Infinity Blade Devs Have Made $10 Million+

[MacRumors]

Some iOS developers are making bank. One of the more visible iOS games over the past year has been Epic Games' Infinity Blade. In a press release today, Epic announced that its revenue from the game had exceeded $10 million in just six months of release.

Mark Rein, co-founder of Epic Games:

Infinity Blade’s success proves that triple-A gaming experiences can be hugely successful on iOS and that there is a valuable, pent up demand for premium content like this.

Donald Mustard, creative director of ChAIR Entertainment, the development studio behind Blade noted that "Apple has created an exciting, developer-friendly environment for iOS that has opened up many new doors for us."

I'm sure it helped that Apple gave Epic prime seating at iOS presentations and millions in television ad exposure. Can't get much more "developer friendly" than that! Still, with all the talk yesterday about how Apple was incorporating features that originally came from third-party apps, developing for iOS and the Mac is a win-win proposition for just about everyone -- and, if your app is good enough, Apple might just give it some sweet, sweet lovin'.

Incidentally, if Epic has made more than $10 million, that means Apple has cleared a sweet $4 million off its 30% cut.

Article Link: Infinity Blade Devs Have Made $10 Million+

 

[mrfoof82]

30% of $10M is $3M. $4M can only be implied if Epic said they made over $12M.

 

[jlgolson]

30% of $10M is $3M. $4M can only be implied if Epic said they made over $12M.

Ah, but it goes the other way around.

If Epic made $10 million, that means they got 70% of $14 million.

 

[Zero!sOne]

30% of $10M is $3M. $4M can only be implied if Epic said they made over $12M.

Not quite. If Epic earned $10m cash, then overall the app made $14.29m, which means Apple's 30% cut ends up around $4.29m.

EDIT: jlgolson beat me to it

 

[swb1192]

Has this writer ever read the writing style of MR? (he also wrote this post - https://www.macrumors.com/2011/06/06/verizon-iphone-owners-left-out-of-icloud-fun-for-now/) I don't visit Gizmodo because I don't like their writing style, but this is about the same.

 

[Zero!sOne]

Has this writer ever read the writing style of MR? (he also wrote this post - https://www.macrumors.com/2011/06/06/verizon-iphone-owners-left-out-of-icloud-fun-for-now/) I don't visit Gizmodo because I don't like their writing style, but this is about the same.

I agree. The stories on MacRumors have always been factual (as much as a rumors site can be, that is) and to the point. I avoid a lot of news sites because the vast majority seem to think that sensationalizing every story is the way to go.

Keep in mind, though, the top of this page does have the word "blog" in it, so there is certainly some room for personal thoughts/statements. If it's up for discussion, however, my vote goes to keeping with the standard writing style that MacRumors has always embraced on the Front Page.

 

[Jcoz]

Does anyone know how much Nintendo, MSFT, and Sony have collected %-wise for software traditionally?

 

[Consultant]

Ah, but it goes the other way around.

If Epic made $10 million, that means they got 70% of $14 million.

Yup.

10 million divided by 0.7 is actually over 14.2 million.

 

[staypuffinpc]

Price matters

It certainly doesn't hurt that Infinity Blade was Apple's poster-child for the possibility of graphic intensive gaming on the iPad. Kudos to them for being the first to market.

However, I wonder how much the reasonable price point has enabled them to make this much $$? If they were charging $15-$20 for this game, I don't think they'd have seen so much $$ so quickly. It goes to show that, when there is competition, and prices are reasonable, everybody wins.

I'm not much of a gamer, but when I saw infinity blade on sale for $3 two weeks ago (half of its normally reasonable $6), I thought, "how can I not get such a sophisticated game for such a reasonable price?" Had to buy and I don't regret it.

 

[Nobita]

Does anyone know how much Nintendo, MSFT, and Sony have collected %-wise for software traditionally?

I heard if it's a boxed software in physical stores it's around 70% (so only 30% goes to developers). Steam online store takes 30% cut, like App store.

And people complain about the cut, I wonder...

 

[TheUndertow]

Good for Epic/chair....here's hoping they have some cool stuff in the works.

Infinity Blade, while repetitive, is one of the best "hardcore" type games for iOS...would love to see what they could do with next rev iPads.

 

[TheUndertow]

I heard if it's a boxed software in physical stores it's around 70% (so only 30% goes to developers). Steam online store takes 30% cut, like App store.

And people complain about the cut, I wonder...

Everyone is going to complain about a cut given to "someone else" other than the dev.

What they fail to realize is as you stated...you got to pay the distributor.

Maybe 30% is less of an issue @ $60 msrp but you'd think they also spend more developing a console game.

 

[Steelgrave]

I'm not much of a gamer, but when I saw infinity blade on sale for $3 two weeks ago (half of its normally reasonable $6), I thought, "how can I not get such a sophisticated game for such a reasonable price?" Had to buy and I don't regret it.

