After iOS success, Sword & Sworcery sees strong sales on Android

For some notable independent game developers, releasing an Android version of an iOS game has proven to be worth the effort. Maybe you should take a closer look at Android too. Terry Canavagh's Super Hexagon made a splash on Android earlier this month, while Bertil Horberg's Gunman Clive has been selling far better on the Google Play store than on iOS -- and there are more examples like these popping up. And as it turns out, Capybara Games and Superbrothers' Sword & Sworcery isn't selling too shabbily on Android either. The game launched for Android about four weeks ago, and has already sold significantly more than 50,000 units on the Google Play store. The last official sales figures for the iOS version came out in March 2012, and stood at 350,000. "Obviously the sheer number of devices helps Android game sales significantly, but that's not all of it," Nathan Vella of Capybara tells us. "I think Google has done a very good job making their Play Store a solid buying experience, and highlighting really quality games." He also notes that Android porting is on the uprise. "I think that smaller devs decided, more and more, to bring their titles to Android and this has helped the quality bar rise a few big notches," he says. It's not just out of curiosity, either -- porting your game to Android is becoming easier and easier, thanks to the variety of tools out there. "I think that, more and more, companies are finding ways to make the process of going from iOS to Android easier - whether that's via more experience or better tools/tech," he adds. "The easier it is, the more likely people are to do it." "I still see a lot of significant challenges on Android - ones that don't necessarily exist on iOS," he warns, "but the fact that the market is proving that they will buy rad games makes dealing with those challenges worthwhile." Capy itself got help from mobile porting company Apportable -- "without them, Android wouldn't have happened," says Vella -- and the dev says that it's a great idea to get another company to port your game to Android for you, as it frees up your time to work on other projects. "Whether that means iOS first and Android later, or perhaps including Apportable early on to try to get the two platforms out closer together, I can't say," he concludes.