After struggling to make a profit with sales on iOS, the eccentric and endless arcade-brawler Punch Quest has launched on Android. The game saw over a half-million downloads within a week of its release last October — but despite the addictive hit that developer Rocketcat Games had on its hands, the studio said that it wasn’t making any money off of the in-app purchases that supported the free-to-play title. The company ultimately began charging $0.99 for the game, and since then has frequently tweaked the price of in-game items to encourage users to splurge on real-money purchases that help them more quickly accrue fun or useful upgrades.
Indie iOS darling ‘Punch Quest’ finally lands on Android
is The Verge’s executive editor. He has covered tech, policy, and online creators for over a decade.
Punch Quest for Android is selling for $0.99 and includes just about everything in the iOS version, including tablet support and plenty of optional purchases to further back the title. Rocketcat didn’t develop the Android version itself, however — it brought in Noodlecake Studios, which made the popular Super Stickman Golf 2. Of course, Rocketcat may still have problems to face as it changes platforms: there have been reports of high piracy rates for Android games, and as it discovered in the first place, focusing on in-app purchases as a business model simply may not be viable for every studio.
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