Vampire Survivors launched on Android and iOS last month, but Poncle developer Luca Galante had intended to bring the breakthrough hit to mobile platforms considerably earlier.
In an update to the game's Steam store page, Galante discussed the process of bringing it to mobile, saying, "Soon after the initial success of VS, I started to look for a business partner to work on a mobile version of the game. Unfortunately, nobody I spoke with was on board with the monetization I had in mind for the platform: non-predatory."
Poncle spent months unsuccessfully looking for a partner, but eventually opted to handle the mobile port in-house when "a large number of actual clones - not 'games like Vampire Survivors,' but actual 1:1 copies with stolen code, assets, data, progression - started to appear everywhere.