Agreed, among the best $3 I've ever spent.

 

[ArtOfWarfare]

Has this writer ever read the writing style of MR? (he also wrote this post - https://www.macrumors.com/2011/06/06/verizon-iphone-owners-left-out-of-icloud-fun-for-now/) I don't visit Gizmodo because I don't like their writing style, but this is about the same.

I don't wasn't to just slam Jordan for having some personality in his writing, but I agree with you and others that his writing style isn't complementing* that of the rest of MacRumors.

*can't think of the word I want... Means something to the extent of "doesn't line up with" and his lack of it should be a serious negative.

 

[42streetsdown]

$10 million!? holy crap, i need to change my career. how many devs does epic have? each of them must have gotten a sizable cut of this. wow

 

[mw360]

Does anyone know how much Nintendo, MSFT, and Sony have collected %-wise for software traditionally?

Try this...
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/entertainmentnewsbuzz/2010/02/anatomy-of-a-60-dollar-video-game.html

Short answer, for a boxed game the publisher gets less than half, and they'll take a big slice before passing that on to the developer. 70% direct to the developer is a very good deal.

For Indie games on XBox Live MS takes 30%.

 

[TurboTalon]

So about the 14/4/10/1000 dollars thing. I'm not familiar with the iTunes store accounting principles but are we assuming that when EPIC reports revenue (note they didn't say profit) from the sales of the app it's after Apple takes it cut?

So Apple cut them a check? It seems to me that the revenue would go directly to the developer and then they'd send Apple a check for what they owed.

 

[designedbyapple]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_2_1 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/533.17.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.0.2 Mobile/8C148 Safari/6533.18.5)

I have to agree with swb1192, artofwarfare and others - I don't like jordan's style of writing. I don't want to just slam them for it either but it is not the sort of writing that I come to macrumors for. I don't want to make them write in a style that doesn't suit who they are but I'm afraid that if they do continue to write in this style I'll just avoid reading their pieces.

 

[psonice]

So about the 14/4/10/1000 dollars thing. I'm not familiar with the iTunes store accounting principles but are we assuming that when EPIC reports revenue (note they didn't say profit) from the sales of the app it's after Apple takes it cut?

So Apple cut them a check? It seems to me that the revenue would go directly to the developer and then they'd send Apple a check for what they owed.

Apple pay devs the amount AFTER they've taken their 30% cut (and any local sales tax, which is paid by the 'store' rather than the 'manufacturer' so to speak).

That makes it much simpler than having the dev receive the lot, then calculate how much he owes to Apple, the tax man in whatever country the apps were sold, and his own local tax man for his income. And honestly, it's already complicated enough

 

[psonice]

$10 million!? holy crap, i need to change my career. how many devs does epic have? each of them must have gotten a sizable cut of this. wow

The profit isn't just split between the devs. How many companies do you know who just split their yearly profit between their employees? They'll be paid a salary like everyone else, the directors will take a cut of the actual profit, and a lot of the rest will fund new projects (and probably other projects that didn't do so well). That said, they'll probably get a decent bonus

 

[staypuffinpc]

watch the credits

$10 million!? holy crap, i need to change my career. how many devs does epic have? each of them must have gotten a sizable cut of this. wow

If you're curious as to the manpower behind the game, just watch the credits at the end of the game. It's a sizable number of folks. I know one of the directors and I've always been amazed at the amount of manpower that goes into games like these. He's an incredible artist and basically started his career drawing rocks for background art. He's an even more amazing artist now, but the point is that there is a lot of $$ in gaming and they employ people with killer skills and they are well payed, even if all they do is draw rocks or other seemingly less-important elements of the game. The engineering in this game obviously speaks to some killer talent, too.

So, I'm not sure how much $$ they needed to make to consider it a success, but I'm guessing it's several million anyway. My curiosity is how much of that moolah comes from people buying gold in-game. That has real implications for other developers.

 

[mlmwalt]

If you're curious as to the manpower behind the game, just watch the credits at the end of the game. It's a sizable number of folks. I know one of the directors and I've always been amazed at the amount of manpower that goes into games like these. He's an incredible artist and basically started his career drawing rocks for background art. He's an even more amazing artist now, but the point is that there is a lot of $$ in gaming and they employ people with killer skills and they are well payed, even if all they do is draw rocks or other seemingly less-important elements of the game. The engineering in this game obviously speaks to some killer talent, too.

So, I'm not sure how much $$ they needed to make to consider it a success, but I'm guessing it's several million anyway. My curiosity is how much of that moolah comes from people buying gold in-game. That has real implications for other developers.

Spot on, regarding the manpower in the credits. The engineering in this game is next level.

I'd be curious to see how well they do with the in-game purchase of gold. I noticed that on the app store the other day. I couldn't believe people would actually do it. I'm having fun getting my gold the old fashioned way.

This is one game that is definitely worth whatever you paid for it, whether on sale or full price.