The developers of the best iPad game of 2012 according to Apple told about how much they spent on the project, as well as about the number of downloads and the reasons for their own success.
In an interview with the British newspaper The Guardian, the commercial director of Fireproof Studios Barry Meade said that there is still a place for paid applications in the App Store. Since its release in September 2012, the company has sold more than 1 million iPad versions of The Room.
Initially, the game cost £ 2.99. Only at the end of October, the developers changed its price tag to £ 1.49. Even at this cost, 1 million downloads means about £1.5 of income. We subtract 30% of Apple’s share and get about £1 million on hand.
The iPhone version of the game – The Room Pocket (it was released only in December) is distributed for free, but contains only one game level, the rest can be opened by buying an IAP for £1.49. It has been downloaded 2 million times. How much she earned is unknown.
The development of the original The Room cost the studio, according to Maid, £60,000. The studio recaptured this money in the first week of sales. The developers themselves, who worked on games such as Burnout and Little Big Planet, raised money to create The Room, outsourcing for three years. Finally, in January 2012, the required amount was collected, a programmer was hired, and in February, Fireproof Studios started creating the game.
In the studio itself, only two people were constantly working on it, the rest continued to earn money by performing outsourcing contracts.
“We wanted to develop the best iOS game we could, and not just try to make a console project for iOS,” says Meide. – “Real game developers create a project based on the available resources and capabilities of the platform. Making an iPad game with a touch stick is a real manifestation of laziness.”
“No matter how much you invested in the project, it demonstrates your disrespect for the platform. These so–called “abnormal” projects that are laughed at in the gaming industry (I’m talking about Angry Birds and Cut the Rope) are real sensory games and that’s why they are successful.”
Meide calls the touch screen – a new level of perception, on a par with music and graphics, perception, starting from which mobile games should be created.
As concluded in The Guardian, Apple, apparently, agrees with Fireproof Studios. Otherwise, she would not have promoted this project so actively and would not have called it the best game of the year.
Yes, according to Maid, the company was not spent on PR or promotion: “we spent all our money just developing the best game we could make.”