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.
Liking it so far!
Make it universal so I can play on my iPhone too and I'm in. I'm sick of the iPad only games that don't appear to really need to be iPad only. I mean, if you can do XCOM on iPhone there's no reason Frozen Synapse must be iPad only. Likewise, Warhammer is just fine on the iPhone, so why not this?
Isn't frozen synapse getting a universal update soon?
Frozen Synapse's current UI doesn't scale down very well. On my Nexus 7 it's playable, but there are a lot of little buttons. Easy to miss-tap, and it's not nearly as pleasant to control as the PC version. I can't imagine the game working well on a phone without some major UI revamping.
Hah! I worked with the producer of the original pc game back in the day.
Buying now YEEEEEEEEESSSSSSS.
Eli did u pick this up?
Downloading just now. i am looking forward to play this. I like boardgame though I never played it.;)
This is a very difficult game
So. Freaking. Excited.
Looks kind of cool. I'll wait for a review, but am favorably inclined.
This is a totally reasonable comment. You must be new at this.
After thousands of comments on right wing rags, I take some pride in being reasonable and milquetoast.
Bought it as soon as I spotted it. A few matches and half a tournament in I'm very pleased. There's no way you'd be able to scale this down to an iPhone screen though - it's hard to read most of the text, and tapping on the right squares requires some careful attention on an iPad Air!
It's a direct port of the PC game and as such games are relatively slow paced; not a pick up and play game. You have to strategise and keep an eye on your players throughout a tournament. You also have to remember to save the game (I'm used to iOS games auto saving my progress nowadays).
My only real complaint is the iap - the game only comes with orcs and humans, all other races are a £1.99 each extra. Seems expensive if you want to buy them all (£4.99 + 3x£1.99 at launch).
Great game but I can't help but wish for a dedicated iOS game based on this classic board game.
That sucks making you pay over $6 and then having iap of stuff that should be in the game anyway. I was excited for this but now I've waied this long I can wait until it goes on sale. Making ppl pay for the download then make them pay for content that should be in anyway is worse than those so called free games.
P.s. Just checked prices for me that want $6:49 then $3:79 for each extra characters. No way in hell will I be paying this.
It's totally reasonable. It's a 20 dollar game, and you can buy it for 5 bucks. The IAPs aren't dumb extras, they're races that are completely optional and by doing it this way, you can own it for less without the things you'll never use (IE - I know I have no interest in playing certain races so I never bought them and saved cash).
Yeah changed my mind i gave in and brought it and all the iap.
Just another example of how AI always has all the luck in the world when it most need it.