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Tiger Style struggling to sell its premium game in a market dominated by free to play

Down came the rain

Tiger Style struggling to sell its premium game in a market dominated by free to play

Tiger Style's iOS game Spider: The Secret of Bryce Manor sold well when it came out as a premium title back in 2009.

But the App Store and the players it serves has changed a lot in those six years since. Tiger Style has learned this all too well after releasing the sequel to Spider this year, Rite of the Shrouded Moon.

In a revealing interview with PocketGamer.biz, Tiger Style laments how selling a premium game on the App Store is now much harder in a market dominated by free to play games.

"[I knew] the biggest companies would come along and colonize the market, establishing the rules about how games make money and locking the rest of us out of the majority of the revenue," says Tiger Style co-founder Randy Smith in the interview.

"While I was participating in this interview, Clash of Clans probably made more money than I'll make in my entire life."

Spider: Rite of the Shrouded Moon

Smith noted that Tiger Style has won awards for its games in the past, has had strong partner support, and for Rite of the Shrouded Moon the studio had a large team of talented collaborators. But none of this seems to have made much difference.

"The amount of attention and praise we've seen from players, critics, and press for Shrouded Moon is even more than our other games (both of which won Game of the Year awards, so that's saying something), but the sales have been very disappointing and even alarming," Smith said.

Tiger Style's co-owner David Kalina brings the disappointing sales figures into sharp focus: "At the moment, our expectation is about 1/3 the return of the original Spider for 5 times the man-hours."

Spider: Rite of the Shrouded Moon

Kalina even jokes that if things don't turn around then Tiger Style's team will have to find jobs elsewhere. Sure, it's a joke now, but the prospects may not be so far off at this rate, it would seem.

You can read the whole interview, which goes into the making of Rite of the Shrouded Moon too, over on PocketGamer.biz.

Chris Priestman
Chris Priestman
Anything eccentric, macabre, or just plain weird, is what Chris is all about. He turns the spotlight on the games that fly under the radar.