To keep you up to date on the biggest news in mobile gaming, we round up the five most-read stories on PocketGamer.biz each week.
Read on and digest…
1. Sensor Tower: Q1 2022 mobile games spending dropped 7.1% to $21 billion
According to Sensor Tower, mobile games consumer spending fell 7.1 per cent year-over-year to $21 billion in Q1 2022 and both the App Store and Google Play witnessed a decline in quarterly revenue.
App Store mobile games generated $12.9 billion in consumer spending, compared to $8.1 billion on Google Play.
2. Naughty Dog shuts down mobile-exclusive Uncharted game after generating only $88,000
Naughty Dog has revealed the shutting down of a mobile spinoff of its Uncharted franchise, Uncharted: Fortune Hunter.
Naughty Dog stated via Twitter that the game has been removed from the App Store and Google Play and has had in-app purchases disabled. Users that had previously downloaded the game will be able to play offline until it is removed from devices.
3. Don’t underestimate the fundamental importance of game economy, urges King's Javier Barnes
Javier Barnes, senior product manager at King and F2P specialist, discussed the "quite cryptic" principles to balancing game economy at the Google x Deconstructor of Fun Istanbul Gaming Event.
Barnes stressed the importance of the player perspective and recognising that the most valuable resource for the player is fun.
4. The 'wrong' Wordle sees downloads soar since 2022
The web-based word game Wordle became an internet sensation last year and brought some unexpected traffic to an older game with the same name launched by Goldfinch Studios over five years ago.
According to Sensor Tower, since its launch in 2016 Goldfinch’s Wordle had generated 31,800 downloads up until the end of 2021. Since the soar in popularity of Josh Wardle’s web game the downloads for Goldfinch’s mobile game also surged, accumulating over nine million downloads in the first two months of 2022.
5. Miniclip exceeds 4 billion downloads
UK-based mobile games publisher Miniclip has revealed exceeding four billion downloads across its mobile games portfolio.
The publisher’s most downloaded title to date is 8 Ball Pool, which has more than one billion downloads.
