Maybe we're swimming against the fashionable current, but the paid games business is great for us.

We've recently released Paper Monsters - a 99c iOS universal app - and it's shooting up the US paid top 10 chart, netting us over 130,000 downloads in the first few days of release.

Fulfilling demand

Our experience is that paid games can stand the test of time.

Aralon: Sword and Shadow, which we released in December 2010 and is priced at $6.99, still grosses over $2,500 per day.

And more widely, when you look at the top grossing charts, around 40 percent of the top 50 are paid games. Clearly, companies like Rovio, Halfbrick, Epic and Disney aren't given up on their paid strategy any time soon.

Sure, the success of certain free-to-play games such as Temple Run, which failed as a 99c game, only to become a massive success as a free-to-play title with IAP is extraordinary, but that doesn't mean that paid games are dead.

We see this particularly with premium paid content such as the Infinity Blade franchise, which mixes up a high price with IAPs, while Halfbrick's Jetpack Joyride takes a similar approach, although its price is a mere 99c rather than $6.99.

On the other hand

The thing is these two models work in very different ways.

Free-to-play games are constantly competing amongst themselves for audience. You have to update constantly, and actively focus on marketing, cross-promotion, and in-app events and sales.

When it comes to paid games, if you have high quality content, the audience is happy it's getting the complete experience and won't be asked to pay more.

Of course, expectations are crucial in this regard, but I much prefer the grass roots approach of marketing. We spend some money on advertising, but rely on word of mouth and social media to boost interest in our games before they are released.

It's very different to spending $10,000 per day to use a free app promotion service to an audience who haven't previously heard about your game.

Win-win

Similarly, we make sure our games provide a great experience so that reviewers will pick up on them. Reviews - from specialist sites and on the app store - are key for paid games, and paid games are much more likely to be reviewed that free-to-play titles.

I think the only way paid games will die would be if Apple decided to remove the paid App Store charts. Until then, we'll be asking our players to pay upfront for something they know they'll enjoy.

Josh Presseisen is CEO of iOS developer and publisher Crescent Moon. Its next game is Kids vs Goblins.