Angry Birds no longer the top-grossing game on iPhone

It looks like it’s time for Rovio’s Angry Birds to retire as the top-grossing game on the iPhone. A new game has taken its place. Instead of flying birds, the highest-grossing game on the iPhone is now dominated by little blue men in Smurfs’ Village. Smurf’s Village puts the players in control of a village in a FarmVille-style game. You may wonder how the game makes money despite it being free- through in-game purchases. You can purchase “smurfberries” which helps to speed up activities in the game, so you spend less time waiting and more time doing. These smurfberries don’t come cheap though, at $4.99 for a bucket of 50 to $59.99 for a wheelbarrow of 1,000. And when you have children who simply purchase the berries using your credit card info on your iPhone, you can imagine the amount of money spent on the game compared to the $0.99 you spend on Angry Birds. With such a successful game model Smurfs’ Village is built on, I wonder if more similar games will pop up in the near future, or will it be dethroned by something totally original?