( CNN ) -- With its glassy touch screen , powerful graphics , crisp sound and tilt feature , the iPhone is more than a smart phone for some users -- it 's a portable entertainment system . `` Trism '' developer Steve Demeter demonstrates his game via webcast to CNN.com 's Nicole Lapin . It 's also become a potential gold mine for entrepreneurs who create games for the device . Just ask Steve Demeter , developer of the popular puzzle game `` Trism . '' A former ATM software designer for a large bank , Demeter created `` Trism '' in his spare time and pitched it to Apple last spring . The company made the game available for download with the July launch of its App Store , an online provider of applications for its iPods and iPhones . Priced at $ 5 , `` Trism '' earned Demeter $ 250,000 in profits the first two months . `` It 's done phenomenal business , '' said Demeter , 29 , who lives in the California 's San Francisco Bay area . `` I 'm very honored that so many people would enjoy my game . I get e-mails from 50-year-old ladies who say , `` I do n't play games , but I love Trism . ' That 's the coolest thing . '' It can take dozens of professional developers and millions of dollars to create a video game for a traditional console such as a PlayStation or an Xbox . But the iPhone and the App Store have helped democratize game development by opening the field to any software coder with talent and a clever idea , industry observers say . `` A single one of these titles can be turned around for pennies by comparison in just weeks by a single hobbyist working in their off-hours , '' said Scott Steinberg , publisher of DigitalTrends.com and author of `` Get Rich Playing Games . '' `` The overhead and barriers to entry are so low that virtually anyone can afford to take a crack , if not several , at hitting a home run . '' Demeter took his crack after attending an iPhone conference in the summer of 2007 . He spent months afterward brainstorming , by himself and with friends , about how to create an original game for the device . Once he got the idea for `` Trism '' in February he spent another four months coding the game on nights and weekends . The result is a puzzle game , like `` Bejeweled , '' in which players manipulate a colorful grid of triangles . Players score points by lining up three or more like-colored triangles in a row , with an iPhone twist : The triangles rearrange themselves depending on which way the player rotates the phone . `` I did the game myself , basically . I had a buddy of mine who actually came up with the name 'Trism . ' I paid him a couple of grand . But other than that it [ was ] just me , '' Demeter told CNN . `` It 's a very simple-to-learn , hard-to-master puzzle game . It was n't as hard [ to develop ] as a 3-D , gun-and-battle kind of game . But for the one-man team that I was , it was definitely a challenge . '' Demeter quit his bank job two months ago and has launched a company , Demiforce , to develop more electronic games . Now he has a salaried staff , five games in development and two coming out by Christmas , including a spinoff to `` Trism '' called `` Trismology . '' `` Apple has made it so easy to put [ game publishing ] in the palms of developers , '' he said . `` You just make it and then you submit it to Apple . If you have a relevant , fun game or application , I do n't see any reason why it should n't be approved . '' Developers earn 70 percent of App Store proceeds from the sale of their games , with Apple taking 30 percent . The field is getting crowded , though . There now are more than 1,500 iPhone games available from the App Store , up from about 900 two months ago . `` It 's a rich and promising vein that several independent game publishers have been able to successfully tap , '' said DigitalTrends ' Steinberg in an e-mail interview . `` However , success stories remain the exception , not the norm -- as with any gold rush , what we 're presently seeing is a massive number of prospectors looking to stake their claim . `` Many of the overnight successes we 've witnessed enjoyed the benefits of timing and visibility , advantages quickly being eroded due to market oversaturation , '' Steinberg added . `` Let 's put it this way : I would n't tell anyone to quit their day job just yet . As with any Cinderella story , chances of recreating this kind of success are few and far between . ''
The iPhone has become a gold mine for those who create games for the device . Steve Demeter developed the popular puzzle game `` Trism '' in his spare time . He also created an app called " [ Tris ] ( http://tris.io/ ) The App Store has helped open the game-development field to entrepreneurs .