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UPDATED Wellington developer cracks US iPad Top 5

Above: If you have both iPad and iPhone 4, you can use the handset as a wireless remote for the game playing on the tablet.

Chris Keall
Wed, 28 Jul 2010

Above: If you have both iPad and iPhone 4, you can use the handset as a wireless remote for the game playing on the tablet.

[UPDATE: Mr Frampton advised NBR on Thursday afternoon that Chopper 2 is now number 3 on Apple iTunes AppStore US iPad download chart. The game was number 28 on the US iPhone download chart. The Wellington developer said he got his first detailed sales report from Apple last night. He would not give an exact sales figure, but said downloads of the $US4.99 game were "in the thousands". - CK]

Wellington developer David Frampton - aka the one-man company Majic Jungle Software - woke up to a nice surprise this morning.

Mr Frampton's Chopper 2 - the sequel to his best-selling game from 2008 - broke into Apple's US Top 100 iPhone app download chart, and the US Top 20 iPad chart (at number 17).

On iTunes NZ, the game sits at number three on the paid download chart.

Chopper 2 was released midnight Monday. In the first few hours alone, thousands of copies were downloaded. Mr Frampton expects his first full-day sales report later today.

The one-time TV weather graphics man has hopes it'll crack the Top 50 iPhone chart - or maybe even the Top 10 - by tomorrow.

Chopper 1: 350,000 sales
Around one million people downloaded the original version game; 350,000 the commercial version. Istarted selling on the iTunes AppStore for $US7.99; later, it was discounted to 99c - whereupon it hit number one on Apple's sales chart.

Mr Frampton wouldn't reveal his exact haul - his cut was the standard 70% that Apple lets app developers keep from the iTunes sale price.

But it did allow that "it bought me a house, and funded the past 16 months of full-time development on Chopper 2."

The new version of the game costs $US4.99, but is currently on a launch special of $US2.99.

Read more about Majic Jungle Software, and other Kiwi developers making it big on iPad, in Friday's print edition of NBR. Visit the Chopper 2 home page to see a trailer.

Chris Keall
Wed, 28 Jul 2010
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UPDATED Wellington developer cracks US iPad Top 5
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