4.99. It’s also worth pointing out that even the “low” level we’re now at is higher than we expected the peak to be before the game was launched!”
Daniels attributes Payback’s continued success to the well-timed release of a free Lite demo, which has been downloaded more than 500,000 times to date. The title may not have been as successful if it had not initially earned a spot in the “top 50 sellers” section of the iTunes Games category, however. While Daniels describes the turn of events as fortunate for his company, he notes that other developers aren’t as lucky.
“Unfortunately, the paid app charts are sorted by sales, which is inevitably going to skew things towards the cheaper apps and so will make it harder for relatively expensive apps like ours to break through (in fact, we have only occasionally been in the charts in most countries).” he writes. “We’ve been lucky (and the lite version certainly helped), but others haven’t been so fortunate.”
Daniels closes with some advice for Apple that could benefit independent iPhone developers: “We’d therefore like to humbly suggest a solution to Apple – please sort the paid apps by revenue not by units sold. This would effectively allow the better value apps to rise to the top irrespective of price, giving them the visibility they deserve. This would benefit customers and developers alike because it would encourage quality software rather than cheap novelties.”
You’re a bunny! And your carrots are being stolen! Oh no! Whatever will you do?
Well, if you’re Hill Billy ($5.99), “the world’s largest carrot grower,” you’re going to grab your shotgun and fill the would-be carrot thieves full of lead. Far from being your typical bunny rabbit, Hill Billy is a hulking creature that will stop at nothing — nothing — to ensure the safety of his beloved carrots.
Hill Billy’s features include:
Smooth Accelerometer-based control.
Next-gen shading, using up to four maps on a single mesh.
Dynamic normal mapping to enhance realism on all 3d models.
Self illumination (glow), even on a carrot!
Particles-style effects.
Complex hardware-accelerated skeletal animations.
Initial App Store response has been good, with users averaging a four-star review score despite noting some occeasional issues with the tilt-based movement controls. If you like self-illuminating carrots, it sounds like you can’t really go wrong here.
Sony Pictures Television has announced that it is currently working on mobile adaptations of several popular film and TV franchises, two of which are bound for the iPhone later this year. The company’s upcoming iPhone releases include games based upon the Ghostbusters and James Bond franchises.
The currently untitled Ghostbusters game will be released in June. James Bond: Top Agent will premiere in August. Sony has revealed little information about either title, though it’s currently known that Top Agent will feature a multiplayer mode and a collection of well-known villains from the film series.
Sony is additionally preparing an updated iPhone version of the classic arcade title Q*Bert, which is set to make its App Store debut in July.
Every Monday, FingerGaming rounds up the most popular paid iPhone and iPod Touch applications, as current that day on the iTunes App Store. This week’s top titles are:
Firemint’s air traffic control simulator Flight Control sees a sharp rise in popularity this week, likely due to the positive buzz surrounding the upcoming release of Firemint Real Racing. Zombieville USA finishes second in this week’s results, while id Software’s port of Wolfenstein 3D takes third place in its first week of release.
Sully’s Flight continues to climb the charts, meanwhile, moving up to fourth place after finishing sixth last week. 3D Brick Breaker Revolution returns to the charts at fifth, while last week’s chart champion Flick Fishing drops to sixth. Familiar names fill out the remainder of this week’s results, as The Oregon Trail, Blocked, Fieldrunners, and Bejeweled 2 round out the top ten.
Ensemble Studios may be no more, but much of its former staff remains in the gaming industry. The Halo Wars and Age of Empires development house has since splintered into several new studios, including FuzzyCube Software, which has recently released its first iPhone title, iQuarterback ($0.99).
iQuarterback is a quarterback training simulation that lets players exercise their virtual throwing arms. Players will take aim at moving targets downfield, with higher scores awarded for perfectly aimed throws. Three difficulty modes are included, and players can compete with their friends in lifetime career stats.
Since iQuarterback’s release, FuzzyCube has already submitted an update based on player feedback. The new version, which will likely hit the App Store some time in the next week, will feature an improved UI and more detailed stadium graphics. A preview video of the game’s tutorial mode can be seen below.
Odd as it seems, the iPhone has been without a proper wrestling simulation thus far in its lifespan. This conspicuous gap in the iTunes catalog has since been filled, though, as this week brings the App Store debuts of TNA Wrestling ($4.99) and WWE Legends of WrestleMania ($9.99 — App Store page coming soon) — a pair of titles that cover different niches of the sport and offer vastly different gameplay experiences.
THQ’s WWE Legends of WrestleMania takes 10 of the WWE’s best-known wrestlers from the era spanning 1987-1999 and recreates some of the league’s most memorable matchups. In addition to recreating classic matches, players are able to create custom characters and match them up against the WWE’s finest in a full career mode. Legends of WrestleMania features arcade-style gameplay (hopefully without the genre’s traditional button-mashing element, for your touchscreen’s sake) and a slick-looking 3D presentation.
