Major Milestone
InnoGames' Forge of Empires surpasses $1 billion in lifetime revenue
Forge of Empires is responsible for half of all revenues
Jobs News
August's Mobile Movers and Shakers: Damian Burns leaves Twitch plus new hires for Epic Games, FunPlus, Newzoo and more
August has already seen some significant moves by some of the industry's biggest company's - here's the highlights from the last week
Pokemon Go
Pokemon Go is the USA’s fourth most downloaded mobile game of all time
Seven years on the game remains a smash hit worldwide with 168 million downloads
Hexacore’s Mikita Khazau on pivoting from hypercasual to web3
While others are looking to hybridcasual as the successor to the crowded hypercasual market, Hexacore's co-founder and CEO is eyeing web3
Financials
Square Enix’ new titles fail to offset weak performance from existing catalogue
New financials show that the launch of Dragon Quest Champions failed to boost their mobile performance any higher than in the previous year
Q&a
Waffle game creator James Robinson on Daily Waffle and future ambitions
Puzzle game Waffle garners the interest of Amazon Prime
Collaboration
Drest announces new collaboration with Copenhagen Fashion Week
The collaboration will highlight the designers taking part in the event
Brand Attraction
How can the mobile games industry attract more brands?
Bidstack’s Chris Vincelli & Antoine Jullemier analyse what deters brands from entering the $118 billion mobile games ads market and what developers can do to entice them
Genre Report
Arena and adventure games are set to exceed $4.7 billion in revenue in 2023
The post-apocalyptic genre saw a significant surge in downloads
Subscription Success
Paid subscriptions redeem Apple’s Q3 after hardware sales fall
Apple’s Q3 2023 sees 1% revenue fall but surpasses 1 billion paid subscriptions
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 anniversary celebrations, the rising popularity of subscriptions and when a game gets everything right…
Party Central
The Gamescom 2023 Party Guide
Because when the show's doors close, you'll need to know where the party's at…
Web3 Goes Mobile
Inside Animoca Brands and Yuga Lab's Wreck League web3 strategy
Developer nWay hopes to make waves with web3 and web2 releases of the same game
Funding
Zibra AI raises $500,000 from a16z Speedrun
The funding brings the company's total investment so far to $2.5 million
Q&a
Bringing Second Life to mobile: "There’s a lot of excitement and anticipation in the community"
Second Life’s VP of product, Grumpity Linden tells us how the legendary PC pre-metaverse experience is making the leap to mobile
Job News
FunPlus appoints industry veteran Alexandre Amancio to leadership role
Amancio joins the team as SVP and head of world building and IP Strategy
Generative Ai
Homa’s CTO Michael Le Bail explains why they're all in on AI
Homa’s recent hackathon event has cemented the company's commitment to the use of artificial intelligence
Financials
Unity celebrates a record quarter with $533 million in revenue
The company’s revenue increased 80% year-on-year
Gaming In China
China’s gaming market climbed by 20% in July
July offered strong evidence for a rebound in the country’s gaming market
Gem Games
Gem Capital’s new $50M fund will invest in fledglings of F2P, midcore and more
Investments to be made in pre-seed, seed, and Series A rounds
Job News
WAGMI appoints EA veterans to leadership roles
Esteban Gil and Brent Pease will assist the company in its web3 goals
Generative Ai
Three ways to spot where AI can add value to your business
LifeStreet’s Levi Matkins discusses how digital advertisers and ad tech companies can get the best out of generative AI
Moving To Mobile
Mobile exclusive Assassin’s Creed Codename Jade launches first closed beta
The open-world game is available on iOS and Android until 11 August 2023
Google Goes Blockchain
Inside Google’s blockchain content policy
The tech giant has recently revealed its policy on in-app blockchain and NFT and commentators are digging deep as to what it all means
Q&a
FanDuel’s Aaron Champagne on creating a skill based gaming platform for mobile
FanDuel FaceOff features competitive play on games such as Boggle and Breakout Blitz
Artificial Intelligence
AI startup Inworld raises another $50 million for a $500 million valuation
The new investment follows the company’s work on AI-driven non-player character experiences
Monetisation
Can Amazon Anywhere open up a new monetisation channel for mobile games?
