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2012 in review: PocketGamer.biz Year That Was

Bot farms, buyouts and big launches

2012 in review: PocketGamer.biz Year That Was
Opening paragraphs sat at the top of an article rounding up the big events of the year are meant to summarise, in a witty and entertaining way, the last 12 months in mobile gaming.

This year, however, has been an especially difficult one to define. Having just scanned hundreds of stories published from January right through to a matter of minutes ago in order to pull this piece together, it's hard to grab hold of all too many themes.

Except, perhaps, one. Seemingly, what someone says one month often looks utterly foolish the next.

It's no comment on the people involved, but scan through PocketGamer.biz in 2012, and you'll find scores of articles filled with declarations and predictions that, sometimes only a matter of weeks later, appear a touch ridiculous – many written by yours truly, and the other esteemed folk that contribute to this site.

Rather than serving to undermine our relative positions, this is in fact a sign of the fast moving state this industry remains in. As this article is testament to, we started 2012 still talking about HP's ill-fated TouchPad and webOS, and have ended December running pieces about Surface and Windows.

In short, the industry as it stands on 19 December is in a very different state than it was just 353 days before on 1 January. Roll on 2013.



Tablet tales

It seems bizarre to focus on failures at the start of a year that was, for many, an especially fruitful one, but talk of the long drawn out demise of HP's TouchPad in January only serves to remind how Apple's rivals continue to struggle with iPad's dominance 12 months later.

HP had actually pulled the plug on TouchPad – its webOS-powered iPad rival - months earlier, but January saw further details about the reasoning behind such a decision hit the web.

According to former Palm employees, TouchPad never stood a chance because webOS had been rushed out and built on web technology that, though "an ambitious and breakthrough design", was too far ahead of the curve to garner wide industry support.

Furthermore, the departure of many of webOS's leading stars after Palm was purchased by HP meant that the project lacked internal support and was always likely to be dropped, even before TouchPad hit the shelves.

Indeed, it was only at the end of the year that credible rivals to Apple's all-conquering iPad – the Nexus 7, Kindle Fire HD and Microsoft's Surface – began to make major waves. TouchPad, sadly, will always be remembered as one of the first wave flops.



Battle of the bot farms

Two month in, and it was time for the first App Store scandal of the year.

February saw news of 'bot farms' – organisations offering to download apps en masse in order to score them a place in the App Store's top 25 – hit the web, with many of the biggest revelations playing out on the pages of PocketGamer.biz.

At its height, it appears bot farming was rife, with many developers almost considering it standard practice when it came to games promotion.

The bot farmers themselves, of course, denied they were doing anything wrong – some claiming said downloads were 'genuine', with consumers offered credit for downloading and interacting with titles on instruction.

Other sources, however, claimed that the majority of bot farms relied on automated downloads – a form of manipulation that was never likely to go down well with Apple, which issues a warning against any firms attempting to 'game' its App Store rankings.

The story's legacy, however, was to illustrate how difficult it was becoming for developers to garner attention for their apps in an ever-crowded marketplace.

While those involved likely knew bot farms were hardly whiter than white, so important had a top 25 placing become that scoring one by any means possible had become a legitimate tactic.



'The all new iPad'

Would it be the iPad 3? Or would Apple launch the iPad HD?

In the end, the third-generation iPad was neither – it was the first of Apple's tablets to do away with an individual moniker and, thanks to the launch of its successor six months later, the shortest lived 'new' iPad of them all.

The reign of Apple's third iPad, however, might have been brief, but it was anything but uneventful. It was, of course, the first iPad to sport Retina resolution, which caused headaches aplenty for developers at the time.

As such, while consumers greeted the device with typical 'enthusiasm' – read 'lengthy queues around the block' – many developers were less sure, with the iOS ecosystem that once seemed like a playground almost exclusively for indies now delivering more and more powerful hardware.

Like iPhone 5 after it, Apple's third iPad, both cemented the Cupertino's giant's position at the top, and pointed towards a future dominated by high-specs and humming hardware. Sounds familiar, doesn't it?



Big buyouts aplenty

Okay, so Zynga technically acquired Draw Something developer OMGPOP in March, but it wasn't until the following month that the impact it was likely to have started to emerge.

Indeed, it was Facebook's move for Instagram that, for then deputy editor Keith Andrew, started alarm bells ringing.

In his view, both Instagram and OMGPOP were 'one hit wonders' - companies that, though currently swimming in success, had done little to prove it could be sustained, and were built around apps that, on closer inspection, didn't really do anything unique.

"There's nothing Instagram does that Facebook itself couldn't knock up in an afternoon," he offered in an opinion piece at the time.

"The concept of making images look retro is clearly a popular one, but there's no one area of its business that those behind Instagram could claim to have sole ownership of. What the company does have, however, is a powerful brand."

Instagram is, of course, still going strong, though it faces stiff competition from Twitter, which has itself added a photo editing tool to its iOS and Android apps.

Indeed, Instagram's owner – Facebook – has had something of a rough year, with the hype that preceded its floatation being quickly followed by sharp drops in its share price and investor criticism following a continued inability to effectively monetise its growing mobile audience.

