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An iPhone game jointly-created by former world heavyweight boxing champion David Haye has taken the gaming world by storm and ended up topping the one-million-strong Apple games charts.
‘David Haye’s Jungle Rumble’ was released on December 14 and took just hours to topple the likes of ‘Angry Birds’ (which has racked up 500 million downloads since its launch), a mark of both the game’s quality and the boxer’s profile, recently bolstered by his exploits on ITV1 show ‘I’m a Celebrity…Get Me Out of Here!’.
The chart-topping ‘Jungle Rumble’ was again designed and produced by Grubby Hands Ltd, the brains behind its predecessor ‘David Haye’s Knockout’, and marks their biggest success story to date.
“Around £36,000 was invested into this project, but we weren’t expecting too much of a profit from the game,” explained Grubby Hands Director Danny Pearce.
“We would’ve been happy if the revenue generated simply covered development costs plus 10-15% profits, but were left astonished when the game rocketed up the charts and received so much positive feedback. The first two weeks’ downloads not only covered development costs, but looked to be generating in excess of £200,000 profit.
“If it holds the same position over Christmas, Apple experts predict ‘Jungle Rumble’ will see its profits increase by up to 1,000%, as millions of iPhones and iPods are likely to find new homes over the festive period. Historically, any game or app in the top ten of the Apple charts has experienced substantially more sales over Christmas than at any other time of the year.”
Should the game continue to break records and out-sell the competition, the fighter and his Grubby Hands collaborators may well be on course for a Christmas number one. And having scaled the heights as both a cruiserweight and heavyweight world champion, ‘The Hayemaker’ is certainly no stranger to the sweet smell of success.
“The plan was to simply create something fun and competitive as a way of directly interacting with fans,” said Haye. “But instantly the global scoreboards were jam-packed with players from all over the world trying to out-do each other and win prizes, accolades and bragging rights. The success of the game took us all by surprise and I couldn’t be happier with how it has performed.
“I’ve been told to expect sales to exceed the one million pound mark before 2013, and, with my successful return to the ring (a fifth round knockout of Dereck Chisora in July), my third place position on ‘I’m a Celebrity…Get Me Out of Here!’, and now the freakish success of ‘David Haye’s Jungle Rumble’, 2012 has certainly been a year to remember.”
David Haye’s Jungle Rumble is available from the iTunes store at a price of £0.69
