Getting Their Hands On Games

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Believe it or not, one of the most popular games on Apple’s iTunes store was developed by a 14-year-old boy in Kuwait. The game, “Doodle Destroy,” has been downloaded more than 900,000 times.

And a registered nurse in Los Angeles has made enough money from her iPhone games to start a development studio.

How are these people, with no programming experience, doing it?

They used software from an L.A. company called GameSalad that simplifies complex computer coding into a basic drag-and-drop tool.

“GameSalad started as a grad school experiment, and now it’s become a way for people to make money,” said Chief Executive Michael Agustin, who started GameSalad in Austin, Texas, in 2007.

The Lone Star State’s low cost of living made it easy for him to bootstrap the company. But this summer he decided to move to Southern California to be closer to other media companies.

Agustin and two employees work out of an office in the Westside neighborhood of Palms, while a dozen employees, many engineers, continue to work in Austin.

GameSalad provides the technology for developers to create games for iPhones or iPads. Game makers then pay the company an annual subscription fee of $99 to publish their creations on iTunes.

“Doodle Destroy” has become one of GameSalad’s most popular games. Its simple, puzzlelike challenges have become so popular that its developer has begun selling “Doodle Destroy 2” for $1 on iTunes; a profit he doesn’t share with GameSalad.

But that’s OK with Agustin, because it translates into success for his company.

“They are able to make a living off GameSalad, which is something that happened a lot sooner than we expected,” he said.

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