Epic Games founder and CEO, Tim Sweeney, has said that the Unreal team will continue to push for triple-A premium iOS and Android titles despite continual shifts in the app market. Chair Entertainment, a subsidiary of Epic, launched its first iOS game last December, an action RPG called Infinity Blade; since its release the app has hauled in over $10 million of revenue, a figure made even more impressive when you consider Infinity Blade’s hefty going price of £3.99.
Infinity Blade has proven that iPhone owners are hungry for high-end games with cutting-edge graphics. For a long time, the market was seen as a ‘race to the bottom’ with developers being squeezed into releasing apps for 99 cents or even free. Infinity Blade’s success shows that premium-quality apps can sell for more.
Powered by the Unreal Engine, Infinity Blade was indeed a breakthrough for the mobile platform, Chair receiving countless accolades for the addictive, meaty hack and slash which still continues to expand.
The same technology is currently available to any who want to experiment with it. Though the dev kit is completely free, once an Unreal-powered product hits the market, a $99 license fee is directed to Epic Games, which also takes a 25% cut of all profits once the $50,000 revenue milestone has been reached.
Source: Develop
bacon_nuts
I was disappointed with infinity blade, it looked nice, but it played quite boringly. It wasn’t bad, but got repetitive super fast.
bacon_nuts
* forgot to say, basically my point was that I’d rather they push for better gameplay rather than graphics. It seemed like the whole point of the game was that it looked nice sometimes.
Smallville2106
I enjoyed it. I totally agree though. Gameplay over graphics everytime.I’d like good graphics too but if it is a choice, gameplay everytime.
Rad4Life
I had a lot of fun with Infinity Blade. They have also given a lot of new missions with updates. I got it for only $2 when it was on sell. One of the best purchases for my iPad.
YOURMUMANDME
Infinity Blade was a game bought with curiosity in mind and as a buying tool Epic used that, and, with the use of Epic Citadel people were chomping at the bit for the exact release time of IB to play a game of that standard. If they base the next sales target on that then I reckon that they need an equally as big hype tool or an early ad campaign like GoW, probably lifting the whole mobile platform of gaming to higher level of interest again.