It’s been just over a month since Double Stallion’s Big Action Mega Fight! ($2.99), or BAMF! for short, switched from being a free to play game and rejiggered itself to be a pay-once game with no in-app purchases. According to a recent interview with Pocketgamer, it looks like that decision is working out for the best. BAMF!‘s designer Nicolas Barrière-Kucharski tells Pocketgamer “On a business level, during our $1.99 launch week June 25th to July 1st, revenue from the premium version of game across all versions surpassed lifetime revenue up to that point." That means in that in just that first week after switching to a paid game, BAMF! made more money than it had in the six months it existed as a free to play title. That’s quite a turnaround.
Beyond the monetary benefits of the switch, Double Stallion was also happy to reconfigure their game into something that their players can more easily enjoy. “It felt wonderfully cathartic to remove BAMF! features that conflicted between our design intent for the game and the ongoing concern for our company’s sustainability," Barrière-Kucharski says. “We removed features such as premium currencies, ads, push notifications, scheduled rewards and more. We rebalanced the entire game, polishing gameplay, adding new content like cutscenes, controller support."
Indeed, the nature of an arcade beat ’em up like BAMF! always felt like it was at odds with a free to play model. It’s just not the type of genre that will break through into the mainstream and get the kinds of massive download numbers that free to play games need to be profitable. At the same time, the audience that likes old-school inspired beat ’em ups and would be willing to pay for them (like me!) felt alienated by the stingy free to play model that the launch version of BAMF! utilized. With the newly-rebalanced version, it’s like night and day how much more I’m enjoying Big Action Mega Fight!
For more on Double Stallion’s thoughts on the BAMF! switch and their future projects, check out the full interview below. And if you like arcade beat ’em ups, definitely check out Big Action Mega Fight! It’s like a love letter to the genre with its charming visuals, tons of humor, and slick gesture-based controls, and can be bought for $2.99 with no IAP.
