Each weekend we’ll be rounding up a selection of the most interesting articles related to mobile and the games industry at large.
This week includes EA CEO Andrew Wilson on its ambitious plans for gaming's future, how and why Game Freak makes more than just pokemon games, an interview with a 10-year-old app developer, and more.
See an article you think we should share? Email PocketGamer.biz Craig Chapple at craig.chapple@steelmedia.co.uk to add it to our weekly round-up.
EA boss Andrew Wilson's vision of gaming's future will blow your mind
"'Neural networks are spectacular," Wilson says, "but they live by a rule set. We see a world where in some universes – in a Bioware universe, for example – you give the environment a rule set. That might be physics, biology, chemistry and every story told in there would be relevant to that rule set. The same would be true for Star Wars. You give it the rule set and then you would let people tell amazing Star Wars fantasies."
Game Freak is more than just a Pokemon developer
"Gear Project is open to anyone at Game Freak. They pitch their ideas, and the ones the higher-ups think sound interesting get the ok for their creators to spend three months making a prototype. The developers don't just make the prototype in their free time; they spend work time on their projects. Gear Project is scheduled in such a way that it doesn't fall close to Game Freak's busiest times (such as debugging the latest Pokemon game)."
10-year-old app maker's plan: Change world, become turtle
"Yuma Soerianto, a 10-year-old app developer from Melbourne, Australia, was the youngest attendee at Apple's developers' conference this week. He has created five apps currently in the App Store, and runs his own YouTube channel to teach coding."
4 ways Futureplay use mobile video ads to increase monetisation
"View-to-play monetisation is now large enough to support gameplay mechanics that don’t work well with an IAP model. The biggest mistake companies make when trying to integrate the model is not providing enough opportunities for players to watch. Each of these opportunities should provide a positive experience either through value or interaction with the mechanics. High-value trades lead to a greater conversion of videos, but be careful that your economy is robust enough to handle this."
"It's hard to separate the current state of virtual reality from the major players pushing the most popular hardware in the space. And those companies each have, not just different approaches, but unique relationships and challenges with which they are contending."
“Releasing your mobile game in China is an absolute necessity”
"The biggest challenge in releasing your game in China is being unable to meet demand. I've seen medium-sized developers struggle to keep up and churn out enough content at regular intervals to keep players engaged. You have to understand that Chinese gamers are ravenous and demand a lot of content to satisfy their appetite."
How Seriously aims to win the mobile animation game
"'We think we’re just getting started with Best Fiends. It’s a live service that we’re continually upgrading every two or three weeks with new content, characters and elements of the world. And now with the short, we’re building out the media platform side of the business,' [co-founder Andrew] Stalbow says, adding that his experience working on mega-franchise like Angry Birds has helped inform his current work at Seriously."
The story behind Mass Effect: Andromeda's troubled five-year development
"The development of Andromeda was turbulent and troubled, marred by a director change, multiple major re-scopes, an understaffed animation team, technological challenges, communication issues, office politics, a compressed timeline, and brutal crunch."
