For Infinity Blade, a free promotion raises all ships

Last week, during its recent fifth-year anniversary, the iTunes App Store gave away 10 normally paid apps and games -- among them Chair Entertainment and Epic Games' Infinity Blade 2 (normally priced at $6.99 U.S.), which garnered 1.7 million downloads within the first day of promotion. This in itself is not indicative of huge financial gains for the title, though Infinity Blade 2 is also propped with in-app purchases. However, more interestingly, the free promotion for Infinity Blade 2 prompted a dramatic surge in purchases for the game's predecessor and ancillary media. Chair Entertainment publicist Laura Mustard informs AllThingsD that sales for the original Infinity Blade (priced at $5.99 U.S.) were 2.5 times higher than the week before the promotion, while sales for the Infinity Blade: Awakening tie-in ebook ($2.99 U.S.) went up by 70 percent. This is a strong showing for developers and publishers who may want to partake in free promotions to generate interest not in a single title but in their overall library of titles.