Zynga, too, has had anything but a smooth 2012.

The months that followed only served to prove that, as PocketGamer.biz predicted, its OMGPOP acquisition was an unwise one – Draw Something's active userbase declining steadily in the months that followed – and its reliance on social platforms such as Facebook was dragging the company down.

Since then, scores of executives have left and Zynga appears to be refocusing on delivering core releases, rather than purely social ones. Chances are, 2013 will prove to be just as eventful for Zynga and Facebook alike.



Rovio's risky move?

Rovio may have released 50 odd games before Angry Birds, but – like OMGPOP and Draw Something – the studio's success had been built around just one franchise.

Until the latter half of 2012, that is. From May onwards, Rovio experimented with broadening its horizons.

The Finnish firm had already proved two months previously that it could successfully play around with the Angry Birds formula without alienating its audience – Angry Birds Space proving to be one of the smashes of the year.

In May, however, it went even further, acquiring the Casey's Contraptions IP and retooling it as Amazing Alex. The new game would go on to be a hit in its own right, although not hitting the heights Angry Birds had in years previous.

Four months later, Rovio would try again with Bad Piggies – itself linked to the Angry Birds IP, but offering entirely different gameplay – which, again, while a big hit by anyone else's standards, perhaps isn't quite in Angry Birds' league.

But then again, what is? Expect Rovio to expand further in 2013 – we'd put money on the firm becoming a mobile publishing powerhouse in the months ahead.



Windows gets real

What do you do when you're one of the largest and most successful companies on the planet, but your move on the mobile market is failing to have any impact whatsoever? Bring out the big guns.

2012 was the year when Microsoft moved Windows Phone – which, to this day, is merely plodding along rather than making great strides – far closer to Windows, with the launch of Windows 8 towards the end of the year bringing the company's Metro UI to a whole new audience.

Coupling this was Windows RT – a stripped back version of the OS that would launch with Surface. Oh, yes, Surface. A first-party tablet unveiled by Microsoft half way through the year out of the blue, without the knowledge of other Windows manufacturers.

The device features a kickstand and a clever keyboard-cum-cover – both of which wowed the press at the tablet's unveiling and, for a vital few days, generated the kind of positive articles usually reserved for Apple's new hardware.

Writing this in December, it's important to note that said 'positive press' didn't last.

November saw a flurry of articles hit the web suggesting Microsoft was scaling back Surface production due to slow sales. In truth, the opposite was true and, as you read this, Surface manufacturing is ramping up, ready for a roll out at retail.

Whether a longterm success or failure, however, Surface's unveiling stands as an important marker in Microsoft's recent history. No longer was the company happy to sit back and watch one of its shiny new operating systems flounder thanks to mediocre devices churned out by OEMs.

Surface sets a benchmark, and stands as a quality device worthy of sitting on the shelves next to iPad, Nexus and co.

It also opens the floodgates to possible Microsoft smartphones in 2013 – something the giant itself has repeatedly denied. However, don't be surprised if, this time next year, we're sat reflecting on the launch of Microsoft's first mobile.



CSR Racing ahead

Every monetisation model needs a poster child, right?

When CSR Racing made its debut half way through 2012, few would have pegged it as the game every free-to-play developer would be holding up as an example of best practice by the end of the year.

If you've attended any conferences during the last few months, however, you'll know that's exactly what has happened.

Developer Boss Alien's decision to focus on monetising the collectable element of the game – i.e. the cars – rather than restricting gameplay itself (aside from a rather generous energy system) has won over many fans.

At its peak, Boss Alien's Jason Avent revealed CSR Racing was generating $12 million in revenue a month, with the studio itself eventually acquired by the game's publisher NaturalMotion.

Indeed, along with My Horse, CSR Racing helped propel said publisher into mobile's major league – NaturalMotion ends 2012 as a major force in publishing, both in the UK and worldwide.

For the industry at large, however, CSR Racing stands as example of how to do free-to-play well, with the game delivering a big experience perfectly suited to touchscreen play. Whatever Boss Alien does next, you can guarantee developers the world over will be watching.



GREE's global game

In truth, August wasn't the only month when Japanese social gaming giant GREE got its cheque book out.

Indeed, the acquisition of OpenFeint in 2011 meant 2012 was the year when the company set its sights on conquering the west. GREE's strategy? Convince as many developers in North America and Europe to adopt its forthcoming global gaming platform as possible.

When I say 'convince', however, I mean GREE signed multiple deals with scores of major studios that locked said developers down into providing exclusive content.

The company also set up its own development houses in the west – San Francisco, Vancouver, and most recently, London – and acquired those already in business, such as Funzio.

August saw further deals unveiled: a partnership with Battle Bears dev SkyVu and Mind Candy of Moshi Monsters fame two of note.

The longterm plan is to generate 10 percent of sales to come from outside of Japan, though a recent look at the app charts by PocketGamer.biz suggests GREE has enjoyed only moderate success in the west with its first-party games to date.

