I've been a fan of Llamasoft for years. They're an indie shop of two coders, releasing games since the early-1980's. More recently they created Neon, the music light-synth on the Xbox 360, Space Giraffe on XBLA, Gridrunner Revolution on Windows, and are currently making iOS games (GoatUp, Deflex, Minotron: 2112, and Minotaur Rescue).
They were not pleased with XBLA. Their game, Space Giraffe, got hammered by a particularly bad reviewer (employed at the official Xbox Mag, no less). The game is actually quite good, albeit extremely hard, and has been praised by the creator of Braid. Microsoft did't seem to care about them at all (at least that's what I think happened), so they went elsewhere.
What they've done is focused on a niche. Most of Llamasoft's games are mash-ups of games from the 1980's, usually with lots of crazy graphical effects, and lots of goats, sheep, llama's, oxen, and various other beasties. Gameplay design is among the best I've ever experienced in twitch-based games. There's a loyal following of customers who love their games and support them, helping Llamasoft sustain themselves.
They're not super-rich, but have been chugging along for a while. I think they're excited about iOS because they're indie, and it's very easy for them to release games on it. Marketing and getting the word out is definitely their biggest challenge. Currently, it seems their goal is to release a new iOS game every 2-3 months, and build up a catalog of games. Once one of them is a hit, it'll bring in more customers, who will be interested in their back-catelog.
You can always ask them directly about their experiences. They've been on XBLA, Steam, iTunes, and a lot of other platforms in the past. Sign up at www.yakyak.org, and ask Yak or gilesgoat a question.
I apologize for the slightly tangential response but your post merits more than a POU (Plain Old Upvote).
30 years ago a C64 was My First Computer, a birthday present. Llamasoft's Attack of the Mutant Camels was my first game, swiftly followed by the insanely fast Gridrunner.
I cut my teeth on Commodore v2 BASIC and 6502 assembler. I turned down an early teens New Year's party (girls and everything...) to hack on an assembler monitor from Y64 magazine.
And I don't regret it.
Recognizing by chance something better in a local computer store I bought a copy of the Zeus assembler. The proprietor warned me "You know this isn't a game, right?".
I welded dodgy hardware into the underpowered expansion port, using telco engineer Dad's overpowered soldering gear. Despite the cost of the thing, nobody questioned that I might break it. A gift truly given.
I still have my copy of the C64 Programmer's Reference Guide (on the shelf behind me, next to Dad's copy of the KDF9 Algol Reference). I still have the 6502 opcodes in my head (LDA $A9). I'm saddened by the fact that I stupidly gave away my C64 many years ago. I'd love to see again the awful software that I wrote (transliterated from "Numerical Recipes") to help me with my high school physics homework :)
And I'd really like to see some pro code from that time.
> Sign up at www.yakyak.org
Done! Hard to quantify how much effect these guys' work has had on my life but it's certainly non-negligible. Hack on :)
They were not pleased with XBLA. Their game, Space Giraffe, got hammered by a particularly bad reviewer (employed at the official Xbox Mag, no less). The game is actually quite good, albeit extremely hard, and has been praised by the creator of Braid. Microsoft did't seem to care about them at all (at least that's what I think happened), so they went elsewhere.
What they've done is focused on a niche. Most of Llamasoft's games are mash-ups of games from the 1980's, usually with lots of crazy graphical effects, and lots of goats, sheep, llama's, oxen, and various other beasties. Gameplay design is among the best I've ever experienced in twitch-based games. There's a loyal following of customers who love their games and support them, helping Llamasoft sustain themselves.
They're not super-rich, but have been chugging along for a while. I think they're excited about iOS because they're indie, and it's very easy for them to release games on it. Marketing and getting the word out is definitely their biggest challenge. Currently, it seems their goal is to release a new iOS game every 2-3 months, and build up a catalog of games. Once one of them is a hit, it'll bring in more customers, who will be interested in their back-catelog.
GoatUp, which just released to great reviews, might be that ticket (check it out: http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/goatup/id462286820?mt=8).
You can always ask them directly about their experiences. They've been on XBLA, Steam, iTunes, and a lot of other platforms in the past. Sign up at www.yakyak.org, and ask Yak or gilesgoat a question.