Chair's Donald Mustard proposes changes to App Store charts

Chair’s epic adventure Infinity Blade has done rather well for itself on iPhone, clearing $3 million faster than any previous game in App Store history and finishing third on Qi’s critical rundown of 2010.

In fact, according to Epic’s CEO Mark Rein, this looping tale of a vengeful bloodline has outperformed XBLA stablemate Shadow Complex at the tills.

But, for others to follow in Infinity Blade’s footsteps and taste success with big budget, big ambition titles, Apple may need to tweak the layout of its online Store to encourage the grander development ideas.

Or, at least, that’s the opinion of Chair’s CEO Donald Mustard and his brother Geremy, who in an interview with GamesIndustry.biz at GDC expanded on this view.

"The first thing that people see is the top apps, and those are all by numbers so, yeah, if you're a 99 cent game then you're going to have a lot more numbers than say a $5.99 game. That totally affects the charts. I would love for it to not be that way.

"To create something of the quality of Infinity Blade costs a considerable amount of money. It was almost hard to justify selling it at $5.99, let alone 99 cents."

The proposed solution to these twin dilemmas of visibility and proportionate reward is relatively simple, Geremy Mustard suggests:

"I believe all that Apple has to do is to swap the Top Paid category with the Top Grossing tab, make the Top Grossing tab the first one you see...

"So it really would show the quality games, or the quality apps, versus whatever happens to be the current fad of whatever people are into."

The issue of whether iPhone gamers are willing to pay premium prices for premium efforts in the long-term remains a thorny one, though, since even high profile publishers such as Gameloft, Firemint, and EA Mobile have struggled to maintain sales at the $9.99 price point.

One good piece of news for iOS developers is that Apple’s attitude towards gaming is definitely changing for the better, Donald Mustard continues:

"They're coming to us more for advice about changes to hardware. They're looping the games industry into their thoughts."

[source: GamesIndustry.biz]