Hot Five

Hot Five: PlayRaven takes flight, Arrow draws a bead on the west, and Die Hard versus Citizen Kane

Last week's top 5 stories

Hot Five: PlayRaven takes flight, Arrow draws a bead on the west, and Die Hard versus Citizen Kane

Welcome to PocketGamer.biz's weekly rundown of the stories clocking up the hits, picking up the click-throughs and generally keeping the advertisers happy by serving up page views.

Or, if you'd prefer, the top five stories currently dominating our readers' attention.

This week - the week of the first Pocket Gamer Connects conference - we're counting down the biggest news from the previous seven days, giving just a glimpse of the industry's big issues, from five to one.

5 vital user acquisition tips from Mobile Games Forum 2014

Coming in at number five is, fittingly, a series of five user acquisition tips compiled by George Osborn from Mobile Games Forum 2014.

The tips in question came from the likes of Grand Cru, Pixowl and Ndemic Creations while panel chair Ilja Goosens of Chartboost gave them some quick context.

"My opinion is that there is going to be a shake up this year as there are too many networks and services offering the same thing."

The five tips covered everything from the soft launch (focus it on engagement and retention) to the post launch (keep great content updates going) before tackling the ugly buzzword of 2014, re-engagement.

"The thing about re-engagement is that you don't need to do it if you have good retention" said Joakim Achrén of Next Games.

To read the full write-up, click here.


The Charticle: No Massive World Success for Halfbrick's Colossatron

Australian studio Halfbrick's made quite the name for itself with hits like Fruit Ninja and Jetpack Joyride, which is why many eyes were on its latest offering, Colossatron.

Chris Kerr took a look at its performance in this week's Charticle and noted that while Colossatron launched during the holiday season it "hasn't been attracting the same amount of attention as some of its predecessors" - mostly because it couldn't get momentum in western markets.

Worse, its hybrid premium/freemium pricing model hasn't done great guns, and paints "a distinctly lacklustre picture" overall.

But this is all in the west. Happily for Halfbrick, Colossatron's been turning some heads in China, Japan, and South Korea.

Want more information on its performance? Click here.

Supercell investors back in play as Finnish start-up PlayRaven closes $2.3 million seed funding round

Much like the Bay Area, Helsinki's start-up market is well and truly saturated, but that didn't stop PlayRaven from drumming up $2.3 million in seed funding this week.

Maybe it's the aim of the company - to reinvent the mobile strategy genre - or maybe it's the talent behind the brand - namely five industry veterans from Remedy, Wooga and Digital Chocolate - but PlayRaven now has the capital needed to find its legs.

PlayRaven's first title, Spymaster, will launch globally in the spring of 2014 and it has every intention to begin development of its second title shortly thereafter.

Coincidentally, PlayRaven's also hiring. If you want specifics, or just want to read more about the start-up, click here.


Exclusive: Miniclip bringing hit Korean multiplayer game Arrow to the West

TWANG! That's the sound of Miniclip announcing that it'll bring Korean studio Four Thirty Three's hit multiplayer shooter Arrow to the west.

"We talk a lot about Western games coming to the East, but there's a lot of scope to bring Eastern games to the West" said Miniclip's Saad Choudri at Pocket Gamer Connects.

Whether Arrow will replicate its top-grossing success in the west remains to be seen, but you can click here to read more about the announcement or click here to learn more about the game.

PGC: Die Hard not Citizen Kane is the perfect model for an aspiring game developer, says Mike Bithell

Thomas was Alone dev Mike Bithell has a way with words, and he worked his customary magic during the kickoff of the Indie Rock Stars track at PGC.

Drawing on the unlikely character of Die Hard's John McClane for inspiration, Bithell highlighted the goal that indie developers should aim for - rich, engrossing character development.

Bithell believed there's much more value found in this approach than there is in the twist ending focus of, say, Citizen Kane - despite the fact that many critics regard Orson Wells' film as a masterpiece.

But that's not to say that game characters have to change during stories or that games even need to have stories at all.

Bithell said it better than we could, so click here to read his take on why all indie devs should watch Die Hard a few more times.

Yippee-ki-yay, Pocket Gamers.

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US Correspondent

Representing the former colonies, Matt keeps the Pocket Gamer news feed updated when sleepy Europeans are sleeping. As a frustrated journalist, diehard gamer and recovering MMO addict, this is pretty much his dream job.