Punch Quest no longer free as dev laments lack of returns

One of the more popular iOS games of late has been forced to drop its free-to-play model and instead ask players to pay up front.

Punch Quest was a hit with critics not only for its gameplay but also for its generous freemium model that allowed players to choose between coughing up for extras or earning them in-game.

At a time when the increasing demands of freemium games on players is attracting growing criticism, Punch Quest felt like a breath of fresh air. Unfortunately the generosity of design has come back to haunt developers Madgarden and Rocketcat Games.

Touch Arcade reports that despite 600,000 downloads the game had struggled to reach five figure revenues. An update to the game earlier this month altered the reward balance, offering additional IAP and improving the visibility of purchases.

It didn’t work. So as of now the game now costs 69p to download.

Rocketcat’s Kepa Auwae said: "The update improved things for like a few days, and then it sank, hard. We did that last Punch Quest update that fixed a lot of the problems people pointed out when they gave for Punch Quest. More high-end purchases, a coin doubler, a non-coins IAP option, a clearer buy button – didn’t work.

That leaves one simple thing – the game is way too generous to be a single currency free game. It’s 99 cents or increase the price of everything by eight times or more, really."