The start of a new year is a time to consider what has been and what will be, and so it is that US developer Fairlady has released some interesting stats about its game Spazzle.

Launched as Whack 'em All in December 2008, the simple tap-to-bash game been now been downloaded over a million times - mainly to iPhones apparently - although the split between the paid (it costs 99c) and the free version hasn't been made public.

//update: We've since been informed that the split is 97 percent free, 3 percent paid

But on its blog Fairlady has broken down some other game stats - the most significant of which are:

Total unique users - 928,322

Total game play sessions - 8,950,233

Average play sessions per user - 9.6

It's also interesting to see the breakdown with respect to pirated copies of the game; something that is particularly low in this case as the vast majority of users are playing the free version.

Total jailbroken users - 1.48 percent

Total jailbroken sessions - 0.90 percent

However, as those with a long memory may recall, the reason Whack 'em All went free and ad-funded in January 2009 was because of high levels of piracy it initially experienced, albeit on a very small user base of around 800 players.

It's also worth pointing out that the paid version of the game has been updated six times during 2009, which will have increased its longevity on the App Store.

[source: Fairlady]