Rovio spin-off Hatch's cloud-based platform, Facebook launches Instant Games, and meet the biggest Indian developer you've never heard of
Our article on Indian developer Timuz calls it the "biggest Indian developer you've never heard of", but after so many people have now read the article, that might now well be untrue.
The story of the developer behind India's Train Simulator 2016 was by far and away the most read article of last week, shooting straight to the top of our Hot Five list.
In second place is Facebook's Instant Games launch, and the news that big-name developers like King, Zynga, and Konami all contributed titles to its launch.
Clouds, court cases, and courting failure
Third up is Rovio's reveal of its new cloud-based gaming platform, which will allow mobile gamers to play over 100 games by streaming them for absolutely free.
And finally, Zynga has filed a legal complaint against Scopely and two former employees for allegedly stealing design documents and staff, and Disruptor Beam's CEO Jon Radoff tells us all about what you can learn from failure.
Click the link below to find out more about the stories that caught our reader's attention during the last week.
#5: 4 ways mobile gaming companies can succeed through failure
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4 ways mobile gaming companies can succeed through failure »"Everyone fears the “F word”. No, not that F word. Here we’re talking about “failure” as it relates to running a company".
So begins Disruptor Beam CEO Jon Radoff, who then goes on to list the four ways a mobile developer can succeed through its failures.
He suggests making that failure part of the company's DNA, capitalising on what you learn from those failures, and reassuring your team that sometimes failure is actually a good thing.
"Don’t punish an employee for failing as long as growth results from it," he wrote.
"Celebration of the learning process, and sometimes even a small reward, will show and reassure your company that failing is okay as long as a positive change comes from it."
#4: Zynga suing two former employees for stealing confidential data and taking it to Scopely
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Zynga suing two former employees for stealing confidential data and taking it to Scopely »Corporate espionage is wrong, but if you're going to do it, the first rule is surely "don't Google 'how to wipe my hard drive'" on the device you're wiping.
Sadly, Zynga is accusing one of its former employees of doing just that, as well as two other men and developer Scopely for stealing entire design documents and poaching employees.
A lawsuit filed against Massimo Maietti and Ehud Barlach claims that the former stole files pertaining to an upcoming Zynga project titled Project Mars, while the latter helped Scopely entice team members to leave Zynga, violating his contract.
One such employee, Derek Heck, is cited in the complaint as reading articles titled "How to delete my hard drive and start over", which might be the worst crime of the lot.
#3: New mobile streaming Rovio spin-off Hatch aims to finally bring cloud gaming to the masses
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New mobile streaming Rovio spin-off Hatch aims to finally bring cloud gaming to the masses »You'd think Rovio might get bored of the bird-related branding after spinning out Angry Birds titles for the last seven years, but they're still going strong with it.
The latest avian-named venture is Hatch, an exciting cloud-based gaming platform for Android that sees players streaming games to their phones instead of downloading a new app each time.
The games to be made available include premium titles like Double Fine's Broken Age, but these will all be free-to-play with with no IAPs and occasional ads.
Users can sign up for a subscription to the service if they so desire, granting them unlimited access to the games with no ads, as well as some as-yet unspecified bonus features.
#2: King, Zynga, Konami and more launch 17 games on Facebook's Instant Games platform
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King, Zynga, Konami and more launch 17 games on Facebook's Instant Games platform »Facebook's Instant Games platform could well be the future of mobile gaming - a big claim, but one that seems to be back by the interest of developers.
14 developers came to the platform on launch day with 17 different games to play, including big hitters like King, Konami, and Zynga.
Games available include arcade classics like Pac-Man and Space Invaders, alongside newer games like King's Shuffle Cats Mini and Spil Games' Endless Lake.
A particular highlight is Bust-A-Move Blitz, a fast-paced bubble shooter built for 45-second long games and huge scores that should be the benchmark for developers when building games for the platform.
#1: Introducing Timuz, the biggest Indian developer you've never heard of
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Introducing Timuz, the biggest Indian developer you've never heard of »India has its own mobile gaming scene, but for the most part its market is still dominated by Western games.
That is unless you're developer Timuz, which developed the fourth-most downloaded mobile game of Q2 2016 in the region, Train Simulator 2016.
"We never thought it was going to be so big," said Timuz's MD Ahmed Mohammed.
"It was a small game, and then we started scaling it as we saw the production going on and the game quality going up."
It's an impressive story of success in the region, and Mohammed tells us even more about the studio's history and learnings from over its six years making games.