Start your week right, with our quick take on the stories that are impacting the mobile industry right now.
To help get you primed and ready for another week in mobile gaming, we’ve curated the biggest stories you need to know from the last seven days.
1) Supercell co-founder supports $1.6m funding round in Chinese publisher MyGamez
Chinese co-publishing service MyGamez has raised $1.6 million in funding after a number of rocky years for mobile in the region.
Now the state of gaming in China appears to be on the up again, and MyGamez has raised a new round of invsetment with support from Supercell co-founder Mikko Kodisoja, Small Giant Games co-founder Timo Soininen, Reworks co-founder Ilkka Teppo and former Riot China head of operations Daniel Wang.
MyGamez already represents big names in the world of mobile gaming like Playrix, Fingersoft and Nexters.
2) Peak Games explores match-3 genre with new title Star Match
Zynga-owned Peak Games has soft-launched a new match-3 title, Star Match. This marks another expansion beyond its blast game origins, with Star Match available now in Turkey and tasking players with completing puzzles and decorating movie sets.
In fact, Star Match marks Peak’s second game in a row to deviate from the blast genre in quick succession: Match Factory launched this November with a similar focus on match-3 puzzle gameplay.
3) Monster Hunter Now is a roaring success, making $100 million in under three months
It took less than three months for Capcom and Niantic’s Monster Hunter Now to prove itself a geolocation game giant, raking in $100 million already with momentum only increasing since launch. Thus far, Japanese fans are clearly the biggest spenders, accounting for 70% of revenues while only representing 35% of downloads.
In its first month, Monster Hunt Now reached approximately 10 million downloads and $31 million in revenue. Spending has been on the rise since, with monthly revenues outperforming this debut to surpass the major $100 million milestone already.
4) Apple’s privacy push continues with big implications come "Spring 2024"
More regulations are on their way to the App Store ecosystem in 2024 with the onset of privacy manifests. Apple intends to close any loopholes around its more popular SDKs after introducing new privacy features this June, all part of an effort to put a stop to fingerprinting.
Apple has warned that developers will be responsible for any privacy breaches in their games and that new apps in App Store Connect will need a privacy manifest if they use a listed SDK. This is as of the vague date "Spring 2024".
5) First mobile-exclusive Civilization game gets a rebrand under soft launch
2K has rebranded the upcoming Conquests and Alliances to Civilization: Eras & Allies, and in so doing, has officially revealed the first mobile-exclusive Civilization game in the series’ 32-year history.
As a 4X social strategy game, Eras & Allies will combine familiar franchise features with popular mobile mechanics, and 2K has assured that this rebrand will not impact the next main series game’s development, with the two titles being developed by different studios.
