One app. Two guys. 31 updates. 99c. 2.3 million units sold. The numbers behind Pocket God are extreme.

But for Dave Castelnuovo and Allen Dye, the co-founders and only employees of Bolt Creative, it's the combination of their complete control over their game, combined with a gruelling year of effort that's created one of the most successful iPhone apps ever.

"I don't want to grow the company and get involved in all those human resource issues," says Castelnuovo, who previously ran a Flash development studio before downsizing so he could be more creative.

"I might be working until 3am but at least I'm working from home."

The Pocket God way

Indeed, even on the eve of the Game Developers Conference, the pair were burning the midnight oil submitting their latest update. Entitled What's the Story Morning Gory? it enables users to create animated cartoons within the brutally funny island world of the pygmies.

It's something that's sure to further catalyse an audience which has already populated YouTube with thousands of Pocket God-inspired clips.

"We stumbled into this weird world of community," Castelnuovo confesses modestly. "We never wanted to BS people about how great our game was. We are always happier to say 'Look at this kid's cool video'. We wanted Pocket God to feel like the game your buddy made."

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This way of interacting with Pocket God's core teenage audience has had some significant business implications however.

In-app purchases, in the form of 99c customisation packs, were introduced in conjunction with each free update a couple of months ago. The latest includes a bunch of animated dance moves for the pygmies, and is the fastest selling to-date.

In total, around 140,000 purchases have been sold across the four packs, giving an accumulated conversion rate of around 6 percent. The gross rate is closer to 2 percent.

"We make sure it's cool content and we explain to our fans that it's helping us to continue to do the free updates," Castelnuovo says. "IAP is an important strategy for us though, in terms of revenue as well as maintaining our position on the paid and top grossing charts."

Despite the success of game so far, it's perhaps surprising how important position within the App Store still remains to driving Pocket God sales.

"We float around between #22 to #27 in the US charts," says Castelnuovo. "The top #25 is good, but it's dangerous to let it slip outside this."

As part of this drive, he expects the pace of updates to speed up, from the current six to eight weeks to every couple of weeks.

"In future we're going to be focusing on adding smaller amounts of content such as new powers and mini-games," he says.

Off the island

As for the question of how to make the most of the Pocket God brand beyond the App Store, Castelnuovo is taking a controlled, low risk approach.

"We've approved the first script of the Pocket God comic book series," he reveals. "That's not a revenue thing. It's just a cool thing for us to do."
Pocket God is also coming to another mobile platform, with details soon to be announced. But there won't be a flood of ports.

"We're open to how this plays out. We have lots of ideas about what we could do with the characters and the world but when we consider possibilities such as Facebook, Wii and DS, they wouldn't be straight ports," he states.

Toys are on the agenda however. "There are these dolls you can squeeze and their eyes pop up," Castelnuovo beams.

He may have spent the last year working hard becoming one of the most successful developers on the App Store, but his sense of fun remains undiminished.