That's good for Epic, but people are just making too much noise, lets take a look and discuss :)

companies like epic forget some important things, they are almost the only ones who made a game like infinity blade for smartphones and they have to compete with their console games against hundreds more of quality games. if we will see 100 games like infinity blade in the future for smartphones every year from plenty of developers, do they still expect to make the same profit per game? then it will be the same on smartphones, they will sell less because of better competition, they have to put even more work in the games to be better than those and they will have price fights even on this low price tags. if a game will cost 3.50 bucks or 1.50, this can cost you a lot of sales for the more expensive one.

i mean, almost everyone who wanted to have an impressive looking game for his iphone bought ininity blade right? why should they all do it if they have 200 of those impressive looking games?

and the success of angry bird is only coincidence. there are hundred thousands of games, you just can't say if your game will be a success or not if you make such a simple game. it's not like everyone knows "haha i make this game now with that simple concept and i will sell 50 million units for 50 cent the next years"

Yeah...I wonder what they by 'more profitable'. Do they mean in relation to the cost of the game or do they mean absolutely more profitable? If its the former, then its really nothing to get worked up about. I'm sure there are plenty of cheap ios, Wii games etc have higher profit-to-cost ratios than traditional core games. Doesn't mean they're going to take over. I remember reading an Ubisoft article the other day they said Just dance's profit-to-coat ratio was much higher than a game like Assassin's Creed. Yet Ubisoft still makes way more expensive ps360 games than cheaper Wii games. (Hell, they even said they used Just Dance's Profit to fund their more expensive, and probably more profitable, Assassin's Creed) However, if its the latter- Infinity Blade was absolutely more profitable than Gears of War- then we'd be in for a massive shift in game development, but I don't think that's what they're referring to here.

You've got it backwards. Rate of return on investment is actually more important than absolute profit. Profit margins are a limit on potential future growth.

Here's a purely hypothetical example to demonstrate:

Ubisoft is making a new Assassin's Creed game for next-gen consoles. We'll call it ACX. Expected revenues are huge, so the budget is huge, too. $50 million.

At the same time, to capitalize on the buzz, Ubi is releasing a stripped down spinoff on mobile devices called ACX Mobile. Expected revenues aren't nearly as large, so this game's production budget is $1 million (pretty huge for a mobile game).

The games launch, and they both do okay, ACX grossing $55 million (10% profit margin, $5 million profit), and ACX Mobile grossing $1.5 million (50% margin, $0.5 million profit). Whoa, the big game generated ten times the profit of the mobile game! Guess we know which one has a bright future.

But hold on, here comes the next round of games. Ubi starts work on ACX2 and ACX2 Mobile. Ubi wants both games to be bigger than their predecessors, and is determined to remain competitive with other publishers, but they also have to be sure to stay in the black. They want to make at least 10% profit on every game they make, and they can't be sure that ACX2 will be a bigger success than ACX, so they keep the budget of the big game unchanged. Another $50 million.

ACX2 Mobile, on the other hand, has expectations far higher than the previous title. All else being equal, Ubi can expect another $1.5 million in revenues, so they jack up the title's budget to $1.35 million (a 35% increase) to compete harder in the mobile space and hopefully earn even larger rewards. At worst, they expect to earn a 10% profit on the title.

See what's happening here?

It was obvious from the start. How many people own an iPhone, iPod Touch, or iPhone, again?

But the difference to me here is the percentage of people still playing the game months-years after its released. Even 5 years after being released, Halo 3 is still in the top 20 (usually around 15th) list of games being played on live. (judged by UU). Now lets look at the mobile game 'draw something' that blew up huge a few months ago. Does anyone play it anymore?

To me, one of the main things that makes console gaming superior to handheld gaming or phone/tablet gaming is the online experience. Having a mic plugged in and goofing around with friends, laughing over glitches, dumb arguments with kids is what keeps me on my console.

Many people including developers in the industry are putting waaaaaay too much stock in mobile affecting console games. Its not happening and wont happen.

The millions upon millions of people who play games like Halo, COD, Uncharted, GOW, etc will never replace their console with a mobile device. It litteraly will never happen.

What IS happening however is the creation for an entire new audience of gamers. An entire new culture of gamers and an exciting new market. One which i might add can be very profitable.

But in no way does it affect the sales of consoles. Handheld ones a little bit not those plugged into our tvs. Mark my words next gen consoles will sell at least on par with current gen

Yay Infinity Blade! its a great game