Vampire Survivors was one of the surprise hits of 2022 on Steam and immediately continued with a mobile port. However, the developers apparently did not want it in that form.
Which game are we talking about? Vampire Survivors describes itself as a gothic horror game with roguelite elements. The game throws you into a survival battle in an open field and comes with pixel graphics – which apparently does not detract from its ratings.
Vampire Survivors was first released in early access and then as a full version on Steam starting October 20, 2022, also brought a DLC and enjoys positive reviews.
Currently, it has 97% positive reviews in the last 30 days, and for all reviews, it is even 98% – and that with over 167,000 ratings. In the last 30 days, about 14,900 players played it on average, with a peak of around 27,900.
Its highest player count was reached in February 2022 while still in early access, with 77,061 concurrent players at its peak. It was already extremely well-rated back then and became a hit on Steam. Also, on the Steam Deck, the game became very popular and was among the most played games overall (via Twitter).
Now the developers reported on Steam with an update for the new year – and gave an interesting insight into the topic of “Mobile”.
Developers wanted fair monetization – There was apparently a problem
This is what the developers say about Mobile: In a post on Steam, developer “poncle” explains that soon after the initial success of Vampire Survivors, they looked for business partners who should implement a mobile version.
But there were problems: “Unfortunately, no one I spoke to was agreeable to the monetization I envisioned for the platform: not predatory,” said the developers.
Then imitators came along: “Months went by, and numerous clones appeared everywhere – not ‘games like Vampire Survivors’, but actual 1:1 copies with stolen code, assets, data, and progress.”
They apparently wanted to get ahead of this as well and developed the mobile version themselves: “This forced us to release the mobile game as quickly as possible and put the development team, which was actually not supposed to take care of the mobile game, under great stress. “
Now, some features are still missing, such as cloud saves or save transfers – but currently, there is still a lack of the necessary personnel to implement that. However, the developer continues to work on the game and is now doing what no partners wanted to do.
This is what the developers wanted: Ideally, developer poncle would have offered the game for a “few dollars” so that players could buy it: “But the mobile market doesn’t work that way, and if I had made VS a paid app, I would have prevented many new players from even trying the game.”
That is why they chose a “free-for-real” approach – with optional monetization that should not interrupt the game, and some “watch ads” buttons, but would avoid “the real money suckers,” “around which mobile cash grabs are usually developed,” poncle said.
As of now, the game also has good ratings of 4.8 stars on average in the Android and App stores.
What do you think of the developers’ statements? And what do you think of mobile games in general? Let us know in the comments!
Are you looking for a new game for your phone? Then check out the best mobile MMORPGs 2023 for iOS and Android.
