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
I Want To Be The Very Best
Pokemon Quest catches $3million in revenues during first week on mobile
The cubed up adventure also snagged 3.5 million downloads
Quizzed
Indian publisher Nazara acquires minority stake in quiz studio Crimzoncode
Partnership will see Nazara publish the studio’s flagship quiz title in emerging markets
Skip, Jump
Super Mario Run leaps past $60 million worldwide revenue
American players account for nearly half of the revenue brought in since launching in 2016
Chicken Dinner
Say hello to China’s biggest mobile gaming export so far - battle royale
Goodbye matching coloured candy, hello machine guns, silly hats and shrinking maps
Click
Nintendo Switch is played docked about as often as undocked
Individual games more likely to skew one way or the other
Korean Event
Early Bird registration opens for South Korea’s G-STAR 2018
10% off tickets to the major Asian show taking place November 15th to 18th in Busan
Accelerate
Google opens applications for its Indie Games Accelerator in Asia
Four-month program open for Indian and Southeast Asian games developers
Job Klaxon
Animoca Brands signs up former Rovio EVP of games Wilhelm Taht for strategic advisor role
Taht also holds positions at Nitro Games, Dodreams and Remedy
Watch Out
Yo-Kai Watch World hopes to capture Pokemon Go-like success with Japan launch
GungHo works with Level-5 to location-based AR title
Switch Up
Nintendo Europe names new CEO as Shibata leaves role after 18 years
Satoru Shibata will head back to Japan to take up a new position
Why Not
Rovio opens Angry Birds World amusement park in Qatar
It’s called Angry Birds World, of course
Squared Away
Pokemon Quest lands on the iOS App Store and Google Play
The adventure RPG game has already caught 2.5 million downloads on the Nintendo Switch
Free No More
The Sims: Freeplay banned in seven countries due to “regional standards”
The Sims: Freeplay will be banned in China, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Oman, Kuwait, Qatar and Egypt come July 5th.
Worldwide
GungHo banks on colourful chaos to go big with Nintendo Switch release Ninjala
Japanese developer hopes the wider appeal will help the game land on a global scale
Heading For Ipo
King of Fighters creator SNK and RPG dev Vespa set for South Korea flotations
Vespa joins the Japanese giant in going public in 2018
Going Public
Xiaomi heads for $6bn Hong Kong IPO but shelves mainland China listing
Smartphone manufacturer rolls back reported plans to raise $10 billion
Arrr
Nintendo bans Switch consoles with pirated games
Reddit post warns against pirating games to the handheld
Winner
Report: PUBG developer Bluehole snaps up mobile studio Delusion Studio
The terms of the deal are currently unknown
Catch Em All
Pokémon Quest snags 2.5 million downloads on Nintendo Switch
The RPG is also set to launch on mobile on June 27th
Fine Lineage
Lineage M breaks $1.2 billion in revenue a year after release
The popular MMO is also aiming for a global release
Mighty
Singapore dev Mighty Bear Games fetches several million dollars in seed funding round
Developer founded by King, Ubisoft, Jagex and Disney alumni
Event Report
First Chinese mobile internet global traffic exchange expo welcomes over 1,500 attendees
GTE 2018, hosted by Beluga Global, just launched in Beijing to great success
Switch It Over
Nintendo and Disney team up to put Switch on the telly
Two entertainment giants collaborate to create a game show based on the popular console
Gaming Disorder
Gaming Disorder included in WHO’s latest draft of International Compendium of Diseases
Members of WHO aren’t expected to report using the ICD-11 until 2022
Indie Spotlight
Indie Spotlight: Brad Erkkila on Castle Pals and bringing a background of visual design to mobile
"As long as I can live pretty well and I can make the games I want to make, I consider that success."
Research
Middle East player habits: More Saudi women gaming on the go than men
Surveys show a region saturated with mobile gamers young and old
Partner Up
War Robots developer Pixonic enters China’s Android market with iDreamsky
Director of business development Mike Fei discusses the publisher's distribution model
Eve
Eve: War of Ascension mobile game enters soft launch in the Philippines
The Eve title is available on Android
Awards
The third IMGA Southeast Asia competition opens calls for submissions
Submissions for mobile game studios close on July 30th
Downloads Milestone
BanG Dream! Girls Band Party! English version racks up one million downloads
Milestone celebrated by series of in-game events