Launched two days ago, ambitious space trading and combat game Galaxy on Fire 2 has already leaped up the charts.

Despite being priced at $6.99, €5.49 or £3.99, it's a top 10 Top Grossing in six countries, including #7 in the US, #4 in the UK, and #3 in Germany.

Good thing too, as the budget for the game is reported as being in the high six digits.

Of course, with the original Galaxy on Fire 1 also going free - something that's boosted its total installs to 2.5 million - the promotional campaign from German developer Fishlabs has been well implemented.

We caught up with CEO Michael Schade to find out more.

Pocket Gamer: Do you think the App Store has become more viable in terms of higher priced content?

Michael Schade: On one hand we can clearly see that even the Top Grossing charts are dominated by 99c or $1.99 cents games.

However, my take is that the more low priced casual games dominate the charts, the more gamers who appreciate deeper and console-type experiences, are searching the forums and sites like Pocket Gamer for high end stuff. Then you can kick in with a much higher price tag although the downloads are much lower.

Some developers would try to make a game like Galaxy on Fire 2 freemium to drive audience numbers. What's your view?

Yeah, we thought about it too. However, Galaxy on Fire 2 starts off fairly slow, so players can get used to the complexity of the game, and then it really ramps up. Some people who were our biggest haters in the beginning, because of the slow pace, are now our biggest fans. So the point of charging for content has to be chosen wisely.

Also, we don't have a multiplayer component yet, and we believe it's vital if you want to go down the virtual goods route.

I guess with Galaxy on Fire 2 we have a more mature fan base who are willing to pay for quality content and dislike monetisation on social behaviour.

How important was it to be able to release Galaxy on Fire 1 for free to push Galaxy on Fire 2?

I can't prove exactly how effective the two free promotions and the recent update of Galaxy on Fire 1 were to cross selling Galaxy on Fire 2, but from what I have read in the forums, people who are still on the fence check out Galaxy on Fire 1 for free and get Galaxy on Fire 2 after they've played the first couple missions.What are your plans for Galaxy on Fire 2 on other platforms?

We've already announced Galaxy on Fire 2 for high end Nokia smartphones and are heavily working on that.

For Android, the challenge is to be able to monetise. We're not too excited about Android because of the poor billing, the experience on Android Market, and of course software piracy. We suffered from piracy for several years in the Java space and it almost killed us.

However, if there is a great business opportunity, such as working with one of the OEMs, this is something we would consider seriously.

Thanks to Michael for his time.