Back In Business
GungHo breathes new life into Puzzle & Dragons as MAUs and sales increase in Q4
Sales and profits up quarter-on-quarter and year-on-year
Sales Lost
CyberAgent president “regrets relying too much on a single game title” as Dragalia Lost underperforms
Sales fall below expectations and aren't enough to recoup costs in other areas of the business
Nintendo
Nintendo wants to break beyond its existing fanbase despite multiple franchise successes
The Mario-maker’s recent Q&A also touched on keeping players online and the rapidly-declining 3DS
New Plan
Square Enix mobile games underperform as publisher signals it’ll rebuild business
Lowest sales quarter in 2018 and 2019 financial years for smartphone and browser sectors
Rune-ing To The Bank
Summoners War exceeds 100 million global downloads
Five-years after launching
5g By 2020
Hatch partners with DOCOMO to bring cloud gaming to mobiles and TVs in Japan
UNESCO agrees deal to publish games for Hatch Kids
Financials
Dragon Ball Legends drives a strong Q3 2019 performance for publisher Bandai Namco
Mobile brawler success sees expectations raised for the publisher’s end-of-year results
Stream Or Summon
Iron Man and Spider-Man writers join Summoners War TV series
Robert Kirkman helming the project
Financial Report
Animoca Brands ends a record year with Q4 revenue of $4.6 million
Continued blockchain partnerships and investments secure a strong year for the Chinese publisher
Doctor Doctor
Disney Tsum-Tsum’s $1.5 billion success story bodes well for Dr. Mario World
Plush puzzler has grossed at least $10 million monthly since March 2014
Learn
Indian learning platform Byju’s buys out US games firm Osmo for $120 million
Osmo will help the online education firm craft learning content for younger students
China Vs South Korea
South Korea’s Kakao considers $9bn Nexon bid
Potentially one of the companies biggest acquisitions
Toasty
Dragon Ball Legends surpasses $140m in revenue
Over $100m made in the US and Japan alone
Charts
Weekly global mobile games charts: Western developers find premium success in China
Charts from January 21st to 27th
Sports Stars
Sports games score big sales for Konami as revenue tops $1.76 billion for last nine months
Yu-Gi-Oh Duel Links set to launch in China on mobile
Nintendo Tokyo
Nintendo set to open its first official store in Japan
Set to open its doors in autumn 2019
Partner Up
Nintendo partners with Line and NHN for Dr. Mario World mobile game this summer
Will launch across 60 countries including the US and Japan
Indie Spotlight
Mountains' Ken Wong on moving on from Monument Valley to Florence
"I felt like I wanted to grow on my own and I wanted to see what they could do without me"
Nex-marble
Netmarble forming consortium to acquire Nexon
Serious contender for $9bn-valued publisher
Switched On
Nintendo posts strong quarter despite lowering Switch sales estimates to 17m for the year
Mobile spurs on approximately $300m in sales
Blame The Blue Shell?
Mario Kart Tour for mobile delayed until summer 2019
Was expected to launch by end of March
Demonic
DENA and Platinum's World of Demons possibly canned after App Store removal
The hack and slash game had initially soft-launched in Philippines, Singapore and Malaysia in June of last year
Destination Iran
Low CPI and high ARPU: Iran, the fastest growing mobile apps market in the Middle East
Delving into market data
Switch
Nintendo president: "We certainly want to release mobile games across a wide variety of genres"
Nintendo president Shuntaro Furukawa believes the Switch is strong enough as-is to meet the company's ambitions
Charts
Weekly Global Mobile Games Charts: PUBG Mobile breaks into US top 10 grossing slots
Charts from January 14th to 20th
Locked
NetEase is enforcing an 11-hour curfew of mobile gaming for kids
New limits will also severely restrict daily playtime for young children
Charts
Weekly global mobile games charts: King's Candy Crush Saga the top grosser in UK and US
Charts from January 7th to 13th
Eastern Trailblazer
Jeff Lyndon awarded first-ever Eastern Trailblazer accolade at Pocket Gamer Mobile Games Awards
Recognised for a hugely successful career in building companies and bringing the global industry together
Frozen
As many as 6,000 games could be stuck in China's licensing backlog
The waiting list for those titles could be two-years also
Heating Up
China's backlog of new game approvals still holding up Tencent and NetEase
257 titles granted license for release since March 2018
Speaker Spotlight
Speaker Spotlight: Tencent's Miley Chen on the ACE Publishing Program and premium games in China
Pocket Gamer Connects London 2019 will take place on January 21st to 22nd
Publishing Initiative
Tencent wants to support your game through its Game Without Borders initiative
The games giant's new global publishing scheme explained
Advertising
Tracking popular ad creatives and marketing channels for efficient and effective UA
A peek under the hood of ZingFront’s SocialPeta tech
Charts
Weekly global mobile games charts: Roblox a top grosser in the UK
Charts from December 31st to January 6th
India
United Nations: India primed to become the next great game development hub
Gaming joins VFX and animation as a growing industrial powerhouse in the country
Speaker Spotlight
Speaker Spotlight: NetEase VP Ken Li to discuss publishing in China at PGC London
Pocket Gamer Connects London 2019 will take place on January 21st to 22nd
Sharp
Knives Out a big battle royale winner for NetEase in 2018 with $465m revenue
Knives Out benefited from Japanese fame and being monetisable in China
Speaker Spotlight
Speaker Spotlight: Maysalward's Nour Khrais on the developing mobile scene in the Middle-East
"Today we live on 4G and Fiberoptic networks that allow us to deliver fun with over hundreds of MB's of Data packages"
China
China approves further 84 games as new regulatory body works its way through backlog of thousands
84 new games have passed China’s video game approvals system for the second time since the freeze ended
Asia Insights
Four experts explain: What you should know about Asia mobile gaming in 2019
How to get ahead in China, India, Japan and South Korea
Blockchain Engine
Cocos-BCX officially launches its testnet to over 1.3 million developers
A look at what the game engine brings to the blockchain
Charts
Weekly global mobile games charts: Roblox moves up Western download and grossing charts over Christmas
iOS and Android charts from the US, UK and China from for the week of December 24th to 30th
Marvellous
Hearthstone director's Second Dinner snags $30m from NetEase and secures Marvel licence agreement
New studio has been working on its first game for six months
Growth
Square Enix eyes India as part of year of “aggressive” overseas expansion
India and China will play a key role in the Square Enix president’s plans for global growth
Say What?
Report: Nexon put up for sale as founder and controlling stakeholder exits
Total 98.64 per cent stake owned by Kim Jung-ju up for grabs, it seems
Restart
The indie spirit behind the rebirth and growth of the Australian games industry
"We have to share the knowledge that we keep to ourselves and the things that scare us. We have to connect"
Global Charts
Weekly global mobile games charts: Brawl Stars fires into US top 10 download and grossing rankings
Rankings for the week of December 17th to 23rd
Blockade Lifted
China's games market is officially open for business again
First 80 games approved for release in China since end of games freeze
Indie View
The Big Indie Interviews: Niebla Games talks pitching all over the world
We chat to Niebla Games, who walked away with the third place prize at The Big Indie Pitch at ChinaJoy 2018
Indie View
The Big Indie Interviews: Codex7 Games talk winning The Big Indie Pitch with their PvP realtime sea battle game Pirate Code
We chat to the winner of the second Big Indie Pitch at ChinaJoy