Capcom Mobile‘s recently introduced Smurfs’ Village game has been swiftly climbing the charts in the App Store, at one point reaching the top spot in highest grossing games, surpassing even Angry Birds. At the time of this writing, it has currently fallen to the number 3 spot*, behind Angry Birds, which is behind the freshly released RAGE HD.
Surprised? After all, Smurf’s Village is a free game, and the only revenue comes from in-app purchases of Smurfberries, which enable you to speed up the construction of village buildings and purchase exclusive structures. You can play the game without paying anything, but be prepared to wait a while for your village to take shape.
It seems that many people are not willing to wait, because Capcom is making quite a bit of real money selling virtual Smurfberries. Other popular games using a similar ‘freemium’ model include We Rule and We City by ngmoco, and the granddaddy of these kinds of games, Farmville by zynga. I for one refuse to pay for virtual currency with these types of games, so I guess I’ll be waiting for my village to build. I must say though, it’s good to see those little blue guys again.
Smurfs’ Village is available on the iTunes App Store for iPad, iPhone and iPod touch.
* in the US App Store. In Canada it still sits at number 2 above Angry Birds. The App Store does not show worldwide sales charts, which would be interesting to see how it is trending globally. In the Smurfs’ home country of Belgium, Smurfs’ Village isn’t even in the top ten grossing apps. Huh.
Articla Via TUAW
