免费模式的手机游戏在今年的苹果App Store大受欢迎，由The Playforge工作室开发的《僵尸农场》（Zombie Farm），现已跻身2010年苹果iTunes Rewind免费综合应用排行榜的前列。

据游戏邦了解，该游戏目前排行第六，打败了Zynga的超高人气游戏《Farmville》等其他许多免费模式作品。

Zombie Farm

《僵尸农场》发行于今年2月，目前下载量已达730万次，上个月下载量是130万次，现在的每月活跃用户约200万人，玩家体验这款游戏的时间累计已超过4600万小时。

该游戏的开发者文斯·麦克唐纳（Vince McDonnell）表示，《僵尸农场》进入苹果综合应用前10强榜单对The Playforge来说具有里程碑式的意义，他们将继续为玩家推出功能齐全、有趣而新奇的游戏内容。

不过The Playforge至今仍不肯透露该游戏的具体营收数据，仅仅表示它的收益与《涂鸦跳跃》（Doodle Jump）不相上下。据称《涂鸦跳跃》这款99美分游戏，在今年1月至6月间的下载量共300万次左右，预计今年底总销售额将达700万美元。

《涂鸦跳跃》位列苹果综合应用榜单第10名，落后《僵尸农场》4个名次，The Playforge认为这种现象足以证明，免费模式具有极大的发展潜力，The Playforge在这一领域已处于领先地位。

GigaOM上个月公布的数据显示，在App Store综合应用100强榜单中，免费模式的产品约占30%至40%左右，这个比例非常惊人，要知道根据Distimo的调查结果，免费模式应用不过占App Store产品总数的1.34%而已。（本文为游戏邦/gamerboom.com编译，转载请注明来源：游戏邦）

Zombie Farm is 2010′s top grossing freemium iOS release in the US

7.3 million units and 46 million hours of gameplay

The rise of the freemium model has made differentiating App Store heroes from the also rans a trickier business.

No longer is publishing standard sales figures – a particularly popular move for many developers at this time of year – enough to determine an app’s success. Tracking the revenue it’s generated from such sales is the key question.

The Playforge, the developer of freemium release Zombie Farm, had much of its work done for it on this particular score, with the release of Apple’s iTunes Rewind 2010 countdowns naming the studio’s release as the top grossing freemium title in the US of 2010.

Farm wars

Coming in at number six on the countdown, Zombie Farm has been able to outpace other freemium titles, perhaps most notably Zynga’s high-flying Farmville, throughout the course of year – although, on this case, it’s worth noting Farmville didn’t see the light of day until late June.

Nonetheless, Zombie Farm – released in February – has been downloaded 7.3 million times to date – the last 1.3 million within the last month – and can currently call on a monthly active userbase of 2 million.

In addition, The Playforge reveals that fans have clocked more than 46 million hours of gameplay and completed a total of 62 million brain-raiding invasions.

“Making it into Apple’s top 10 grossing list this year is a colossal milestone for us,” said Zombie Farm creator Vince McDonnell.

“It’s inspiring, as we continue our commitment to constantly innovating with fun, highly functional and sometimes pretty ridiculous content for our players.”

The numbers game

However, in regards to the game’s exact revenue tally, Playforge isn’t willing to play ball just yet.

Instead of dishing out cold, hard figures, the developer points to the likes of Doodle Jump, which it claims sold around 3 million units at 99c between January and June this year.

At this pace, it claims Doodle Jump will have amassed sales of around 7 million by the end of 2010, drawing in revenue of around $6.9 million before Apple’s cut throughout the course of the year.

The fact that Doodle Jump finished 10th on Apple’s top grossing list – four places below Zombie Farm – with what would appear to be a similar sales tally is, the studio suggests, evidence of the strength of the freemium model, and The Playforge’s leadership of it.

Back in November, numbers published by GigaOM suggested between 30 and 40 percent of the top grossing apps on the App Store are freemium releases – a telling statistic, given Distimo estimates freemium releases account for just 1.34 percent of all titles on the marketplace.（source:pocketgamer）