Hot Five

Cracking UA, the making of Brave Frontier, and why mobile games shouldn't be on your TV

Last week's top 5 stories

Cracking UA, the making of Brave Frontier, and why mobile games shouldn't be on your TV

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.

Each week, we'll be counting down the biggest news from the previous seven days, giving just a glimpse of the industry's big issues, from five to one.

Handy for you, each headline in the list also allows you to click through to the article in full, so you can make sure you've not missed out on any of last week's big stories.

 


Click here to view the list »
  • 5 F2P monetisation is extremely challenging that's why mobile devs need to learn about community, says Molyneux

    Peter Molyneux is no stranger to the free-to-play debate, so it was perhaps unsurprising to see him enter the arena once again at Apps World Europe 2014.

    This time Molyneux recounted his experiences creating Godus, and explained that, ultimately free-to-play, is frustratingly restrictive.

    "Monetisation is a drug. To get it delightfully right is the hardest psychological trick. It's extremely challenging," warned Molyneux

    "By any measure, Godus has been a success, except monetisation.

    "It's incredibly challenging to get people to pay. F2P is constraining our ability to be creative."


  • 4 MyGamez on why full localisation wasn't key to Hill Climb Racing's success in China

    MyGamez on why full localisation wasn't key to Hill Climb Racing's success in China logo

    The industry would have you believe that when it comes to cracking China, there's one rule you need to follow: localise your game first.

    What happens when you break that rule? Well, if you're Finnish developer Fingersoft, the studio behind Hill Climb Racing, you find yourself celebrating a job well done.

    According to Mikael Leinonen, CEO of Chinese-Finnish outfit MyGamez, which published the game in the country, upfront comprehensive localisation isn't the only way to succeed in the east.

    "For small studios it's a huge risk to undertake major localisation effort before there's any proof whether the game will monetise in China," cautions Leinonen.

    "Good gameplay is universal and as long as Chinese players can understand the language and possible cultural references within the game, you might just give it a go with minimal localisation first."


  • 3 Why mobile games have no future on your TV screen

    Why mobile games have no future on your TV screen logo

    After writing about Google's new TV platform, Android TV, we couldn't help but wonder why the Apple TV is yet to feature games in any way, shape, or form.

    To get to bottom of the issue, we asked our Mobile Mavens whether they think mobile games have any real future on television.

    As the headline suggests, they weren't exactly optimistic.

    "I think developers and publishers are making a mistake if they view platforms like Android TV, Amazon Fire TV and probably the next Apple TV as just another platform for their mobile game titles," said PlayScreen CCO, William D. Volk.

    "As a user of the Fire TV, I find that most of the games are not well suited to the "sit back and play via a remote or game controller big screen experience."


  • 2 The world at war: The making of Brave Frontier

    The world at war: The making of Brave Frontier logo

    In our latest 'making of' feature PocketGamer.biz freelancer Kirk Mckeand peeled back the curtain at Gumi to find out how the studio created Brave Frontier, a JRPG aimed at both the east and the west, and one that is unashamedly a mobile game.

    "Brave Frontier was planned to go worldwide from the very beginning,” recalls Hisatoshi Hayakashi, Brave Frontier's executive producer.

    “We know that Japanese players prefer characters with large eyes and small mouths, but outside Japan it doesn’t work that well, so we tried characters with no mouths.

    “Also, we added male characters, beasts, grandfather characters - archetypes you don’t see in Japanese mobile games, and we had less young girls than what a Japanese player might expect.

    "I’m not a fan of young girl characters myself. I believe we reached the perfect balance with our characters and managed to make the young girl characters stand out even more.”


  • 1 Inside The Game: Launch marketing and User Acquisition 101

    Inside The Game: Launch marketing and User Acquisition 101 logo

    PocketGamer.biz has partnered up with US developer Pixelberry Studios to highlight its candid stories on the trials and triumphs of a startup game studio whose debut title High School Story stayed in the top grossing top 100 chart for a year.

    Our bi-weekly series of articles provides a mix of drama, detailed learnings, and actual numbers from their experience launching and supporting a top game.

    Last week's piece saw Pixelberry CEO Oliver Miao tackled the tricky subjects of marketing and user acquisition. In today's ultra-competitive mobile market, suggests Miao, having a great product isn't enough.

    It might not sound fair, but that's simply the way it is, and it's up to developers to adapt.

    "Nowadays, keeping a game in the Top 100 Grossing chart requires more than just having a great product. You need a user acquisition strategy, too," explained Miao.

    "Some companies rely on multi-million dollar licensing deals to help draw players to their games, others rely on pulling users over from their existing network of games, but nearly all of them spend significant money on ads.

    "And if you’re not spending money to acquire new users, it’s very difficult to stay competitive."


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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.