Oceanhorn's Success at $8.99: Thomas Kern of FDG Entertainment on Why the Game Has Been a Financial Success

Cornfox & Bros. and publisher FDG Entertainment's Oceanhorn has been an anomaly in the rise of free-to-play games on the App Store: it's one of the few attempts at making a grand-scale game on iOS and priced at an $8.99 cost that few others have dared to try. The game's launch saw it rocket to #1 in the paid app charts and in the top 10 of the top grossing apps, bolstered not just by its App Store Editor's Choice but by a pre-release hype cycle that's rarely seen for mobile games.

Oceanhorn's price risk has paid off: the game recouped its production cost in less than a week, seemingly showing that the kind of games with high production values and premium price points can succeed on the App Store. Thomas Kern, Executive Producer of Oceanhorn at FDG Entertainment, spoke to me about the game's success at its price point.

148Apps: Why launch at $8.99, and that price point specifically? $6.99 has been a more typical "high" price for games on the App Store, and $9.99 is a more "round" number - so why $8.99? Was launching at a premium price point the plan all throughout development?
Thomas Kern (TK): We’re not setting prices on trends or from a psychological “round number” point of view. The launch price is related to the production cost and quality of the game. We got lots of emails and feedback about the price and it was all positive. People felt it was the right price and the game has done tremendously well at $8.99. We’re very happy about the success of the game.

148Apps: Was there ever any thought to making the game free-to-play, or incorporating a hybrid model like what Infinity Blade uses?
TK:The plan for this game was always to go the traditional premium route, something players are used to from game consoles or handhelds. Oceanhorn is a loving tribute to games we enjoyed in our childhood and we see it as a fan-service to offer the full experience without additional costs.

148Apps: The game was bolstered by Apple's featuring of Oceanhorn as an Editor's Choice - do you feel like the game would have done as well without this?
TK: When we launched the game it immediately shot up the charts, before Apple even featured it. It was great to see that Apple agreed with many happy users that this game is a milestone in iOS gaming so they featured it very prominently and supported the game's launch the best way they could. It seems Apple really appreciates efforts like this, after all, Oceanhorn's development time was over 2 years!

148Apps: What about the long-term prospects of the game? Can the game continue to succeed at $8.99?
TK: It does! We see very healthy sales and we’ve recouped the investment in less than a week. For us and the development team, the game is already a great success.

There is no sale to be expected, Oceanhorn will stay at $8.99 but we’ll add more content to it in 2014 so the value will become even better.

148Apps: Do you think that other games can succeed at high price points? Do you believe that Oceanhorn changed anything with the market?
TK: We’ve been contacted by many people in the industry and they’ve been surprised about the success despite the high price point. Especially because the production cost was recouped really quickly. Oceanhorn definitely proves that premium games are not dead and it’s a viable business. We can’t beat some insanely successful Free2Play game revenues, but that was not our plan. Healthy revenues don’t require a position in Top 10 Grossing.

Thanks to Thomas Kern for his time.