Splashy Fish: The #1 Free App Played 250M Times Daily
Fifteen hours after its launching, Splashy Fish has climbed the top spot and stayed there ever since. Splashy Fish Italian Founder Massimo Guareschi developed the game as inspired by his nephews who were fans of Flappy Birds.
Guareschi said 5 to 10 million people play Splashy Fish every day and about 250 million games run every day. Flappy Bird's download was at 50 million total and generated $50,000 daily before being removed. It was unclear about the number of active users it had daily.
Splashy Fish motivates users to jog up and down by tapping the screen of their mobile devices and swim through the obstacles.
Guareschi reported in an email interview that the game's inception was from his nephew who was playing Flappy Bird and asked him for better game features. Three people worked full time in the game for three days and launched it at midnight PST on Feb. 11. About 15 hours after, it occupied the top spot in the Apple Store.
The secret behind Splashy Fish' success was that Guareschi and his colleagues focused to small peculiarities, adding features that players have appreciated. To make it more challenging, they added five trophies to the game, personalized the fish and used pleasing sound effects. There still are some cool updates to come.
According to the developer, the success of Splashy Fish goes beyond its expectations, though its speed growth is in line with "redBit games," of which he is the co-founder. Within a year, the firm produced games which are also of huge success like the Haunted Manor - The Secret of the Lost Soul. It has more than a million downloads and Haunted Manor 2 - The Horror Behind the Mystery with 1.5 million downloads and Cookie Clickers with 10 million plus downloads.
When asked if Splashy Fish got complaints about being too similar to Flappy Bird or if it had to change names to stay in app stores, Guareschi noted there was none, especially from Apple and Google. There were some clarifications from Apple regarding the game's name. The trademark of Splashy Fish was already registered by redBit games in line with standard procedures.
The Italian game founder also cited it has no contact with the creator of Flappy Bird. But his team is interested to discuss ideas as games developers and will be happy to have Flappy Bird be in app stores again.