TNA Wrestling, on the other hand, opts for a detailed, sprite-based look reminiscent of the Fire Pro Wrestling series. Gameplay-wise, TNA Wrestling adopts an odd mix of action and strategy — moves are performed via a turn-based interface, and much of the gameplay progression is focused on stat-building and the formation of alliances with other wrestlers.
It remains to be seen whether TNA Wrestling’s strategy-focused gameplay will gain acceptance among fans of more traditional wrestling simulations, but it’s good to see the iPhone’s first entries in the genre offering a decent amount of variety. Which title will prove to be more popular among App Store customers?
In this round-up, Gamasutra highlights some of the notable jobs posted in its industry-leading game jobs section this week, including positions from Namco Bandai, Vigil Games, and more.
Each position posted by employers will appear on the main Gamasutra job board, and appear in the site’s daily and weekly newsletters, reaching our readers directly.
It will also be cross-posted for free across its network of submarket sites, which includes content sites focused on online worlds, cellphone games, ‘serious games’, independent games and more.
GDC pretty much threw everything for a loop this week, and that’s what I’m sticking with as my excuse for forgetting about this week’s free app roundup until now. To make up for it, please enjoy an Xtra-Large edition of Free App Roundup — a motley collection of games that, at the very least, will leave you thinking, “Hey, at least I didn’t spend money on this.”
This week’s free releases include demo editions of WordJong and Wild West Guns, along with free full versions of Bottleneck’d and Mugen Pop Pop.
- geoDefense Lite (Critical Thought Games)
It’s a tower defense game, sure, but this one actually looks interesting — it’s a 3D action-strategy take on the genre. It’s earned a pretty decent App Store reception so far, too, so it could be worth a shot.
- BrickGame 5in1 (Readdle)
BrickGame 5in1 simulates the crappy LCD handheld, watch, and keychain games that your well-meaning grandma may have bought you at some point in your childhood. It’s thanks to her that you first learned what disappointment felt like. Included are extremely simple versions of Snake, Breakout, Pong, Quarth, and…uh, Breakout Again. I love the concept, personally. It’s only free until March 31st, though, so you’d better hurry up and download it if you’re at all interested.
- WordJong Lite (Gameblend Studios)
Months after its release, this word game/Shanghai-styled mahjong hybrid keeps me coming back for more. I’d give it more than a perfect score if I could. Just play it already, seriously.
The iPhone will soon receive its very first NBA-licensed basketball sim, courtesy of Flick Fishing developers Freeverse. Flick NBA Basketball is set to launch during this year’s NBA Playoffs, which begin on April 18th.
Up until now, sports fans have been without an officially-licensed basketball game on the iPhone, with the App Store offering only NBA score trackers and a surprising bounty of novelty bobblehead apps based on the likenesses of NBA players. Freeverse’s title will arrive as the platform’s first basketball sim to feature licensed NBA content, including dozens of player names from all 30 teams.
Flick NBA Basketball doesn’t seem to be a full-fledged sports sim, however, instead offering “NBA style events and challenges.” Still, it’s a definite step forward for officially licensed sports content on the iPhone. More information on the game will be available following its launch in April.
Brandon Boyer at Offworld brings word (and video proof!) of an upcoming iPhone port of Noby Noby Boy, a formerly PlayStation 3-exclusive downloadable title designed by Katamari Damacy series creator Keita Takahashi. Takahashi revealed the port during a panel held yesterday at the Game Developers Conference.
In Noby Noby Boy, players control a stretchy, caterpillar-like being named BOY. As BOY stretches, he is able to interact with the objects, animals, and people in his surrounding environment. If you so choose, you’re also able to eat the humans and animals in your path — they’ll then travel through the length of BOY’s body and will be harmlessly excreted at the end of their journey. Fun for the whole family!
Players earn points based on how far BOY stretches during gameplay. These points are then added to a worldwide scoreboard, which is represented by a bigger creature — GIRL — stretching from Earth to the end of the solar system.
The need for an iPhone version arose when Takahashi noticed that at the current rate of GIRL’s growth, it would take, oh, around 820 years or so until it lapped the entire solar system. “This is a problem,” he noted. “I’m going to be dead by then.”
The solution? Release an iPhone version that (presumably) will also count toward GIRL’s length. Takahashi revealed few other details, aside from the fact that the game has had about a week’s worth of development so far, and that it could possibly be made available as a free App Store download when it’s released. Until then, enjoy Offworld’s prototype gameplay video here.
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Sony Pictures Television has announced that it is currently working on mobile adaptations of several popular film and TV franchises, two of which are bound for the iPhone later this year. The company’s upcoming iPhone releases include games based upon the Ghostbusters and James Bond franchises.
The iPhone will soon receive its very first NBA-licensed basketball sim, courtesy of Flick Fishing developers Freeverse. Flick NBA Basketball is set to launch during this year’s NBA Playoffs, which begin on April 18th.
