The long road to Dawn of Titans' launch, Ubisoft making Switch games with mobile in mind, and how Miniclip hit one billion downloads
One billion downloads is a lot for anybody, but for Miniclip, that's just how many downloads they have from all their hit mobile games combined.
We wanted to find out how they did it, and so did our readers, which is why it was the most read article on the site during last week.
In second place is the news that Ubisoft has been wondering how to make Switch games more appealing to mobile players, particularly in terms of session length.
Titans, knights, and trends
Third up is our interview with NaturalMotion CEO Torsten Reil, which covers why Dawn of Titans took so long to launch worldwide, and what it could mean for the company.
And finally, Flaregames explains how it managed to double monetisation revenue for Nonstop Knight, and we take a look at the Apple App Store trends for November 2016.
Click the link below to find out more about the articles that caught our reader's attention during last week.
#5: App Store trends for November 2016: Average of 792 games submitted every day
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App Store trends for November 2016: Average of 792 games submitted every day »No one has time to play 792 games a day. That's just a fact, surely. There simply aren't enough hours in the day.
But that's how many new games were submitted every day to the App Store in November 2016, as we tracked in our App Store trends article using our own metrics.
There are now over 730,000 active games on the store, with 23,770 submitted in the month of November alone. Which is a lot.
Free apps were the most popular to be submitted, with 79.04% of all apps on the App Store available to download for free.
#4: How Flaregames and Kopla doubled the monetisation performance of Nonstop Knight
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How Flaregames and Kopla doubled the monetisation performance of Nonstop Knight »At Pocket Gamer Connects Helsinki 2016, Flaregames Monetisation Expert Arto Huhta offered an insight into what is unique about the process behind Kopla Games’ popular mobile game Nonstop Knight.
Huhta discussed the ‘Kopla Mentality’ to create something new – accepting the team doesn’t necessarily "know the unknown", and what may be good for the game in the short-term.
To get through this, the team tries out lots of new ideas and let the process and the game teach them the way forward.
Huhta said part of this process is “brute forcing luck”. The team discovered new features throughout development, such as the incremental economy, rather than planning them from the start.
#3: A new Dawn for Zynga? NaturalMotion's CEO on the long road to the launch of Dawn of Titans
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A new Dawn for Zynga? NaturalMotion's CEO on the long road to the launch of Dawn of Titans »Dawn of Titans took a long, long time to get to launch. It spent 21 months in soft launch, with many convinced it might not ever see the light of day.
But it's out now, and it could be the next big thing for NaturalMotion, so we chatted with CEO Torsten Reil about the long road to its release.
"Obviously we want to do it well and we want it to have longevity, but it’s not one of those things that's a make or break game," he said.
"There's all kinds of things going on at the company, that includes Zynga's existing games that are very strong in live ops, it also includes our existing games, including CSR 2, which is doing pretty well, and whatever else we have cooking at the moment."
#2: Ubisoft designing Nintendo Switch games with mobile play sessions in mind
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Ubisoft designing Nintendo Switch games with mobile play sessions in mind »The Nintendo Switch is a very interesting proposition - a home console for hardcore gamers that also appeals to mobile gamers who like to take things on the go.
It's something that Ubisoft has been thinking about in particular, especially when it comes down to appealing to mobile gamers' short play sessions compared to console gamers.
"We are thinking that if Nintendo’s philosophy is really to gather those two worlds, if adult players and console players could be the same community, then what's the best user journey of one player that would own the Switch?" said Xavier Poix, managing director of Ubisoft's French studios.
"Not necessarily only with the Switch mind you, but we tried to consider this in the way our upcoming games are being designed. We thought about the time needed for a play session in this game to fit the experience of a handheld."
#1: How Miniclip took mobile by storm to rack up one billion downloads
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How Miniclip took mobile by storm to rack up one billion downloads »Having at least one hit game is likely what most mobile developers are aiming for - so imagine being Miniclip, which has a portfolio of games with millions of downloads each.
Its games have now achieved a cumulative one billion downloads, so naturally we decided to talk to CEO Rob Small about how it managed to get so many people to play its games.
"We make sure that our players of those games know all about the release, and through this we’re able to build up a huge organic buzz around it," he said regarding the company's marketing.
"Parallel to this, we work with all big ad platforms such as Facebook and Google in running targeted user acquisition campaigns across our key markets."