The viral app Slither puts up to 500 players in control of snake-like creatures fighting for food. SlitherSteven Howse, the 32-year-old developer of Slither.io, is struggling to keep up with the demands of his new creation. Its app consists of a free-to-play multiplayer game that puts users in control of snake-like creatures in a battle for food. The application made it to the list of the 10 most downloaded, right next to giants like Facebook and YouTube, not long after its release on the market.
Howse wasn’t prepared for the viral success his app achieved, and he might wish his biggest problem was still paying rent, something he went through before creating the wildly successful game, The Wall Street Journal reports.
Slither.io has spread like wildfire through word of mouth and social referrals to 68 million mobile downloads and 67 million browser users. Competition in this space is fierce, and success at the level found by Slither.io is relatively rare. Of the 3.6 million mobile apps, 950,000 are games, but only a small percentage achieve true viral levels of success. Just capturing the attention of players in such a wide range of competitors can be difficult, but cashing in on that success is even more difficult.
Slither.io has not only become explosively popular, but extremely profitable as well. Recent reports indicate that the app is making a cool $100,000 a day, with developers struggling to keep up with demand. The game allows up to 500 people to play at once, and requires a high level of community interaction to progress through the game. The infrastructure that supports this kind of interaction is vast.
Securing server space is one of the immediate requirements needed to keep up with player demand. Howse spent weeks targeting high-demand locations and finding server space in those areas. He could easily use large companies like Amazon to secure server space and save time, but he would quickly lose profitability by paying exorbitant rates charged for the amount of bandwidth his application requires.
The simplicity of the gameplay is perhaps one of the reasons for its sudden success. Balancing multi-level gameplay with something more complex would be difficult at best, but Slither.io sticks to simple concepts, which clearly works. Another plus is that there are no in-game purchases required. Advertising brings in revenue, and players have the option of paying a small fee to opt out of viewing ads.
Outside of developing the infrastructure to keep the game operational, Howse spends time developing game improvements in response to user requests. Keeping users happy seems to be a top priority for Howse. He is happy that his new success prevents him, at least for now, from pursuing a career as a supermarket clerk.
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Categories: GAMING
Source: newstars.edu.vn