Jetpack Joyride revenue jumped 4x with 'timed-to-free' DLC

Jetpack Joyride's latest DLC, which asked people to pay for an item yet told them it was going to be free later in the week, has turned out to be "a big success" for developer Halfbrick. Last week, an update to Jetpack Joyride added a vehicle called 'The Wave Rider' which costed $4.99 to download. However, that was deemed an 'Early Bird Offer', and users were told that they could instead wait for four days, and then receive the item for free thereafter. While Halfbrick's Phil Larsen wasn't willing to divulge specific sale numbers for the experimental DLC, he told Gamasutra that the inclusion of the Wave Rider increased Jetpack Joyride revenue by over 4 times the usual amount last week. The studio now plans to analyse exactly what happened during the sale period, see what the fans made of the move, and subsequently make plans for more of this sort of 'timed-to-free' DLC. Larsen noted that when it comes to playing around with monetization strategies, Jetpack Joyride is a huge focus for his company right now, and we can expect to see more of this sort of thing in the immediate future. He also noted that Halfbrick's latest game, Fish out of Water on iOS, will soon see "a few new things happening."