The making of Homescapes, why Mark Skaggs left Zynga, and how are mobile clones of PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds performing?
Playrix is a quiet success story in the mobile gaming industry and part of this is down to its narrative-focused casual games such as Gardenscapes and the more recent Homescapes.
The thing with quiet successes is that you rarely hear much from the studios, so it's little wonder that our interview with Creative Director Igor Elovikov on the making of Homescapes topped out Hot Five list last week.
Second on the list is an interview with Moonfrog Labs Director Mark Skaggs, finding out why he left Zynga to join the Indian studio back in 2016.
PUBG, Ludo and AR
Third up is a look at the numerous PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds clones that are springing up on app stores and seeing if any of them are actually performing well.
And finally, we talk to small Indian developer Gametion about how its managed to score 55 million downloads and Zynga CEO Frank Gibeau explains why he thinks AR isn't a gimmick.
Click the link below to find out more about the stories that caught our reader's eye over the last week.
#5: Why CEO Frank Gibeau sees augmented reality as a key long-term opportunity for Zynga
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Why CEO Frank Gibeau sees augmented reality as a key long-term opportunity for Zynga »You might think adding an iOS-only augmented reality mode to your game is just the sort of quick gimmicky update any developer would push out to catch a bit of good old fashioned App Store lovin’.
That’s apparently not the case when it comes to the augmented reality viewing mode in Zynga’s CSR Racing 2, however.
Admittedly, the mode is only currently available for ARKit-supporting iOS devices, but that’s because the Android equivalent ARCore isn’t yet released.
And Zynga CEO Frank Gibeau is definitely not keen on the ‘g’ word when it comes to AR.
“I don’t think AR is a gimmick,” he said.
#4: How a small Indian studio got 55 million downloads and 10 million DAUs in under a year
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How a small Indian studio got 55 million downloads and 10 million DAUs in under a year »You've probably not heard of small Mumbai-based studio Gametion.
Having started out in Flash games before transitioning to mobile in 2013, it's grown to a modest 18 people.
But quietly, the studio has launched online multiplayer title Ludo King, based on the classic board game, with some quite astonishing numbers.
In our interview with Gametion Founder and Director Vikash Jaiswal, he explained how the studio got 55 million downloads since launch, along with 10 million daily active users and one million daily new installs in recent months.
#3: Are mobile clones of PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds fighting a losing battle?
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Are mobile clones of PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds fighting a losing battle? »It's only natural that once a game is successful, a bunch of developers are going to try and replicate that success, with some going as far to basically clone the entire product.
So it goes with PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds, which has more than its fair share of mobile clones already - but how are they actually performing?
There's the usual exact rip-offs, such as Ultimate Battle Royale, but it's NetEase's entries that are most interesting.
"Each seemingly very similar, and entirely without monetisation, it appears that the company is simply testing the waters at this point to see what sticks," wrote our man Matt Suckley.
#2: Why FarmVille creator Mark Skaggs left Zynga for an Indian startup
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Why FarmVille creator Mark Skaggs left Zynga for an Indian startup »FarmVille co-creator Mark Skaggs raised a few eyebrows when he left Zynga in 2016 to join ex-Zynga India staff at their new studio, Moonfrog Labs.
But he's seen the Indian mobile game market grow significantly since then - it's one of the reasons he left in the first place.
“Two years ago, they said 'it's 3G, there's no 4G, data costs are super expensive and connectivity is kind of lame – but it's going to change.' And I could see it, I could tell,” he said. “It is just momentum.
“It happened, and it was kind of cool to see… it's like watching history lay out right in front of you.”
#1: The making of Gardenscapes spin-off Homescapes
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The making of Gardenscapes spin-off Homescapes »Playrix has quietly become one of the biggest developers in Europe, mainly thanks to its narrative-led match-3 games Gardenscapes and follow-up/spin-off Homescapes.
Due to the quiet nature of the studio's growth, we simply don't know much about it - but last week we finally managed to grab Creative Director Igor Elovikov and ask him about the making of Homescapes.
"The idea for Homescapes was actually born many years ago, long before the Gardenscapes launch. It goes way back to when we were developing casual downloadable games," he explained.
"Gardenscapes, after all, is actually an adaptation of our 2007 computer game, and that one had a sequel set in a house. It was called Mansion Makeover and turned out to be more successful than the original game."