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

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.

ishootEthan 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”

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Related Post

Gaming Podcast 139: Pirate or Privateer?Gaming Podcast 139: Pirate or Privateer?

Welcome to the early edition of the gaming podcast, because I’m going to be in Germany this week we had to record a bit early and post the podcast for listening. Hopefully this won’t screw up too many people’s schedules with a day-early release! This week we’re flashing back to Sid Meier’s Pirates and learning about women’s rights (or lack of) in the life of a privateer. We’ll talk a bit about the history of the Amstrad CPC 464 and cover some news:

The community questions were great, gave us lots of nice ideas for a future gaming cave! This week we’re riding on the community listener, Onyersix who wrote a good question of the week: “What was the scariest moment you ever experienced playing video games?  We’re talking the type of shock that makes you need to go and put on a new pair of pants!”

Hey, did you notice our new microphone quality, Jennifer and I have upgraded our studio setup (by about $1,000!), hopefully you’ll notice the more dynamic vocal qualities.

We Need Another Ikari WarriorsWe Need Another Ikari Warriors

In 1986 SNK released Ikari Warriors, it had all the makings of a classic title. Cool weapons, time strategies, two player action and a great challenge. We’re now seeing folks reproduce some of the essence of classic games by creating platformers like Little Big Planet and Mega Man 9, where is the love for the top-down scrollers?

Ikari Wariors was one of the first game titles to use a rotary joystick along with a directional system. Looking at the current generation Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 it’s plain to see the joystick is equipped with this design. We’ve seen Geometry Wars utilize the analog stick to create a 360 directional attack, so it’s possible to utilize this behavior for Ikari Warriors.

Given SNK is still alive under the name SNK Playmore the intellectual property must still exist to breath fresh life into an Ikari Warrior remake, with about six to eight months development time a classy title could be re-developed using old concepts brought to the current generation hardware.

Blast grenades, RPG’s, smart bombs, air strikes the options are limitless and the concept has been proven to work. Given the gamer demographic of 18-34 it’s plain to see old gamers of the Arcade and NES would recall and rebuild their love for the title while attracting younger audiences whom have never seen an Ikari Warriors title; if it worked in 1986 are we so adverse to it working again?

Games do not have to implement full 3D perspective graphics to be cool, we’ve seen proof in that with the Wii and the demand for titles like Little Big Planet. We neeed another Ikari Warriors.

Episode 308: That’s What She SaidEpisode 308: That’s What She Said

The regular podcast is back, after the Dr. Who outtakes podcast last week. The show runs a little long but it’s full of insight and wonderfulness. Mostly. This week’s Gaming Flashback is the classic arcade motorcycle racer Hang-On.

The podcast also has two week’s worth of news items, including:

  • Next-gen Xbox formally being unveiled on 21st May in Redmond, WA
  • Rumor: Next-gen Microsoft console will have DVR feature
  • Leisure Suit Larry Reloaded out in June, “re-made, expanded and enhanced”
  • BioShock Infinite, Xbox 360 lead March 2013 US sales according to NPD
  • Nintendo bowing out of E3 Keynote
  • Microsoft turned profit in fiscal 3rd quarter
  • Batman: Arkham Origins inspired by Legends of the Dark Knight

Plenty of Listener Feedback, but no Question of the Week – just ask us anything.