Company: Apalon
Location: Minsk, Belarus
Notable apps: Eye Illusions (99 cents), Dream Home ($1.99), 100 Nazi Scalps (99 cents), Drunk Sniper (99 cents)
Platforms: iPhone, iPad, Android
Specialty genres: Entertainment and games
Company size: 80 employees
Short description of company: Apalon is a leading mobile and game development studio that delivered numerous successful iPhone titles. Founded as a mobile development and game development arm of the established and experienced software development vendor MoveYourWeb, Apalon uses advantages and knowledge of a solid technology company while maintaining the culture of a small boutique.
How did you and your firm get into the iPhone game development business?
We have been in software development and consulting business for about 10 years. When iPhone platform emerged we saw that opportunity and our existing clients from software development business started calling us with requests to make first iPhone apps. From there we expanded the whole iPhone development and iPhone marketing departments and that has been very exciting down the road.
In your opinion, how has the iPhone and Apple’s iTunes App Store changed the gaming industry?
Gaming market is becoming more casual. Similar what is happening on the web where companies like Zynga feed games that you can play 5 minutes per day and involve audiences that never played games before. You can see lots of simple but addictive gaming titles on iPhone. Your Mom might be playing one of these.
Describe the differences between developing games for the iPhone and the iPad.
More screen real estate and different handling habits of the device require adjustments. iPad provides great possibilities for increased user involvement and is more solid gaming platform in general in comparison to iPhone.
What factors go into how you ultimately price your games?
With strategic offshore office locations we are able to keep our production costs relatively low. Plus you can imagine our company as something in between indie development studio and solid established game development house. So far we price the majority of our apps at $0.99. Some of the projects require ongoing attention and we compensate that additional costs by introducing $1.99 pricing. You need to make sure that the app is able to keep ranking well with increased pricing. The perfect time to increase the pricing is while being Featured. We noticed that many apps are able to climb the rankings even with increased pricing while being featured.
Describe what your dream game for the iPhone would look like.
It will have iPad specific controls (not just traditional joystick scheme), have amazing graphics that looks beautiful on iPad screen, have social elements and be addictive and engaging. It should feel great in the hands just like iPad does.
