Imangi explains why Harbor Master HD will be free

There's been a lot of talk about the price of iPad games, but Imangi Studios, the developer of popular iPhone line-drawing game Harbor Master is taking a different approach when it comes to its HD version.

It's going to be free.

"While many developers are going with premium pricing for the iPad, we thought differently," explains Natalia Luckyanova.

"We think the iPad will be a massive market in the future... however, at launch, it will be less than 1 percent of the iPhone/iPod touch market, according to most estimates. Rather than try to make a few bucks, we decided that we want to be on as many devices as possible and establish a presence.

"And since we've been hard at work on our next epic game since January and didn't have time to make a huge premium version of Harbor Master HD, we decided to make a free version to give all of the Harbor Master fans a fun game to play for free on their new iPad."

The result is that Harbor Master HD will feature one brand new high resolution map called Treasure Island, plus with global leaderboards and the ability to tweet high scores.

The game is also multi-touch so people can play co-operatively on the same map.
Future proof Business-wise, there will be ads but Luckyanova says they will be unobtrusive and only appear in the menus.

Eventually, the ability to turn off ads, plus the in-app purchase of additional level packs, may also be added.