As much fun as I have with many of the iOS games I play, there are few which I stick with for very long. In some cases that’s because the free or $0.99 entry point for these games have a direct correlation with the amount of depth they contain — there’s one good idea, but it’s not necessarily something you’ll want to spend more than a few hours with. Jetpack Joyride is a straightforward auto-runner, hardly the sort of thing that I would expect to play for long. And yet it has managed to keep its spot on the front page of my iPhone for months; it’s my go-to game when I have a minute to spare. It’s simple, easy-to-play, and it’s now available in beta on Facebook.
Joyride started out as a $0.99 download on the App Store, during which time it sold about one million units. It was then converted into a free-to-play game and had been downloaded an additional 13 million times as of February. According to a press release issued today, that number has soared to 25 million downloads. It may not be at the level of Angry Birds, but that is a huge figure, particularly if developer Halfbrick’s expectation for 5 to 10 percent of customers spending at least a dollar continues as the game expands to Facebook.
