Infinity Blade Two Brothers Made $20 Million From One Mobile Game

Infinity Blade Two Brothers Made $20 Million From One Mobile Game











Infinity Bladeis my favorite mobile game. I paid about six times more for it than I have any other iPhone or iPad app, and instantly knew it was worth it. It’s not likeAngry Birds,
another favorite of mine, which requires a bit of analytical thought to
figure out the fewest birds necessary for maximum destruction.Infinity Blade, made
by Chair Entertainment, is about action, survival—and a quest. It’s
the game I play the most on any iOS device, so I was thrilled when I got
the chance to preview the sequel: Infinity Blade 2. If
you read my hands-on report, you know it’s fun and visually stunning.
Since I already have so much time invested in the game, I wanted to
spend some time with the brains behind the blade. Donald Mustard and
his brother Geremy founded Chair Entertainment in 2005. They were busy
building console games such asShadow Complexwhen Epic, maker of blockbuster gamesGears of WarandUnreal Tournamentsnapped them up in 2008. By 2010, Chair had launchedInfinity Blade,
its first iOS game. Built atop Epic’s Unreal Engine 3, it set a new
benchmark for mobile gaming visuals, and has subsequently made more than
$20 million in sales. Clearly, the Mustard boys are
onto something, as more than a few people share my addiction to the
sword-wielding, armor-wearing, spell-casting heroes. (Epic’sInfinity Bladeforum has thousands of posts. I chatted with the Mustard brothers
about the game, their relationship with Apple, and what’s
next.Developing for the iPhone 4S and iOS 5Apple invited the Mustard
brothers to its Cupertino campus just two weeks before
the iPhone 4S launch in October, though this didn’t seem to bother them.
“We try and make good guesses as to where hardware is going. We had our
fingers crossed that there would be something like the iPhone 4S where
we can push things further. Luckily Apple delivered,” said Donald.
Jeremy said the company understands Apple product timelines pretty well,
so they were already developing an app that would work with what they
expected to be an iPhone 4 upgrade. Chair’s bet paid off.

The pair are excited about the potential of iOS 5, especially
incremental updates. “[It’s] huge,” said Donald, “because we love being
able to update our games.” Chair is constantly refining their games —
but with previous iOS versions,Infinity Bladeplayers had to
download a huge update for each tweak. With incremental updates, they
can download a 50 MB (or smaller) file, as opposed to one hundreds of megabytes in size.iPhone 5?So
the Mustards were prepared for iPhone 4S, but what about iPhone 5? Did
they see it? Did they ask? Said Geremy: “We certainly asked. We get coy
smiles and tight lips…they don’t tell us anything. I’m sure there will
be an iPhone 5 at some point, but we don’t know anything about it.” He
paused and laughed: “I bet it’s at least as fast as the iPhone
4s.”What’s Inside Infinity Blade 2is a powerful game, but it’s
also a scalable one. The Chair teams designed it to scale down so it
could run on the iPhone 3GS and iPad 1. On those devices, players simply
see less detail. But on the iPhone 4S and iPad 2,Infinity Blade 2will
“use up all the power that is available on these higher-end systems.”
To build Infinity Blade 2, the Mustards eschewed more complex game
geometry and focused on character shadows and light rays — effects
typically found on console games. Epic added these capabilities to the
engine and debuted them inGears of War 3on the Xbox 360. That
was only a few months ago. “Now it’s on the iPhone 4S,” said Geremy. “We
made the game, and I still can’t believe it’s running on a phone that I
carry in my pocket.”Where are the Android Apps?As I was testingInfinity Blade 2,
I kept wondering how it would run on an Android “super phone” such as
the Motorola Photon 4G, which packs a graphics-friendly NVidia Tegra 2
chip. Unfortunately,Infinity Bladeisn’t in the Android Market —
and it doesn’t sound like it’s coming any time soon. There is nothing
technically preventing the brothers from bringing Infinity Blade to
Android right now. Instead, they’re hesitating because of piracy
concerns. According to a number of online reports, there’s enough of a
piracy issue in Android marketplace that many developers find it
necessary to build in antipiracy measures, which in turn dampens sales.
“We’re confident that will be worked out and it will become a viable
place for game developers, but that hasn’t happened yet,” said Donald.
“So it’s not the tech, it’s the business platform.”What Steve SaidDonald
Mustard met the late Steve Jobs when the Apple founder unveiled Chair
and Epic’s game, then called “Project Blade,” at a September 2010 Apple
event. Jobs was impressed with the game: “I can’t believe that’s running
on an iPhone,” he reportedly said. Jobs also once joked about Donald’s
last name, saying “Your name is really ‘Mustard’? I won’t forget that
name.”What’s NextWhat comes afterInfinity Blade 2? The brothers
aren’t quite ready to go there yet. “We’ve been working 24 hours a
day,” said Donald. “Working like crazy to get this game finished.” They
are, however, excited about some of the features that should arrive
after the December 1 launch, including “Clash Mob” — which Donald says
should change the way we look at “asynchronous social
collaboration.”Building A Successful AppThere are a lot of successful
apps in the App Store. But with 800,000 of them available, there are
also thousands of flops. What does it take to make a game app that can
drive $20 million in sales? Donald offered this advice to would be app
developers: “Create a game that is unique to iOS — something that
utilizes the touch screen in a cool and innovative new way. Our iOS
mantra at Chair is that ‘if the game would be fun with a controller, you
are not making the right game.’ Gamers want a fun, original experience
on their iOS devices — not a port of their favorite console game.”


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