‘Freemium’ strategy leaves Rolando 3 dead and buried

The Rolando series – which is more than a little reminiscent of Sony’s LocoRoco games – was once hailed as the poster child of iPhone gaming. It was often cited as an example of strong iPhone-specific titles that allowed Apple’s device to stand chin-to-chin with established gaming rivals such as the DS and PSP.

But Ngmoco’s recent ‘freemium’ successes such as technically impressive shooter Eliminate has lead to the developer abandoning plans for traditionally priced titles. The result of this? Rolando 3 has been scrapped.

“Rolando 2 was right at the point where we decided we're moving this business to freemium,” Ngmoco boss Neil Young told IGN. “So I think none of us were really particularly delighted with the sales performance of Rolando 2.

“When we made the decision to go free-to-play, we said to ourselves, 'if we can't make the game free-to-play, we're not going to release it'. And Rolando 3 as it was envisioned at that time was not a free-to-play product. So we've just taken the time to try to figure out how to do that franchise really effectively in free-to-play space.”

Young does point out, though, that Rolando 2 has still delivered some of the goods that were expected of it – and a sequel of some sort remains a distinct a possibility.

“That being said, Rolando 2's done fine,” he adds. “It just hasn't done gangbusters. It sells every day and we don't really play around with the price on it. We just kind of keep it there and it does good, but not stellar.

“We're thinking about it and at the appropriate moment we'll deliver a new Rolando experience that takes full advantage of everything we've learned from the free-to-play world.”