Introduction

Everyone wants to be a game developer. Why not? Video games are great! They’re certainly better than some artificially manufactured blockbuster or rubbish found on primetime TV. Bazinga! However, it seems many who enter the game development field learn to use video games as just a means to a quick buck with this being no more apparent than in the App Store.

When you visit the app store today, all the top apps are either candy crush clones, drivel hidden behind a $20 gem paywall or artificial products created by major corporate publishers. Yet not that long ago, indie apps such as Temple Run and Jetpack Joyride were on everyone’s minds. Independent developers had become the pioneers of a new gaming industry, before evolved into an all-too-familiar cesspool of greed. At the forefront of this early movement was a company called Nimblebit, co-founded by Ian and David Marsh. Their journey through the app store’s early days serve as a reminder of what could’ve been (and what might still be). With game-breaking microtransactions and loot boxes becoming a regular occurrence in not only apps, but now triple A games, COUGH COUGH, Nimblebit’s story explains how this trend has transformed over the past decade.

Before Nimblebit: BeforeBit

As the 20th century drew its last breath, a fledgling mod was released for the extremely popular Valve game Half Life. This mod was Counter Strike. The mod gained traction and before long, the CS modders were receiving ‘about 100 maps per week.’ One of these map creators was an unknown high school student who went by the name of Zaphod Beebblebrox - his most notable submission being Estate. Just over a year after Counter Strike’s initial release, Zaphod left the modding and high school world to enter the working world as game designer David Marsh from San Diego

David cut the crap with university and instantly started work by creating levels for the classic game, Vampire the Masquerade: Bloodlines

Only watch if you’re interested, nothing related to David.

Okay, so maybe it wasn’t that popular, but it had a positive reception nonetheless. David looks back on this part of his life as

‘an incredible learning experience that taught me a lot about how game development works, as well as the game industry in general.’

Meanwhile, Ian began his work in the industry at a pre-smartphone app developer. Soon, both Ian and Dave found themselves working at failing companies, forcing them to look for greener pastures. After years of working on big-budget projects that could make or break the company ‘illuminated all the shortcomings of the [AAA] industry.’ Fed up with corporate development, the twin brothers agreed to team up and await for the right opportunity. It turned out the opportunity would come sooner than expected.

Conception

When the App Store was released back in July 10th 2008, they announced that third-party apps would receive an income stream equal to 70% of the apps downloads. This generous revenue supply, along with the easily accessible SDK programming software, enticed many developers to immediately set out on exploring the open frontier of app development. No longer would ‘games’ like Snake and Tetris be associated with mobile gaming, but instead more complex apps such as Doodle Jump and Paper Toss — relatively complex — Overall, the app store was pre’ good.

Remember Ian Marsh? Of course you don’t, he’s been leading a pretty boring life up to now. However, while still working at his comfy 9-5 job, Ian coded up a quick little puzzle game called Hanoi to learn iPhone development.

‘Soon after the App Store launched I was approved as a developer and I threw it up on the App Store in the hopes a few people would download it. After a few days it ended up at #1 free, and after quickly releasing a "plus" version for 99c the App Store began paying more than my day job. I gave my two weeks notice and never looked back, probably the best professional decision I've ever made!’

The Marsh brothers would go on to found Nimblebit LLC later that year and began full-time work in the wild west of app development. Keep in mind back then that their competition was, for lack of a better word, limited. If you don’t believe me, here’s the app Ian made that reached the #1 spot:

Riveting stuff…

After spending years stuck in jobs that relied on the success of a single game, the idea of developing an app a month in a stress-free environment with a much heavier pay-off sounded extremely appealing to the San Diego brothers. Thus marks the beginning of Nimblebit’s tale and only after 5 minutes of backstory.

Goddammit.

Early Games

In the beginning, there was man. Then God said, let there be IAN! And all was good.

The first few apps published under Nimblebit were only made by Ian and not both brothers. CGP Grey Cast. After some moderate success of the thrilling Hanoi, Ian released his next game, Scoops. A simple idea really, you just tilt the phone to catch the ice cream scoops a- WAIT A MINUTE! THAT’S THE NAME OF THE GAME. Unfortunately, the game opened in September to disappointing sales. With this in mind, Ian decided to expose the game to a wider audience by making it free for two days and… UH OH! Here comes the money! As the year crawled into 2009, Scoops continued gathering revenue. By the start of 2010, Scoops had made $270,000 at a return of $1687 per man hour! WHAT THE F- It became pretty clear rather fast that free games got more people. Who’da thunk?

