Mobile Mixer
G-STAR, NetEase, Gamevil and iDreamSky to discuss key Asia trends at Pocket Gamer Mobile Mixer panel at Gamescom
Mix with industry bigwigs in Cologne
Take Three
Kakao Games makes a third $16.8 million investment in esports developer Neptune
The South Korean company now holds an 11 per cent stake in Neptune
Well Traveled
Square Enix’s Octopath Traveler hits one million copies sold worldwide
The turn-based RPG hit the Nintendo Switch eShop three weeks ago
Duty Calls
Activision working with Tencent on new Call of Duty mobile game for China
Collaboration confirms a free-to-play mobile entry in the long-running first-person-shooter franchise
Winner
South Korea takes home $200,000 Prize from inaugural Arena of Valor World Cup
The event was held at the TCL Chinese Theatre and had a total prize pool of $550,000
Fired Up
Fire Emblem Heroes fires up $400m in worldwide revenue
The RPG launched just under 18 months ago and has proven to be Nintendo’s most popular outing on mobile
New Marketing Tools
Facebook reveals new UA tools as it claims 50% of all app revenue will come from ads by 2021
Social network reveals playables, retention optimisation and value optimisation solutions at ChinaJoy
New Horizons
Shop Heroes dev Cloudcade opens games studio in Pakistan
Shop Heroes developer plans to invest in Pakistan as a new technology hub through the new location
Watch Out
Sony's multi-billion dollar mobile hit Fate/Grand Order snags two films and a spin-off anime series
Type-moon’s mobile RPG is getting tie-ins to explore its Babylonia and Camelot storylines
Downloads Story
MapleStory M racks up three million in one week after global launch and is a US top 100 grosser
A top grossing game in 29 countries including the US
Report
Nintendo Switch nears 20 million sales
Earnings report for the Japanese publisher shows a strong start to the year, with $1.5b in overall revenue so far
Crazy Financials
Animoca Brands posts record $6m revenue for Q2 2018
Profits come in at $193,000
Market Dominance
Is the dominance of Tencent, Alibaba and Baidu stifling creativity and innovation in China?
AppBi looks into the data
Financials
Capcom delivers record $35m profits despite mobile decline
Revenue jumps to $155 million for the three months ending June 30th 2018
Funding Round
Japanese studio Bank of Innovation floats on Tokyo Stock Exchange
Mobile RPG developer ends first day with $77 million market cap
Brand Power
The curious tale of how Lineage’s mobile releases shook up (and didn’t) South Korean gaming
Shots of adrenalin
Not So Improbable
NetEase invests $50m in UK tech company Improbable
Ties between Chinese publisher and SpatialOS developer deepen following partnership announced back in February
Deal
Beijing Bosi Interactive secures exclusive $740k deal with Animoca Brands to distribute Crazy Kings in China
BBI wins rights to distribute Android and HTML5 ports of the iOS strategy title, due next year
Xhance
Xhance reinvents game data analytics and performance with blockchain
Control your game-analytics with Adrealm’s mobile data attribution platform Xhance is decentralised, open-sourced and revolutionary
Come Say Hello
Meet the PocketGamer.biz team at ChinaJoy 2018
We'll also discuss opportunities on PCGamesInsider.biz, InfluencerUpdate.biz and BlockchainGamer.biz
Korean Market
Your G-STAR guide to entering Asia's biggest games market
Exclusive interview: the chairman of the G-STAR organising committee explains the importance of understanding the South Korean games industry
Indie View
The Big Indie Pitch interviews: What does it take to make a game all about esports?
