How to Make Money off Free iPhone Games

Want to try a business on mobile phones? How about free software for mobile phones? That’s what Illusion Labs, a company in the Swedish port city of Malmo did.

Illusion Labs was started one year ago by Carl Loodberg and Andreas Alptun. Both had worked together at TAT, a Swedish company that designs software for Samsung and Nvidia among others. They set up their own company so they can concentrate on developing software for Apple’s iPhone.

"When the iPhone came out, we were excited about the big screen, the graphics chip, and the good components," says Loodberg. "We thought it was an opportunity too big to pass up."

And they were right. One of the most popular pieces of software for the iPhone was developed by Illusion Labs. Labyrinth is a digital update to the old wooden box on which you control a small silver ball through a maze while avoiding holes where the ball could plunge into. This game is available for free from Apple’s iTunes and is downloaded 80,000 times a day according to Loodberg.

"Controls extremely precise," wrote one person on iTunes. "Smooth, very fluid, and is realistic," wrote another.

While the game is free, its success could mean rich rewards for Illusion Labs. The company is selling a version of the game, which is also quite popular, for $6.99 on iTunes. Advertising agencies have contacted the company to develop variations on the game with the logos of advertisers embedded in them.

Marketing and Mobile Phones

Illusion Labs has designed another game called iPint for Carling beer, with the London-based ad agency Beattie McGuiness Bungay. In iPint, an iPhone user tilts her phone to guide a beer down a bar through a variety of obstacles and into a waiting hand. When the beer arrives at its destination, the screen changes into a pint of glass with Carling’s logo. It then fills up with a virtual beer, which disappears when the phone is tilted to simulate drinking from a glass.

This is a new era for marketing and mobile phones. Now, customers can install new applications on their phones unlike before when wireless operators kept a tight control over what people could do with their phones.