Cut the Rope, a game developed by Russian firm ZeptoLab, topped the paid applications section of Android Market, the application store for Android-supported devices, just one week after its launch on July 1.
Game play is quite straightforward: the player has to swipe a finger across the screen to cut ropes which hold candies to feed the little monster Om Nom.
The game was originally developed for Apple devices. After hitting Apple’s Appstore on October 4, 2010, Cut the Rope was downloaded 1 million times in its first 10 days and a total of 45 million times to date – including 9 million paid downloads with a price starting at $1.
By comparison, Angry Birds, the major competitor of Cut the Rope released by Finnish Rovio Mobile in late 2009, has been downloaded 120 million times as of the end of March 2011.
Cut the Rope was masterminded by two twins from Moscow: 29 year-old Semyon and Efim Voinov. Development was funded by Russian early stage investment fund Kite Ventures. The fund, which did not disclose the sum it invested in Cut the Rope, also owns shares in AlterGeo, a location-based service inspired by Foursquare, online hotel booking service Ostrovok.ru, and a range of other IT projects.
Source: Vedomosti