Agate talks creating a title all about competitive gaming
Punch Up
Dragon Ball Z: Dokkan Battle amasses over $1 billion in revenue over two years
Bandai Namco continue to find success with the Dragon Ball license
Tree Time
Side-scrolling MMORPG MapleStory M launches worldwide
Nexon celebrates the mobile edition’s launch with a fortnight of in-game rewards
Right Track
Public transport puzzler Mini Metro has sold over a million units
Minimalist metro manager will also be added to Boston Children’s Hospital’s Mightier program
Machine Learning
Keywords snaps up predictive analytics outfit Yokozuna Data from Silicon Studio in $1.5m deal
Draws on AI and machine learning tech
Legendary
Moonton’s popular MOBA Mobile Legends plunders $200m in global revenues
$25 million of that comes from the US
Caught In The Act
Alleged stalker arrested by police claims he was just playing Pokemon Go
Report suggests man has a history of stalking the same woman
Big Deal
China’s iQIYI acquires developer Skymoons in deal worth up to $300 million
Online video platform hopes to utilise IP across mediums
Event
Big Indie Pitch heads to ChinaJoy
International game developer competition returns to China this August
No Biggie
Nintendo’s lawsuit against Japanese publisher Colopl won’t stall White Cat Project Switch release
Console giant says these are "completely separate matters"
Indie Spotlight
"This business is built on love": How a spark of romance led to AppSir's meta-horror game Dere Evil Exe
"The idea that someone could get so addicted to these mobile games was still alien to me"
Kamehameha
Dragon Ball Legends generates $40 million in revenues in just over a month
The lion's share of revenue comes from Japan with 67 per cent
Scaled Up
Samsung’s new Indian mobile factory dubbed 'world’s largest'
South Korean manufacturer's new Noida plant should help pump out more stock for less money
Grand Job
Fate/Grand Order rakes in over $2 billion in revenue worldwide
97 per cent of the game’s revenue comes from a home-grown Japanese audience
Oh The Horror
Asymmetrical Horror: NetEase on hitting 100m downloads with Identity V
"We are so proud of the results we’ve achieved!"
Branded
Mobile publisher Animoca Brands raises $4.5 million through over-subscribed share placement
The Hong Kong-based publisher also entered a partnership with HTC
Sirius Business
Harry Potter: Hogwarts Mystery drops in Hong Kong and Taiwan
The narrative adventure game is available on both iOS and Android
That’s A Lot
Nintendo targets 20 to 30 indie releases per week on Switch
Senior executive officer Susumu Tanaka and former president Tatsumi Kimishima were on hand to take questions at the latest shareholders meeting
Grand Revenue
Sony-owned Fate/Grand Order publisher Aniplex's sales surpassed $1.8 billion in last fiscal year
Net profit came in at $312 million
Whew-two
Niantic's Pokemon Go catches $1.8 billion in revenue in two years
US players splash out $607 million on title
Data Klaxon
Taiwan’s pool of 14.5 million players to spend $1.3 billion in 2018
The Taiwanese games market is the 15th largest in the world
Exclusive
NetEase’s Identity V racks up over 100 million downloads
More than 10 million people are playing every single day
On The App
Over 90% of Google Play revenue in South Korea comes from games
Wise App surveyed 23,000 Android smartphone users in Korea from May 1st to 31st
Battle Royale
Fortnite Mobile has five times the revenue of PUBG but half the downloads
Fortnite made $92 million revenue in the 11 weeks ending on June 18th, compared to PUBG’s $19 million
Spin Me Right Round
Why Chinese mobile ad tech firm Mobvista spun out its monetisation platform Mintegral
EMEA business development manager Sean Parmenter discusses the company's plans and China's advertising landscape
Mobile Game Of Thrones
Tencent snags rights to publish Game of Thrones: Winter is Coming to China
Shanghai-based developer Yoozoo originally acquired the rights from Warner Bros last year
Gotta Dash
Diner Dash inspired title Mak Cun’s Adventure serves up 100k downloads in 10 days
The game puts a Malaysian twist on the diner management game
Going East
Ad sales house Venatus expands east with new Seoul office
Venatus provides ad sales services to studios including Rovio, EA and Spil Games.
Excellent
Oasis Games heads up $3 million investment in Austrian indie developer Iron Mountain
Beijing publisher set to snag a minority stake in the company along with publishing rights to an unannounced title