By now, the sky was the limit. Actually, space was the limit. GET IT? (Bojack gag) Ian decided to move on to develop his brightest idea, Textropolis, which he released at the start of 2009 while Scoops was still hot. Funnily enough, not many people enjoy word games, resulting in Textropolis being pretty niche though still having respectable returns. At this point, David was like ‘Alright, I dig this Nimblebit thing, so I might as well do the art design. Like, whatever man…’ The next games Nimblebit made was Kyper but Nimblebit acts as if it didn’t happen so neither will I, since I can’t be bothered. They went on to release Sky Burger in April and it did… well — although not achieving the same numbers as Scoops. But nothing to fear because- Wait, what? OMG! It’s the original Flappy Bird except the bird doesn’t look like a gynaecologist’s working area. That’s how you say vagina without getting in trouble, kids. Anyway, the brothers would look back at this app regretfully because ‘games of this calibre detract from the overall image of the NimbleBit brand.’

In July, Moon Dump came out and its sales were abysmal. The game, which both Ian and Dave had high expectations for due to its exciting mechanics, would become their biggest flop, giving back only $56 per working hour. You know, this is getting boring. In 2010, they released more games like Dizzypad, Mega Panda (I thought they were already mega enough), Omium and a PC Game called Zero Gear. Wait a second, that’s Rocket League. First it was Flappy Bird and now this? If there’s one thing to note this years, it’s this: The Marsh brothers simply wouldn’t give up. They had a dream of running a gaming studio and goddammit, they would fight until the bitter end to get it. This stubborn persistence led to some notable improvement, especially how David had refined his cutesy art style.

Still, Nimblebit had reached a point of stagnation. Their games were doing alright, but certainly not great. It was time to find a new strategy. One that would set them apart from the 400,000 other apps. Ian and David decided to risk a leap of faith many developers wouldn’t even dare try. Nimblebit was about to enter the free-to-play market.

“At face value, I guess stacking ice cream or burgers up into the sky sounds like more fun to more people than spelling words, or landing lunar pods.”

Pocket Frogs/Free-to-Play

Today, everyone wanting to release a game on the App Store is practically required to have it available for free and make money from in-app purchases, but this wasn’t always the case.

Before the middle of 2009, the only way to earn money was through paid apps. Want to appeal to a wider audience? Sorry bud, but the only way is to cut your losses and hope the spreadsheets don’t dive too far into the red. Then Ios 3 rolled around. A vital component of the app store had just been released. In. App. Purchases. These allowed you to charge any amount of money within a game for whatever reason!

Many developers were sceptical about these in-app purchases, debating the ethical practices of the new feature. Ian & Dave however, were opportunists and they weren’t about to let this potential idea go unseized. By 2010, the San Diego pair had noticed that - although they were achieving respectable success with their paid apps - whenever Scoops was available for free weekends, a huge boost in players naturally flowed in, many of these later buying other Nimblebit games. So, they tried a revolutionary idea, for the time at least. Make a game completely free and profit solely from in-app purchases.

Following the release of Pocket Frogs in September 2010, the Nimblebit twins were certain they made the right choice. It had achieved a million downloads in only 2 weeks. Facebook took 9 months! To fully understand the scope of the freemium model’s potential, we have to analyse the number!

Pocket Frogs had three separate in-game currency packs, 10 potions for $0.99, 100 for 4.99 and 1000 for 29.99, whose volumes were sold in 50%, 42% and 8%, respectively.

Graphs are awesome.

Nothing too extraordinary, just casual players purchasing what they find valuable. Basic economics really. It doesn’t get interesting until you look at the proportions in revenue. Remember how one out of every two in-game purchases was the 99 cent pack? Well, it took Nimblebit home only 9% of the revenue. The 4.99 option took the same proportion in both volume and revenue, 42% and finally, the intimidating $29.99 option, with a mere 8% in total volume, received a mind-boggling 49% of the revenue. Had Nimblebit followed the norms of 99 cent app pricing, they would’ve completed ignored these whales, making only a fraction of what they did as a freemium game*. Oh how, much did they end up making, you ask? Well, after some rough calculations, about 3 MILLION DOLLERIDOOS. Now, Nimblebit could’ve stopped here. 3 million is already a lot, but no, they kept on pushing the limit to see how far they could go, and as it turns out, they were travelling near the speed of light.

