It Pays To Follow Trends: iPhone Dev Makes $37,000 In One Day

February 17, 2009| schommer| 0 Comment| 2:51 am

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Editorial

In the world of game development, everyone wants to make it to the top or at least sell their game and feel a mild bit of success. Developers jump into this industry to express their passion for games and not always to make a million dollars. However, one developer is on the road to a million bucks.

Ethan Nicholas, developer of a tank artillery game called iShoot, told Wired.com he quit his job the day his app rose to No. 1 in the App Store, earning him $37,000 in a single day. (wired.com)

Now here is a career choice made for you! He goes on to say that he’d be a millionaire right now if it wasn’t for taxes. We’d also remind him to check out Apple’s cut of the profits too, that might be slowing him down. However, if it wasn’t foir the little iPhone he’d still be working his day job. He’s expecting to hit a million by the end of the year, not too shabby for an iphone shooter game, eh?

He created a ‘lite’ version of the game, much like other developers have, but iShoot Lite shot itself to #1 on the apps charts and his little marketing message “buy the full game for $3.00” was the key he needed. Once people got a taste of the free application they went back for more and now he’s going to be thanking himself for the marketing position he put himself in.

It’s been a few years since a single developer has been able to find gold so quickly, but he did work hard to get to this point. Hustling at night with his one-year old and a dream, he is a self-taught iphone developer who spent hours on the computer desiging the title. Granted, thousands of developers have tried the same move for PC gaming and other such mediums, Ethan Nicholas has proven there is great potential in the iphone along with a few other developers who have found success in the hand-held sector of casual gaming.

Congrats, hope you make it to a million and beyond!

0 thoughts on “It Pays To Follow Trends: iPhone Dev Makes $37,000 In One Day”

jonahfalcon says:

February 17, 2009 at 11:57 am

Now that’s awesome.

Reply
jonahfalcon says:

February 17, 2009 at 11:57 am

Now that’s awesome.

Reply
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The American Entertainment Industry is Contributing to Global Piracy!The American Entertainment Industry is Contributing to Global Piracy!

Believe it or not, there are many gamers that live outside the United States. Those of us that do not live in Japan and the US aren’t always a first priority for the entertainment industry when it comes to hot new releases, yet everyone feels the power of the marketing dollar… we’re just not all “privileged” enough to experience it on day one… or year one. Here is one such story, written by rover on of our forum posters, explaining how this leads to piracy in our global economy…

Let us pretend for a moment the best motion picture of the year ranked 10 out of 10 stars on imdb.com and was released in November 18th 2007. While the United States had access to the movie all year, distributors announced a European premiere on June 16th 2008. Months after North American the release, Europe may see this blockbuster movie in its region, leaving everyone to ask themselves, “how do I see this wonderful film now?”

The world isn’t as it once was. Years ago we found ourselves lining up on an early Saturday morning in the freezing rain just to buy a new CD or rent the latest movie on VHS. Today, people expect to get what thy want NOW. We see a spot during a commercial on TV for a new CD, movie or perhaps a TV show which spark our interest and what do we do? We can wait six days to watch the next hit TV show prime time episode or line up at CD MegaWorld Monday morning at 7am to buy the CD, or we do something entirely different: we go online. Most of us would go to amazon.com to find that excellent new artist, or perhaps itunes.com to find the latest episode of our favorite TV show.

Online is the way to go. We don’t mind paying for quality entertainment; the only thing we ask is to get some flexibility to our time schedule. Some of us may watch our hit prime time TV show at 1 AM or listening to our favorite music on the bus at 5 AM. The question is “can I?” and the answer is, “yes you can!”

Now here’s where problems arise. The “yes you can” statement only applies to one group of people, specifically the North Americans. You watched this seasons first episode of “Lost” on TV, you can go online and find out there are three full seasons of 22 episodes already aired. Great! Now all I must do is pay up roughly USD $1 per episode and I’ve got the ability to download all episodes and watch them at my own leisure… right?

(more…)

Episode 380: Calling All GoatsEpisode 380: Calling All Goats

After a week off from Jonah being at PAX East 2015 and Paul being at GDC, the podcast is back, as this week’s Gaming Flashback is the landmark Guitar Hero. In addition, the podcast learns too late that Cities: Skylines runs on Windows XP. Paul also deals with goats, and the podcast is giving away a free code for Catlateral Damage.

This week’s news items include:

Report: Mississippi deputy fired over threatening Xbox Live players
Cities: Skylines breaks Paradox sales records
Titanfall DLC is free forever on Xbox One, PC, Xbox 360
Goat Simulator is coming to Xbox One and 360 in April
Cards Against Humanity is now online, free

This week’s Question of the Week, “What is your favorite gaming snack?”

Would You Buy An Apple-Based Console?Would You Buy An Apple-Based Console?

Does the console market need any more competitors? We’ve seen record sales in the game industry for titles like Halo 3 and Grand Theft Auto IV along with huge expectations for Resistance 2 and some new Sony PlayStation 3 projects. Yet, the tiny little Wii product holds best sales records around the world as the heavy hitter, Microsoft and Sony, compete for the most awesome spectacle show of graphics.

Competition is a great way to drive down costs, drive up expectations and give consumers new innovative products with better quality. Imagine if Apple got into console development and produced a new highly sexy product with the hype and consumer desire of the iPhone or iPod.

“Apple has the infrastructure in place through iTunes to create a real value proposition for those that want to extend the capability of their console beyond gaming and has the cash — about $20 billion — to not only invest in the best components on the market, but in an online gaming experience that could rival Xbox Live.” (kotaku)

Apple’s showing a huge surge in recognition and sales thanks to the iPod and growing desire for Apple hardware competing against Microsoft’s Vista operating system. As more consumers turn to Apple for their music and mobile gaming needs, Apple must see windows of exploiting the gaming market further.

More importantly, nobody can pull off digital rights management (DRM) and locking consumers into a product line like Apple all while they beg for more. Consoles are little boxes of DRM waiting for happy consumers to buy into the concept all while avoiding the hacking and bittorrenting like you’ve been seeing on Spore in the last few weeks. Had Spore been released on a console this DRM fiasco would have been avoided because gamers don’t even realize (or care) that a console locks them into playing and, more importantly, buying the game for the hardware.