140,000 sales of Whale Trail = whale fail.
ustwo is one of the more colourful developers in the space, thanks mostly to its hyperactive founder and chief 'wonka' Millsy
He's been relentless in promoting the London firm's first premium game, Whale Trail, which has received good reviews and been made Game of the Week' in 78 countries.
But now he's told PocketGamer.biz that he's close to throwing in the towel.
His disclosure isn a stark reminder of just what's needed to make money in mobile gaming.
He has always said that the game, which cost around £250,000 to develop, needs to sell 300,000 to return the investment.
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So far it's done 140,000 and there's a premium Android version still to come.
Millsy said: "When we launched Whale Trail over two months ago on iOS, our intentions were for it to succeed and soar up the charts as an affordable premium game.
"We had invested a lot of money making and marketing a game for the masses and it failed to reach the masses. Although we're still getting around 500-700 downloads a day on iOS, we quite rightly feel it's not enough for a game of such quality. So our conclusion is that we were wrong to go premium."
He's being very dramatic, as he always is. But there is one last hope of a reprieve for the model – and that's a big success on Android, with the target being 45,000 in the first few months.
"I'm praying that I'm wrong and Whale Trail is a hit on Android. But, we've been here numerous times before. The likelihood is this will be the final ustwo nail in the premium games coffin.
"We've invested premium bucks and want nothing less than a premium finish."
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