Unmissable Tracks
Experience cutting edge content at PG Connects London
Insightful talks, the best kept industry secrets and much more will be revealed at this January’s PG Connects conference in London
A Happy Birthday
Goddess of Victory: Nikke celebrates an incredibly lucrative first anniversary
After a year on the market Shift Up’s star performer comes out victorious despite complaints and controversy
Brazil Budge
PTW to expand into Brazil, producing the company's 44th office
Joao Albani will lead the new office expected to employ upwards of 100 local workers
Women In Games
Product Madness’ Ayşe Betül Eser on building a winning user acquisition strategy
The quest for successful user acquisition has undergone radical changes in recent times. Here Ayşe Betül Eser explains how to win hearts and minds while keeping costs down
Visit London
Start planning your trip to London for Pocket Gamer Connects London 2024!
The leading games industry conference is returning to London this January – start planning out your days around the conference with this helpful guide to London attractions!
Acquisition Achieved
Modern Times Group takes 100% ownership of PlaySimple
Modern Times Group has seen a successful 2023 and goes from strength to strength with this latest deal
Linking Locations
Kingdom Hearts: Missing Link’s closed beta confirms geolocation gameplay
Square Enix has confirmed an upcoming beta test for iOS, with an Android test to follow
Ai Advances
From underdogs to game changers: How indie studios can use AI to change the industry
Ludo.ai’s Tom Pigott explains how indie studios can utilise AI to flourish
Job Losses
AdVenture Capitalist dev Hyper Hippo lays off over a quarter of staff
Redundancies hit various departments, including production and marketing
Adventurous Achievement
Seven Knights Idle Adventure pushes Netmarble to second biggest Korean mobile publisher
Idle Adventure has generated $40 million just under two months of global launch
Layoffs
Bungie axes staff throwing rumoured Destiny Mobile into uncertainty
After acquiring the company 15 months ago and in the face of difficult times for gaming at large, Sony are cutting costs and key staff
Lawsuit Landing
AviaGames accused of using bots to win its own cash prizes
A lawsuit from Big Run Studios and Skillz alleges that AviaGames Bingo Clash not only copied their Blackout Bingo but use bots to deprive winners
Modern Times, Mo' Money
Modern Times Group Q3 results show "even more encouraging" growth
MTG’s Q3 financials buck trends to reveal 6% year-on-year revenue growth
Jaws Of Defeat
Ubisoft London studio to close following loss of Hungry Shark development duties
After having the game they created handed to Ubisoft Barcelona, the move has proved to be the end of the line for Hungry Shark's originators
Q&a
Behind the scenes: The making of Tangle Tower
Creators Adam Vian and Tom Vian share the design and development process behind the murder mystery point-and-click adventure game
Investment Round
Casual games hub Playbite nabs $1 million in funding
US-based company aims to expand on its userbase of "several hundred thousand" monthly active users
Free To Paid
Facebook and Instagram to introduce ad-free subscriptions in EU
Meta aims to appease EU privacy regulators with €9.99 per month subscription fee
Investments
Developer Funstop secures $1.5 million funding from Indian investors
InfoEdge continue their investment in home-grown talent as part of India's increasingly vibrant mobile tech scene
Happy Halloween
Five horror games to play this Halloween
From dreamlike sidescrollers to AAA horror, mobile has got every base covered
Game Publishing
India's Nazara Technologies launches publishing division to support local and international developers
The company aims to launch up to 20 games across a variety of platforms over the next 18 months
Japanese Journey
SinoAlice to close down in Japan two months after SinoAlice Global's end date
Another Square Enix mobile game approaches the end of the road as the Japanese game - thought safe - is similarly getting the chop
Halloween Special
Pocket Gamer Connects London Spooky Super Early Bird tickets are ending soon!
Don’t get spooked - there’s not long left to secure the best deals for PG Connects London!
Capcom Financials
Monster Hunter Now powers surge in Capcom's mobile revenue
The company expects to see mobile revenue double in the next six months
Finding Funds
Riot veteran MJ Wong prepares Web3 AstrArk for gamers who "should be better treated"
$5.4 million has been raised in funding towards the launch of two Web3 games
Feature
Market analysis: How behavioural data is helping to bust stereotypes in the world of gaming
Measure Protocol’s Christie Hartbarger shares an overlook into consumer digital behaviour
Looking For Loyalty
RPGs have the most loyal fans, but how do different genres drive monetisation?
