Since NinJump was released on the App Store 2 weeks ago I’ve been watching the users on the OpenFeint leaderboard steadily climb from under a  few thousand registered people after the end of the first day to a current total of 583,333; and it’s still going. This is largely helped by the fact that Backflip Studios made the game free, with the inclusion of in-game ads, which can, at a price be deactivated. Once a game is free and people start to talk about and share it, it’s popularity rises, and then inevitably it gets ranked in the Free Apps chart, of which NinJump has now slipped to 9th. So once in the App chart this in turn fuels more people to download it and growth continues upwards and for the case of NinJump more people then see the ads, which in theory could equal more money for the developers.

This [free] method won’t work with every game, but with an average rating of 4 stars on the App Store, NinJump is proving successful with casual gamers. Is it making any money? Only Backflip Studios can answer that, but I’m happy to play (casual) games like this with ads if they don’t effect the game play. Are you?

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DeadJam is currently ranked 22,336th on NinJump