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February 1st, 2009 
superbad 
**Win A Copy of iShoot For Yourself. Find Out after the Jump**
Erratum: Ethan has been programming since 8 years old. He started professionally at the age of 16. We apologize to Ethan for this getting overlooked.
The amazing response we’ve received from both our inaugural January Developers of the Month (Ian Marsh and Craig Kemper), and the iPhone gaming community has been a tremendous success. We’re officially continuing this tradition here at The APPera!
Picking the “February Developer of the Month” was one of the easiest decisions we’ve ever had to make. His tremendous success trounced the fart app laden AppStore and made history by becoming the first developer to shoot to the top of BOTH the AppStore’s Paid and Free Charts at the same time. He’s had (and still enjoying!) one (if not the best) of the greatest AppStore success stories so far, both developers and gamers alike consider him as a legend.
Ethan Nicholas, iShoot ($2.99; Free)
There was a time all hope was lost due to the fact that a certain fart app was immovable at the top of the AppStore paid charts. Far superior quality games were getting overlooked one after the other all for some fart app fiasco. Day after day, the AppStore spawned new variants of fart apps… then comes January 3. It was the day the lite version of an action packed, artillery game one can call ”Tank Battle Royale” hit the AppStore.
Destined For Success…
Ethan began programming professionally (see Erratum) at the young age of 16. By age 18, he was able to create a web page editor, eventualy purchased by GeoCities for a staggering $1.25 Million (he says “almost all of that money went directly into my boss’ pocket”). Not wasting any time, Ethan joined GeoCities, a company which was later acquired by Yahoo!. After working seven years at GeoCities/Yahoo!, he then decided to work for Sun Microsystems as an architect on the Java team. Yes! He is the same Ethan Nicholas that proved to be one of the forefathers of then called “Java Kernel“.
In Part 2 of this article series, we’ll learn how the game came about and what the future holds for Ethan and iShoot!
Giveway:
Comment below about the article, Ethan or iShoot. Lucky commenters will be chosen in random. Multiple entries per article in this series is allowed. Closes Feb 5, 12AM.
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I’m very glad that the iShoot hype took over from the fart hype. It’s good to see that the Appstore market can still bring good successes like this, since there are also many people complaining about invisibility in the Appstore etc.
Congrats, Ethan!
I say good on Ethan. Creating an app while we wasn’t doing his day job and has now sold 250,000 copies and has now quit his job. If only more of these stories were heard, great games from indie devs are what we need.
Nicholas is a very great dev who made alot of money from developing. I’m glad that he took over and replace that fart app. Finally, he has the same name as me
Great game! This game is a classic thathas finnally been brought to the iPhone. congrats to the dev for thinking of this, and I bethe has maade tond of money from this. He is one of the lucky devs that hit big!
And to the dev, CONGRATS, and I look forward to seeing more games and apps from you!
I would like to try the Full Version of this app so bad, I know it’s only $2.99 but right now I got laid-off a couple weeks ago and I can’t afford any game but free games. I got the Free version and I Love It. I never get bored and I play over and over again every day just to feel the gameplay and see the nice graphics. By the way, I like Ethan hairstyle, looks cool! See ya’ guys and I hope you guys have a nice SuperBowl Sunday.
Great article! Great game, too. Can’t wait…
Congrats on making such a great game. The trial version rocks!
My husband and I both love the free version of this game! Great job!
Wow, this Ethan guy is famous! I’d like to try out one of his works.
Ethan seems like a very intelligent person, hope his success continues. As for iShoot, this game seems EPIC.
The lite one is fun, but rather hard. I seem to suck at it. Maybe the paid one will motivate me to get better.
I played this on my friends iphone! great app!! Hope I can get this on mine
iShoot rocks ! Deserves to be No.1 ! Good job, Ethan.
iShoot is awesome! I remember playing it years ago, glad to see it again
This looks like a really nice game, I used to really enjoy Worms
great interview dude!! ISHOOT!!!
Looks like a great game. I have the lite version…wished there was some actual gameplay in it rather than just the practice mode. Thanks Ethan.