The lucrative iOS game development market

iOS game development has proved to be a highly profitable enterprise for both Apple and the game app developers. Apple said in a news report that its New Year day sales this year was the biggest ever single day sales in the history of the App Store. And this bonanza continued that first week of January 2015 where buyers splurged on apps to the tune of over a half billion US dollars.

For the uninitiated, iOS is the mobile operating system for Apple’s iDevices such as its iPhone (smartphone), iPad (tablet), iPod and others.

iOS game development has taken a big share of the over 25 billion US dollars Apple has reportedly paid to iOS application developers. Though Android devices still take the bulk of app sales in the present, Apple is proud to have started the so-called app revolution when it launched the App Store in 2008 for its hardware, that then progressed into an entire industry for application design and development. Apple is looking forward to a year of boosted revenues from iOS apps and games when it introduces the Apple Watch later this year.

In 2014, one of the successful products resulting from iOS game development was Crossy Road, that came out of Australia. Though only made available in the last six weeks of 2014, Crossy Road’s sales has already made Hipster Whale (the iOS game development outfit that created it) rich, happy and raring to develop still another hit game.

Along with the Facebook app, the other megaselling app in the iTunes store was Minecraft, a game that has been the most popular paid-for iPhone and iPad app for two years straight.

Other very popular iOS games for both iPhone and iPad are Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, Cut the Rope 2, Clash of Clans and Candy Crush Saga.

Seeing how popular and lucrative iOS game development can be, Apple is pouring even more investment and resources into it, stating that in six years in the US alone, the iOS ecosystem has generated over 600 thousand jobs. One can extrapolate that iOS game development has generated thousands more jobs and revenues outside the US as well.