Mistplay’s 2023 Mobile Gaming Loyalty Report assesses which genres and models are working best
Homa Hire
Homa appoints Michal Kowal as director of publishing to strengthen hybrid and hypercasual games
Kowal joins after eight years at BoomBit and 12 in the industry
Hot Five
Hot Five: Supercell’s mo.co launch, Netflix’s gaming strategy, and an AI seed round
Our quick-fix roundup of the hottest stories on PocketGamer.biz
Chapple Comeback
Craig Chapple returns to PocketGamer.biz as Head of Content
Chapple will work with the team on providing industry leading news, expert interviews and insightful analyses
Week That Was
Week in Views - What caught our eyes in the last seven days
The Pocketgamer.biz team take their pick of this weeks big news, including Netflix games invasion, the return of much-loved heroes and the end of the world…
Ubisoft Financials
Ubisoft generated $885.2 million in revenue in the first half of 2023
The company broke records during the period
Seasonal Specials
Big games pull out all the stops for Halloween special events
What better time to put on a crowd-pleasing special than the unifying, international, scary spectacle that is Halloween? Here's how the big names are celebrating this year
Rovio Financials
Rovio saw a 5.6% decline in revenue in the third quarter of 2023
The company is "focused on finding out synergies that our life with Sega may entail to bring out the best in Rovio."
Feature
Game analysis: The evolution of hypercasual runner Jelly Run 2048
Azur Games' Milana Gelmanova shares of taking the game from suboptimal metrics to a stand out project
Unity Runtime Fee
Unity's Runtime Fee debacle caused 15% of its US advertisers to jump ship
The introduction of the proposed fee triggered a sharp downturn in advertisers, but revisions and departures appear to have fixed the problem
Stock Purchase
Tencent acquires two million shares in Goddess of Victory: Nikke makers Shift Up
Subsidiary Aceville spent ₩79.9 billion on the purchase following Wemade divesting itself of all Shift Up shares
Five New Games
New release roundup: The best new mobile games from Cut the Rope successor to synthwave strategies
We highlight five new games that have broken cover and are all set to do big business
Podcast
Playing 4 The Planet’s Lisa Pak on gaming for good and wielding the power of play | Podcast
The PocketGamer.biz podcast team and guests give you the state of play every week. Here's where to get it and and what's inside this week's episode…
Top Tips
Top Tips: Five key steps for building your mobile gaming community
Pixel Gun 3D's head of community Nikita Glazkov details the different types of gamers developers can appeal to and how to engage with them
Feature
The state of play for Ukrainian game developers in 2023
InGameJob's Katya Sabirova reveals the state of the Ukrainian games industry, it's vacancies, salaries and challenges ahead
The Place To Be
10 reasons you won’t want to miss our biggest show yet – Pocket Gamer Connects London!
Join us at the biggest event in PG Connects history this January 22nd to 23rd in London! Buy your ticket today and save up to £470
Q&a
Behind the scenes: The making of One Punch Man: World
One Punch Man: World producer FeiHua “Shifu” Huang talks turning the much-loved anime IP into a cross-platform classic
Ai Advancement
Harmony Games raises $3M in seed round to build an AI puzzle game
The seed round was led by Griffin Gaming Partners
Market Moves
Merger and acquisition deal value exceeds $11 billion for 2023
Some of the biggest names in gaming restarted their acquisition strategies in Q3
Empowering Everyone
Empowering Everyone - How Xsolla Plans To Give Developers The Power To Find And Keep Players Content
In the era of ‘forever games’ Xsolla CEO Chris Hewish outlines the company’s goals of empowering developers to own and understand their players directly
Layoffs
Embracer Group subsidiary Digic lays off 10% of its workforce
The company specialises in 3D and CGI animations and game trailers
Aplha Agents
Richard Garfield’s auto battler Chaos Agents enters pre-alpha testing
The game was shown off on-stream ahead of the pre-alpha’s launch
Acquiblizz
Microsoft's Xbox boss Phil Spencer sticks to Call of Duty non exclusivity promise
"We have no goal of somehow trying to use Call of Duty to get you to buy an Xbox console."
Job News
Kwalee appoints Firebrand’s Mark Greenshields to VP of Bangalore studio
Mark Greenshields’ cross-platform experience is expected to be of great benefit to Kwalee
Intriguing Invitation
Supercell launches eagerly awaited new game mo.co in the US
The Finnish studio has rolled out invites to US gamers to try out its latest game