Premium prices work: Mobile franchise The Room sells more than 5M copies

To make money on mobile, you have to give your game away and charge for virtual goods. That’s the contemporary consensus, but at least one developer is proving it wrong.

Fireproof Games revealed yesterday that it has sold more than 5 million copies of its mind-bending puzzler franchise The Room on Android and iOS. The latest title, The Room Two, launched in December and has already surpassed more than 1.2 million in sales. Fireproof has sold more than 4.2 million copies of the original since its 2012 debut. The Room costs $1 while The Room Two costs $3. Spending on game apps reached $16 billion worldwide in 2013. The bulk of that went to free-to-play titles, but Fireproof director Barry Meade thinks his games are proof that consumers want something that doesn’t resort to microtransactions.