Vampire Survivors was one of the surprise hits of 2022 on Steam and went straight to a mobile port. But the developers apparently didn’t want it that way.
What game is it? Vampire Survivors describes itself as a gothic horror game with roguelite elements. The game throws you into a fight for survival in an open area and comes in pixel graphics – but that doesn’t seem to detract from the ratings.
Vampire Survivors was first released in Early Access, then as a full version on Steam from October 20, 2022, also brought a DLC and enjoys positive reviews.
It currently stands at 97% positive reviews in the last 30 days, with all reviews it is even 98% – and that with over 167,000 reviews. In the last 30 days, around 14,900 players played on average, the last peak was around 27,900.
It peaked in February 2022, back then in Early Access, with a peak of 77,061 concurrent players. Even then, the game was extremely well rated and blossomed into a hit on Steam. The game also became very popular on the Steam Deck, where it was one of the most played games ever (via Twitter).
Vampire Survivors Launch Trailer
Now the developers on Steam reported with an update for the new year – and gave an interesting insight into the topic “mobile”.
Developer wanted fair monetization – Must have been 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 were looking for business partners to implement a mobile version.
But there were issues: “Unfortunately, no one I spoke to agreed with the monetization I had in mind for the platform: non-predatory,” the developers said.
Then came copycats: “Months went by and numerous clones popped up everywhere – not ‘games like Vampire Survivors’, but actual 1:1 copies with stolen code, assets, data and progression.”
Apparently they wanted to anticipate this and developed the mobile version themselves: “That forced us to publish the mobile game as quickly as possible and put the development team on hold, which shouldn’t actually be taking care of the mobile game at all , under great stress.”
Now features such as cloud saves or save transfers would still be missing – but there is currently still a lack of the necessary personnel to implement this. But the developer continues to work on the game and is now doing what no partners wanted to do.
This is what the developers wanted: Developer poncle would have preferred to simply offer the game for a “few dollars” so 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 discouraged a lot of new players from trying the game to even try.”
That’s why they chose a “free-for-real” approach – with optional monetization that shouldn’t interrupt the game and some “Watch Ads” buttons, but would do without “the real money guzzlers” “around mobile Cashgrabs are usually developed,” says poncle.
According to the current status, the game also has good average ratings of 4.8 stars in the Android and App Store.
What do you think of the statements of the developers? And what do you think of mobile games in general? Tell us in the comments!
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