The firm also ended the year on something of a low, with news of OpenFeint's closure before the end of 2012 leaving many developers high and dry.



All about iPhone 5

It may have come a year after everyone expected – iPhone 4S stealing its successor's limelight in the latter months of 2011 – but Apple's iPhone 5 unveiling was something of a typical affair.

The press - hyped up over talk it would change the world, come fitted with arms, legs and a fully customisable face, as well as the ability to travel in time, control the weather, and turn into a handy hoverboard - collectively sighed following its unveiling.

Save a longer screen, iPhone 5 was, to all intents and purposes, just another iPhone.

While Apple would find itself ridiculed soon after its launch – the decision to launch Apple Maps with iOS 6 resulting in the world and his wife screencapping every single mistake for weeks on end – it had no impact on the inevitable queues that formed outside Apple branches across the globe.

Underneath the surface, however, was developer apathy. Yes, it's nice to have your business plugged into a stable platform with a userbase in the hundreds of millions, but many believed both iPhone and iOS had 'lost their magic' somewhat.

Only time will tell if keeping things safe and secure will come back to bite Apple in the end. For now, however, iPhone 5 is arguably the most successful device the company has ever launched.



The app promo attack

"Is Apple clamping down on third-party app promotion services?" asked PocketGamer.biz in one of the most read articles on the site this year.

In truth, two months on, we still don't really know.

October itself was plugged full of details of a chance to Apple's App Review Guidelines for iOS that outlawed apps that "display apps other than your own for purchase or promotion in a manner similar to or confusing with the App Store".

What did this mean? Was this a case of Apple targeting pure app promotion services, such as FreeAppADay, or could a whole host of apps find themselves in trouble? Were third-party ad tools or incentivisation platforms now against the rules, and could a developer cross-promoting its game with other indies find itself in hot water?

In typical Apple fashion, the company said nothing, and though PocketGamer.biz received accounts from developers who had fallen foul of the new clause, there was no set pattern. The new guidelines didn't lead to any mass action against any kind.

It did, however, give Apple yet another clause that allows it to reject titles submitted to its App Store if and when it wants to.

So, what's new?



Never underestimate the power of PR

The end of October had seen games journalists across the UK – and, later on, across the world – take a long hard look at the way they operate.

A seemingly small event – a competition to win a PlayStation 3 at the Games Media Awards in the UK – had resulted in readers questioning whether those working in the industry had become too close to those working in games PR.

Was it okay for a journalist to endorse a particular game or product on their Twitter account in order to win a free console? Should journalists be allowed to review, or even cover, games published by a firm they had previously worked for in any capacity?

Were press trips paid for by publishers okay? If a journalist went for a drink with a developer or PR, should this be declared in any articles that followed?

In response, many websites drew up guidelines designed to ensure that the storm that had resulted from the original case didn't lash up against their window panes in the years ahead. Had anything really changed longterm, however? Not really.

Indeed, the business that actually saw its reputation thoroughly trashed was PR, with many of those operating well within the field lumped in with those who it was alleged had crossed a line.

PocketGamer.biz closed the debacle, however, both by pointing out why games PR exists – many detractors calling for it, in some form, to be abolished – as well as publishing a guide designed to help those starting out in the mobile dev scene get to grips with it.



War approaches

Whose responsibility is it to ensure that games launched on a new platform get spotted?

That was the question that dominated December, with Rubicon – the developer behind Great Big War Game – taking to its blog to complain about Microsoft's handling of Windows RT.

The stripped-back OS, which is designed to offer a Windows 8 experience without the ability to install programs or apps outside of its own app store, launched on Microsoft's first Surface devices with a more than healthy games roster from day one.

Rubicon, however, was making just £52 a week from the platform, and had been denied the opportunity for a promo spot on the Windows Store thanks to the fact it was an RT only app.

Microsoft wants to present a unified marketplace, and so only universal Windows RT and Windows 8 titles are pushed.

Rubicon, however, had already signed over the rights to the PC version to another party. As such, despite amassing downloads and plaudits aplenty on iOS and Android, the developer was to be left to promote the Windows RT version of its game on its own.

In an interview with PocketGamer.biz, however, studio owner Paul Johnson admitted his company had done nothing to promote Great Big War Game on Windows RT.

What's more, comments posted by Johnson in response to a follow up article suggest Rubicon was unaware of how Windows RT would sit within the Windows ecosystem, meaning Microsoft's well-publicised policies came as a surprise to the studio.

Microsoft did, in part, relent and reach out to Rubicon to discuss the issue, which resulted in the developer's original blog post being pulled.

Is there a lesson to be learned from all of this, though?

It's perhaps unwise for a developer to blindly launch a game on a fresh marketplace without fully researching it first, though in truth, the Great Big War Game debacle proved to be little more than a neat bit of drama to end the year on.

I wouldn't be surprised if we see equal amounts of passion and provocation liberally sprayed across the pages of PocketGamer.biz throughout 2013.

With a fine eye for detail, Keith Andrew is fuelled by strong coffee, Kylie Minogue and the shapely curve of a san serif font.