Queensland artist tops global App Store chart

Before Kanye West dropped his latest album via Tidal, Queensland-based artistand entrepreneur Fortafy had been at the top of the globaliOS App Store for 23 days as the publisher behind viral game Color Switch. Today, it’s back at #1.

Fortafy, aka Samuel Ratumaitavuki, co-founded app development company Fortafy Games last month in partnership with Sydney-based marketing executive Zeb Jaffer. The pair collaborated with video game company Eye Box Games (which has over 20 games on the market) to develop and publish Color Switch.

Now, just eight weeks at market, and without a dollar spent on advertising, the game has held the #1 position in the overall app store charts in 25 countries, and has been downloaded close to 20 million times. In the US, UK, Canada, Australia and New Zealand, the game had been #1 for three consecutive weeks.

It has held the #1 spot in Australia for the past four weeks, sans one day: the day triple j announced the results of its Hottest 100 poll on January 26. The triple j app was #1 on Australia Day after a marketing push by the youth broadcaster to download the app. The following day however, Color Switch was back at #1.

It also remained at #1 in the US during the entire Super Bowl period, ahead of the official NFL app.

Color Switch was dethroned for two days on Sunday however, when Kanye West made his LP The Life Of Pablo available for download exclusively on Tidal. The release sent the streaming service’s app to the top of the App Store chart, with Kanye even tweeting the news.

Man thank you so so so much everyone for signing up to Tidal. Tidal is now the number one app in the world!!! pic.twitter.com/O3r9DkX03R

— KANYE WEST (@kanyewest) February 15, 2016

Color Switch, a skill-testing game where users move a ball through colour-coded obstacles, was created by California residents David Reichelt and Aditya Oza. The pair used game software maker Buildbox to program, code and script the game.

Reichelt and Oza, along with Fortafy and Eye Box are now leading the charge in the US$30 billion mobile game industry. Color Switch has even been compared to Flappy Bird, which was vastly successful in 2014. At one point, Flappy Bird’s creator Dong Nguyen was reportedly earning up to US$50,000 every day.

Color Switch isn’t Fortafy’s first foray into gaming; the 29-year-old New Zealand expat developed and published the game Thug Worm – an updated take on popular Nokia game Snake – with Eye Box Games last November. The game hit #1 on the NZ iOS App Store and #4 in Australia.

Interestingly, Fortafy has chosen not to capitalise on Color Switch’s global success by plugging his music to his 6.7m followers on Facebook and 15,200 on Twitter. Instead, he uses his social media pages to post memes and mentions of Color Switch. TMN understands popular users of Vine and YouTube send him videos of themselves playing the game.

“I have never just been or ever wanted to be just a music artist’,” Fortafy told TMN. “It’s always been one of many things I do.

“With the [Facebook] page it’s not about me trying to get famous or getting a record deal – I never ever cared about any of that,” he added. “It’s about using that platform to the fullest extent, and with that particular platform being so varied – i.e. young kids to old, English to non-English speaking, Christian to Muslim etc. – it’s obvious that creating something that has universal appeal, that transcends all that, wasn’t music.”

Fortafy puts the success of Color Switch down to the global shift in digital consumption toward mobile as a preferred platform.

“Everyone now has a computer in there pocket,” he said. “And with our busy lives, not everyone has time to play a game like World Of Warcraft or Clash of Clans. So to pull out your phone on the train headed to work or on the bus to school for example, to spend a quick 5-10 minutes playing Color Switch is a lot easier.”

The self-professed online entrepreneur signed to New Zealand labelFrequency Media Group in 2012 and released his album Where I’m Fromas a free download. The record features multi-Platinum artist Savage, who had a #2 ARIA single with the Joel Fletcher remix of Swing and a #3 ARIA single Timmy Trumpet’s global breakout Freaks.

A year later Fortafy started his own label and has recorded with 360 and Scribe, and supported US artists including The Game, Naughty By Nature, Bone Thugs and Harmony, and Chingy. That same year Fortafy released the video for his single with Donell Lewis, Show No Love. The clip has over 913,000 views on YouTube.

In 2014 Fortafy recorded the track Beg for Itwith Will Singe. Singe and Fortafy have released four collaborative singles, Beg For It, Put It Down, Don’t Need ‘em and No Time. Most recently hecollaborated with Kennyon Brown on the singles All On MeandYour Body, which you can stream below.