*Nimblebit probably would’ve made even less than 9% of what they have because, as mentioned before, premium games have a restricted player base due their initial paywall, unlike freemium games which are FREEEEE!

Tiny Tower (Dum dum dum dum dum)

This is it: Tiny Tower. Don’t let its cute look fool you, Tiny Tower is the game to end all games. The ultimate form of entertainment. The peak of civilisation. 3.5 billion years all leading up to this. Okay, so maybe it wasn’t that important, but it was hot shit when it came out, reaching a million downloads in only four days! Sure, Nimblebit had achieved success before, but this? This was a whole different animal. They had sweeped the world. So, what made the game reach such a high status? Simple, it was a fun game that came for free. NO WAY!! Yes way. We’ve already covered why the ‘free’ part is effective, so I guess it’s time to talk about the actual game. Urgh.

‘It really worked out one of us got the right brain and one of us got the left brain.’

Had it not been for Ian’s intelligent design and David’s clever art, Tiny Tower would’ve been left in the dust.

First, this game’s amazing design comes from ‘KISS, Keep it Simple Stupid!’ Everything is laid out for the player’s convenience by using as few words as possible. So, the opposite of this video. Floor needs to be stocked? Here’s a colourful picture of an opened box. Someone’s in the elevator, here are some up and down arrows. Everything that isn’t essential to the gameplay is put on the menu, which is just as well-made, if not more so.

Stocking floors? Manually operating elevators? Maximising profits? This game sounds boring as hell! You’d think that, but, Nimblebit has studied emotional manipulation down to the T. Tiny Tower is an immensely satisfying game. Watching the tower grow feels like a personal achievement because it’s your tower. You stocked those floors. You collected the rent. You played the game and now look at where it is, and don’t forget, it’ll only go up from here. The player is given a wide variety of choices yet they’re still limited enough to leave him or her hungry for more. Not to mention that dopamine inducing *ding* you receive every time a floor is stocked. Come to think of it, let’s mention that.

This game is undeniably cute. The retro graphics, the oversized heads, the way they walk! Awwwww, look at those feet, I wanna eat you up. Look behind this adorableness and you’ll find an art style that helps Tiny Tower stand out from the crowd.

Scan through apps today and you’ll find all of these generic games that have no flair, no substance to them. You can’t look at a few images of these products and understand the gameplay mechanics. Instead, it’s their art that leaves the impression on you, and for most, there’s not much to see. Well, David Marsh came on and was like ‘SCREW THIS! I’M MAKING BITIZENS!’ These little dues are freaking adorable and there’s no way you can’t enjoy watching them. Adding on this is the original soundtrack, with its jazz-like elements that perfectly places you in the tower’s relaxed atmosphere. There’s no rush here. No enemies to kill or objectives to achieve. It’s just you, your tower and the sky. Tiny Tower’s unified aesthetic as well as its killer game design are the foundation for iPhone’s 2011 game of the year!

Frequency of Google searches for ‘Tiny Tower.’

Something is off. When you look at this graph, something becomes abundantly obvious, Tiny Tower wouldn’t reach their popularity until 6 months after Tiny Tower’s release. Had Nimblebit released a game? No, and they wouldn’t for another 6 months. Then what gives. Well, as it turns out, a monster had been brewing behind the scenes that would finally be released in the closing days of January 2012.

Zynga Pops in for the Kill

As February approached in 2012, Ian and David Marsh were notified of an article from games.com about Zynga’s new release, Dream Heights. There was something awfully suspicious about the game. Oh wait, now I remember! THE GAME WAS A BLATANT RIP OFF OF TINY TOWER! Now, the Marsh brothers could’ve let it slide considering the monstrous size of Zynga in comparison to their ‘company.’

The difference isn’t even debatable.

However, Ian & David took to Twitter and posted this infographic on January 25th, 2011.

Nimblebit became that week’s big thing in the gaming world with devs and journalists, both big and small, commended the San Diego pair for their ballsy move. It was refreshing to see a small indie company attempting to create original games confronting a – well I wouldn’t consider them a gaming company – product pusher. Nimblebit wouldn’t pursue a case however, because as Ian said, ‘The last thing I personally want to do is take away resources from developing new and original games to chase down those who can't.’ Burn. Thanks to this confrontation pushed by Nimblebit, Zynga became much more well-known as a copycat company rather than the creator of games such as Farmville. Thanks bro...s.

