Hot Five

Hot Five: Nintendo reveals its fugly wedge, Unity CEO tells devs to go nuts, whilst GREE and IUGO use synergy to boost player retention

All of the chaos from last week

Hot Five: Nintendo reveals its fugly wedge, Unity CEO tells devs to go nuts, whilst GREE and IUGO use synergy to boost player retention
Welcome to PocketGamer.biz's weekly rundown of the stories clocking up the hits, picking up the click-throughs and generally keeping the advertisers happy by serving up page views.

Or, if you'd prefer, the top five stories currently dominating our readers' attention.

Perhaps, even taking down our servers if they become too popular...

So each week, we're counting down the biggest news from the previous seven days, giving a glimpse into of the industry's big issues, from five to one.

Here goes...



Nintendo demonstrates that if you can't accept mobile games, any old fugly wedge will do

Last week's Nintendo 2DS announcement caught many people off guard, and it wasn't long before the internet was up in arms about Nintendo's decision to do away with the 3D screen and the clamshell design of the 3DS.

Our editor-at-large Jon Jordan decided to throw his two cents into the melting pot, and take a look at what the announcement of the 2DS means for Nintendo.

"As any poker player knows, you have to play the hand you're dealt (or fold), and with the 2DS we can see exactly how weak Nintendo's hand now is."

"Nintendo can't (yet) say 3D has been a flop, so it's come up with clever combination of dropping the technology as part of a 'cost-cutting measure'"



King sues 6waves for allegedly copying two Saga games

Social and casual mobile games titan King last week filed a lawsuit against 6waves for allegedly copying two of its games.

The suit, filed in US District Court in San Francisco, alleges that 6waves intentionally replicated the 'look and feel' of King's successful Pet Rescue Saga, and Farm Heroes Saga titles.

The suit also alleges that 6waves used King's intellectual property in its Treasure Epic, and Farm Epic games.



Devs need to 'go nuts': Unity's David Helgason on how to be the next big thing, and why the publisher never really went away

Our very own PocketGamer.biz editor, Keith Andrew, was at the Unite conference in Vancouver last week, and he was determined to bring you all of the juiciest stories.

During his travels, Keith grilled Unity CEO David Helgason on whether publishing ever really disappeared from the games industry.

"I remember sometimes calling Union 'bizarro-publishing', or like our take on what publishing could be," explained Helgason.

"So I never thought of it not as publishing – it was better described as distribution and helping people out."

But now Unity is revealed as a proper publisher, with big plans for the future. 



Why GungHo, GREE, DeNA and Kabam demonstrate the industry's most effective monetisation

"How can I make any sense of the monthly chart round ups thrown out by market intelligence companies?"

That's the question our editor-at-large and resident number cruncher, Jon Jordan posed to himself recently.

Thankfully, App Annie's July 2013 figures for the Apple App Store and Google Play gave him the perfect opportunity to answer that question, whilst serving up some Michelin Star industry analysis for your reading pleasure.



How GREE and IUGO boosted Knights & Dragons' 30-day retention by 50%

Guest author Jon Pearsali, director of product at GREE International, put pen to paper to explain how GREE and IUGO worked together to make Knights & Dragons a roaring success.

"By improving the first time player experience, tracking user engagement across events and optimizing weekly battles and tournaments, player retention over the first month improved over 50 percent between December 2012 and April 2013," writes Pearsali.

"Coupled with improvements in monetization, these collaborative iterations made all the difference between a game that would have had difficulty breaking into the top 100 charts and one that recently was top 17 top grossing on the US App Store."

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What do you call someone who has an unhealthy obsession with video games and Sean Bean? That'd be a 'Chris Kerr'. Chris is one of those deluded souls who actually believes that one day Sean Bean will survive a movie. Poor guy.