Wednesday, April 29, 2009

Flight Control Sales Numbers

When we launched Flight Control on 6 March 2009, we made a committment to share our sales numbers with the game development community. At the time we had no idea that Flight Control would reach the #1 paid app position in so many different countries, and just how interesting these numbers would be!

Continue reading on our new blog...

Firemint Real Racing launch delayed

We previously announced that Firemint Real Racing would be available by the end of April. Until a few days ago, we had still hoped we could hit that date, but now it's time to recognise that we won't, and give you an update while we still have a little time left in the month.

Why is it delayed?

There are actually numerous reasons, none of them are due to us not wanting to get the game out. The primary reason is that we are not 100% happy with it yet. Every time we evaluate a version of the game that we think might be "the one", we find something that we think is important to improve.

What does this mean for Firemint?

Every day that we delay the release of Firemint Real Racing we spend more money and resources on it (we believe it is the biggest development budget ever for an iPhone game). At the same time we reduce our potential sales. In addition to that we let down people who were expecting the game to be out late April. The temptation to just release it is enormous.

The only way to "win" from delaying a release is to make sure the game is so good that people don't care in the end, and all is forgiven. That remains our focus.

So when will it come out?

There is tremendous pressure on us from many directions to state a release date. All we will say is that this game looks finished, it has looked finished for quite some time. It feels very close now. PreviewsIt’s not the same as shipping the game, but until you can get your hands on Firemint Real Racing, we’ve put together a collection of previews from industry experts who played the game at GDC (21-27 March 2009):

  • Chris Holt, Macworld: "the 3-D graphics are some of the best I’ve seen on the iPhone" (Macworld Preview)

  • Tracy Erickson, Pocket Gamer: "potential to become the portable counterpoint to PlayStation's Gran Turismo" (Pocket Gamer preview)

  • Levi Buchanan, IGN: "incredibly smooth visuals" (IGN Preview)

  • Russ Fruhstick, UGO: "the best looking racing game on the iPhone by a large margin" (UGO Preview)

  • Steve Palley, Slide to Play: "this superlative racer is going to set some new benchmarks for the genre" (Slide to Play Preview)

  • Nacho Andare, iPhoneGamesNetwork: "It looks better than any PSP racing game I have played." (iPhoneGamesNetwork Preview)

  • Dale North, Destructoid: "This seems like a real game on a mobile device -- something we can sink our teeth into." (Destructoid Preview)

Firemint Real Racing (video and more preview quotes)