Nimblebit had reached the peak of their relevance. But if there’s one thing to know about peaks is that there’s only one way to go: Down.

The Fall of Nimblebit

Unfortunately for Nimblebit, their reign wouldn’t last. As much as their hard work paid off, lots of their success can also be attributed to the nimble size of the App store back then, and this is no surprising revelation. They have both stated on separate occasions that the market has become too saturated to even reach a fraction of Tiny Tower’s popularity.

In June 2012, Nimblebit had released their new game, Pocket Planes, borrowing heavily from Tiny Tower’s art style. The game only achieved moderate earnings despite positive reviews due to planes being a niche topic, this being the same problem for Moon Jump, as well as its lack of atmosphere, which pushed away the casual audience Tiny Tower had invited. While Tiny Tower welcomed you with a colourful logo and cheery music, Pocket Planes displayed a cold logo with a lonely plane taking off. I personally prefer Pocket Planes, but I’m in the minority. Fortunately, and especially, considering how the app market was developing, microtransactions never got in the way of gameplay. That was until Pocket Trains rolled into the station.

By the time of Pocket Train’s release in late 2013, Nimblebit had released other games, but Pocket Trains was going to be their big break. Unfortunately, it sold even less than the previous two games, achieving only a quarter of Pocket Planes’ fame and an eighth of Tiny Tower’s. Why? By now, Nimblebit had fallen into the trap that many developers feared about in-app purchases. They got just a little too greedy.

I’m not alone when I say the game isn’t fun. Not even a month after its release, and Pocket Trains had already become the least popular of Nimblebit’s big three. How come? Typically when making a game, Ian and David Marsh emphasised that it was ‘the result of designing fun experiences, before even considering how they will be monetized,’ only for this principle to be chucked out the window during Pocket Trains’ development/

First off, there was a very limited amount of choice, a key attribute to both other games. In Tiny Tower, you were able to choose what type of floor to build, what bitizens to keep and which items to stock. In Pocket Planes, you choose the starting location, whether it be Asia, Europe or if you want to get clinical depression, Australia. From there you choose the planes to fly, cities to build then routes to take. It’s a much more idle experience in Pocket Trains, where the game holds your hand simply to slow you down. You’re forced to begin in Europe, although this isn’t that big of a deal. However, you can’t choose which trains to build as they are randomly selected by crates. You can’t build any cities unless they’re connected to another line, which adds unnecessary complexity. The main gameplay aspect, choosing the routes is completely cut from the game because you must follow a pre-designated path. Every. Single. Time. Not to mention the fuel. Speaking of which: The fuel.

“Hey guys, remember how Candy Crush made itself exclusive? Let’s do that with Pocket Trains.’ Nimblebit implemented a mechanic where a train would slowly lose fuel over time, and because of this, it’ll lose the capacity to run and must sit in a station for roughly half an hour. Just waiting and waitng… Yup, you heard me correctly. The game PUNISHES you for playing. WHY?! Oh right, because of the holy grail itself, bux. Nimblebit, the guys who would constantly remind us about the advantage of freemium games by putting fun parts first inevitably gave in to the temptation of that sweet, sweet green. Of course, there is another way to refuel the train with no gruelling waits. Just pay real-life money! Now, of course they need to make a profit – they are a business after all - but in the previous games, paying for bux was to access more of the game, not to access the game itself. David puts it best: ‘I think [our success] is the result of designing fun experiences, before even considering how they will be monetized.’ Pocket Trains grew up in a corrupted household surrounded by a bad neighbourhood, no wonder it didn’t succeed.

Conclusion

Nimblebit has faded into relative obscurity today. When they initially joined, Ian and David were pumping a game out every 2-3 months, but as the years dragged on, their output slowed down further and further. We’re nearly three quarters of the way through 2018 and they still haven’t released a title this year. As much as I rant about them, I still feel a sense of hope that one day they’ll come back. One day, they’ll release a game that’ll blow everyone’s minds, just like 6 years ago, proving that mobile games can still be enjoyable experiences created by talented people. Even with the advent of Pocket Trains, the brothers over at Nimblebit still strive to make original titles, so surely, they can do it again. Or maybe I’m just being nostalgic for a time that never was. Nimblebit didn’t leave much of a legacy, or did they? You decide.