Popular game spawns knock-off in App Store

The success of Infinity Blade and Infinity Blade II, both games exclusively for iOS that leveraged the Unreal Engine to bring much greater realism to the platform have grossed more than $30 million in revenue in just the first year, according to a statement from Epic Games and its development studio ChAIR Entertainment. The company has recently been licensing other related merchandise, including a digital novella and a full-size coin-op version for arcades.

Infinity Blade II, which was released on December 1st, has seen net earnings of more than $5 million in just its first month, a figure that the original game took three months to achieve. The original game, featured prominently at the 2010 WWDC keynote, has grossed more than $23 million so far.

A "knock-off" title, called Infinity Blades ($1) has recently appeared in the App Store, but is a puzzle game using stills from the real Infinity Blade and has nothing to do with the original game. Epic will likely petition Apple to have the copycat app removed in due course.

The first Infinity Blade is still available for iOS devices running v3.2 or later, and sells for $6. The sequel, Infinity Blade II, uses Unreal Engine 3 and requires iOS 4.0 or higher, and sells for $7. The company has launched Infinity Blade: Awakening by Brandon Sanderson as a digital novella in the iBookStore, a soundtrack album on iTunes, and an arcade version of the original game, retitled Infinity Blade FX (video below).

by MacNN Staff