Layer co-founder Rachit Moti explores Amazon Anywhere's moves to monetise your game with physical purchases
New Release
Anything World launches its 3D models on the Unity Asset Store
Unity users can now access their library of rigged 3D animated models and more
Subscription Success
Mobile games using a subscription model almost triple in a year
Liftoff and Appsflyer report that mobile games represent almost 30% of subscription-based apps
Anniversary
Fireproof Games prepares for the tenth anniversary of The Room
The cross-platform hit will be on sale across platforms in September
Startup Speedrun
a16z Games announces Speedrun 2024 with $75 million investment pool
Startups are encouraged to enter for the next event starting in January
Q&a
Game Taco CEO Nancy MacIntyre on the creation of skill gaming platform FanDuel Faceoff
With the rise in popularity of esports gaming both Game Taco and FanDuel saw an opportunity for competitive real money gaming on mobile
Indie Funding
Google opens applications for its latest Indie Games Fund
The tech giant will distribute $2 million to small studios in Latin America
Chinese Restrictions
China to implement new restrictions on children's smartphone use
Just when it looked like China legislation was opening up, new moves to restrict the market are afoot
Financials
EA delivers a record $1.9 billion in net revenue in the first quarter of 2023
Mobile accounted for only a small percentage of the 9% YOY increase, despite FIFA Mobile success
Interview
Space Ape's Simon Hade: “Country Star benefits from several years of live ops R&D right out of the gate”
Space Ape Games co-founder discusses the tactics and tech behind BeatStar's new spin-off game Country Star
Ai Activity
Homa's AI hackathon just built 10 new AI tools in just 48 hours
The company's first Internal Gen AI Hackathon saw 10 teams create new tools to a strict deadline
Routes Arrive
Niantic flies the AR flag with new features in Pokémon Go
Routes in Pokémon Go is a new feature being rolled out ahead of eagerly anticipated Niantic/Capcom collab, Monster Hunter Now
Partnership
Reactional Music and Amanotes announce new partnership
The partnership aims to bring music and gaming closer than ever before.
Unmissable Savings
Indies, take your career to the next level at PG Connects Helsinki this September 12-13
Book your ticket to PG Connects Helsinki today to give your indie brand a boost and save with our Mid-term offer!
Acquisition
Playtika acquires Azerion's Youda Games portfolio for upwards of $89.1 million
Azerion is selling the portfolio as part of its business refocus with an earnout agreement potentially pushing the price even higher
Anniversary
My Talking Tom turns 10
10th anniversary events include a collaboration with MrBeast to support a hospital in the Philippines
Mihoyo Milestone
MiHoYo makes $8 billion in user spending with 73% from Genshin Impact
Honkai: Star Rail makes up 6% of the total in just a few months
Milestone Sales
MLB 9 Innings achieves quarter of a billion dollars in lifetime sales
The franchise is officially North America’s number one mobile baseball game
Report
Japan’s consumer spend set to surpass $12.6 billion in 2023
RPG continues to dominate, but hypercasual is on the rise
Deals
Deals Digest: July 2023's biggest deals at a glance
From Tencent’s acquisition spree to the latest moves in Web3, here are this month's biggest deals from around the mobile games world
Meet The Experts
Your first glimpse at just some of the speakers at Pocket Gamer Connects Helsinki 2023!
Check out the star-studded lineup sharing their insights with us at PG Connects Helsinki this September
Innovation Insight
Innovating in a saturated market: Virtuos’ Matthieu Cheynut on the state of play for growing your games
When to invest and when to cut back. Virtuos’ business development director for Europe Matthieu Cheynut shows the road ahead
Mavens
Mobile Mavens: The importance of cross platform
We round up industry opinions on the potential of cross platform gaming
Germany Grows
Germany on the rise with 46% growth in games companies since 2020
A 15.5% rise in games companies was observed in 2022