NimbleBit comments on popularity of Tiny Tower, working on new IP

Inside Mobile Apps has an interview with the winners of Apple's choice for best iPhone game of the year, David and Ian Marsh of NimbleBit. I was a huge fan of their freemium title Pocket Frogs, but it's their latest release, Tiny Tower, that has earned a lot of solid accolades (not to mention a bunch of in-app purchase money). I talked to the guys way back at GDC earlier this year before Tiny Tower came out, so it's good to get an update like this on where they're at now.

Tiny Tower's been downloaded over 7 million times so far, and the brothers expect it to clear 8 million by the end of the year. And not only are people getting the game, but they're playing it, with nearly a million daily active users at peak, and around 600,000 right now. That's phenomenal for an app of this kind. Their income is also doing very well -- most companies were aiming for around 2% of the player base to be paying for in-app items, but NimbleBit says Tiny Tower is around 5% of the player base, with the average player putting about $10 in the pot. Overall, Tiny Tower has fewer "big spenders," but the bigger player population means there's more money coming in.

Very interesting -- early on, the freemium market was mostly based on "whale" customers, or people who spent a lot of money to support a lot of cheaper players. But as quality goes up, we'll probably see more apps like Tiny Tower: high quality "hits" that have a large player base with a relatively high pay rate, but not as many "whales." Fascinating stuff. The Marshes also say they're working on a brand new title which will be a whole new IP, so we'll have to stay tuned and see what they're up to next.

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Source: http://www.insidemobileapps.com/2011/12/14/free-to-play-pion…

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Inside Mobile Apps has an interview with the winners of Apple's choice for best iPhone game of the year, David and Ian Marsh of...

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cla

http://tinytowerproblems.tumblr.com

January 12 2012 at 3:08 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

guyontheinternet

Can't say I'm a fan of the freemium model. I find most of these "games" have very little in the way of gameplay. With Tiny Tower, the only "gameplay" is tapping floors and the menus that pop up to make sure your shops are stocked. It's basically a Tamagotchi (which Bandai should just make an app of already, although Digimon would be cooler out of the two).

Games like Tiny Tower are only "games" of patience. You pay for an in-game currency that saves you time in the game. Instead of watching and waiting for your tower to grow and dealing with those random prompts that earn you the currency, you can basically buy yourself a shortcut. Tiny Tower certainly isn't the only game like this, but a lot of these types of games sure do pop up on the App Store top charts unfortunately. These games are basically asking you how much time of your time is worth 99¢. Xbox and PS3 owners who complain about the nickle-and-diming with downloadable content should look at these games. You get no added gameplay or content for what you're paying for. You are literally buying time.

This is coming from someone that got over 100 floors in his tower, but quit when he realized he was doing the same menial task repeatedly. Also coming from an aspiring game developer, it disappoints me when a freemium game that are just toys without souls get all of the fanfare instead of real games that don't ***** themselves out, satisfying, and put the iPod/iPad/iPhone hardware too good use to create new and innovative game ideas. I can't help to think a lot of these freemium developers are busier figuring out how to make a fast buck instead of trying to make a fun game.

December 15 2011 at 10:19 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

1 reply to guyontheinternet's comment

Jonathan

It is interesting because I quit playing Farmville for the same reasons why I quit Tiny Tower. I refuse to pay money just to level up faster. In TT, at least, I had so many unstocked, empty stores because I had too many unhappy workers, not enough workers, and took too long to get people there. Took too long with earning in game currency. In hindsight, once the tower got too big, I splurged and bought the best lift they offered. So I never used the stock now button.

It was an interesting game initially, but as it got too big, it became a waiting game, I went maybe once a week where I endlessly tapped it. Eventually I just deleted it and moved on to Words with Friends.

I am happy for them there is success, which is great, I don't like the Freemium model myself, but if it makes people happy, then I guess it fulfils the purpose of what a game should do.

December 16 2011 at 9:48 AM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply