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By Sarah E. Needleman 

Two years ago, Nicole Swisher paid 99 cents to download the app "Heads Up!" to her iPad so she could use the charades-like game in her third-grade classroom.

Several of the Indianapolis teacher's students liked the game so much they ended up buying it themselves, Ms. Swisher said, including 11-year-old Ryan Ketchem. "I play with my sister and my mom a lot," he said.

"Heads Up!" is one of the most popular paid apps, and has been downloaded more than 22 million times world-wide since its 2013 launch. The game, featured regularly on Ellen DeGeneres's daytime talk show, routinely has ranked among the top five paid downloads on Apple Inc.'s U.S. App Store for more than two years, alongside the megahit "Minecraft."

The journey from app store to Ms. Swisher's classroom to Ryan's living room is instructive for developers hoping to create the next viral hit--and, more important, staying power. That is crucial, given that nearly half of people who own mobile devices use five or fewer apps at least once a week, according to a recent survey from Pew Research Center.

In "Heads Up!," one player holds a mobile device against her forehead, while others act out or describe the words on the screen. The person holding the device has to guess as many words as possible in a minute. It is part Hedbanz, part charades and all quite familiar.

People have snapped it up, playing more than 650 million rounds, according to Time Warner Inc.'s Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc. division, the game's publisher.

There is a unique feature for today's selfie and YouTube-obsessed world: The device's camera captures the antics on video, which can be shared online. (Privacy hawks can disable the feature.) But it is social sharing in person--as in Ms. Swisher's case--not online, that has been a powerful marketing tool.

Unlike most mobile games, where people peck away by themselves, "Heads Up!" requires at least two people, in person, to play. Even multiplayer hits such as "Clash of Clans" don't require people to share space.

Recruiting players is a barrier, but those recruits are more likely to then get it for themselves, said Patrick Walker, an analyst at market-research firm EEDAR. Just watching people play could nudge them to download.

Ian Hyland, a 20-year-old college sophomore from La Quinta, Calif., played "Heads Up!" with three friends last month while waiting in line for about 45 minutes to ride a roller coaster at Disneyland. "You look a little funny holding your phone to your head," Mr. Hyland said. "People next to us in line asked what the game was and where we got it."

The app market is competitive, with about 1.5 million available on both Apple and Alphabet Inc.'s Google app stores. Most games are free and monetize by selling features inside. There is a lot at stake: Game apps alone are expected to reach $27.1 billion in world-wide revenue this year, according to SuperData Research.

A free version of "Heads Up!" launched on Google Play last year. Still, the vast majority of downloads were purchased for 99 cents, Warner Bros. said. It spent little to make "Heads Up!"--the brainchild of a Web producer for Ms. DeGeneres's show back in 2012--which Warner Bros. said is profitable.

To keep gamers hooked, Warner Bros. regularly feeds the app with new 99-cent decks on trendy topics such as the new "Star Wars" movie. Players have spent more than $10 million on new decks, the company said.

"That keeps it entertaining," said Jackie Browne of St. Catharines, Canada, who has bought about two dozen decks. The 22-year-old has four other games on her phone that recently replaced other apps. "Heads Up!," though, has stuck around.

It doesn't hurt to have a celebrity tie-in. Ms. DeGeneres provides a brief tutorial for beginners, and she plays several times a month with celebrities on her show, which reaches about 15 million viewers a week.

Write to Sarah E. Needleman at sarah.needleman@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

January 15, 2016 05:44 ET (10:44 GMT)

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