Alpha No 2
The Sandbox passes 2 million registered users in 13 months
Launches second alpha season with over 35 solo and multiplayer experiences
Elevating Games
Thatgamecompany receives $160 million investment to scale operations
Will expand team and further game development efforts
Bidstack Banners
Bidstack partners with Stork Limited to bring in-play ads to mobile farming sim Goodville
Will integrate billboard and banner ads to not interrupt player experience
The 19th Hole
NFT sports game Blocklete Golf comes to iOS and Android in beta
Players can increase avatar value through in-game performance
Calling On Developers
Ukraine appeals to games industry to close Russian studios
Apple, Google, Riot, Wargaming, and Gameloft among mobile entities approached
Done Deal
Miniclip and Green Horse Games discuss reaching mutual goals and collaboration during acquisitions
Studios share the acquisition process one year later
Gen Z Gamers
Game Jolt launches on App Store and Google Play
Aiming to tap into the "next generation of gamers"
Crypto And Nft Collab
Enthusiast Gaming signs multi-year partnership with digital asset miner Hut 8
Will collaborate towards blockchain, cryptocurrency, NFTs experiences
Where Is It
How to achieve a mobile bestseller: can five projects perform collectively as one superhit game?
Azur Interactive Games' Milana Gelmanova walks through five Hidden Object game releases to discuss the changes that led to the greatest player retention
Work Hard, Play Hard
Legends of Learning raises $5 million to be "learning corner" of the metaverse
Over 2,000 unique maths and science games
Appointment Announced
Lockwood Publishing appoints Jon Goddard to senior management team
Prior roles at EA, Jagex, and more
Intended Investment
Global Top Round launces year-long seed investment programme
Supporting smaller studios
Scaling Studios
SciPlay acquires Alictus in $100 million all-cash transaction
Initial acquisition of 80 per cent
From Resorts To Games
Former EA, Zynga, WB Games veterans launch Fortis
Fully financed by resort developer Las Vegas Sands
Offering Condolences
Nexon founder Kim Jung-ju passes away at 54
Cause currently undisclosed
Stranger Things To Come
Netflix to acquire Finnish mobile studio Next Games
Acquisition valued around €65 million.
Luna Landing
Amazon Luna launches in US
Exits early access with over 100 titles in its Plus subscription
Across The Line
Wicket Gaming partners with cricket legend AB de Villiers for Cricket Manager Pro
Batsman will act as ambassador and figurehead for upcoming mobile title
Blown Away
Mobile games investments surpassed $741 million in Q4 2021
Investments reached almost $4 billion in Q4 2021
Part Game, Part Tv
Genvid to launch The Walking Dead: Last Mile on Facebook Gaming in Summer 2022
Users will be able to experience and impact a persistent world
Funding Fusion
MiHoYo invests $65 million towards nuclear fusion devices
Contributing to Energy Singularity’s Tokamak research to lower carbon emissions
Upcoming Games
Netflix mobile games coming in March 2022
Shatter Remastered, Into the Dead 2, and This is a True Story coming soon
Making Of
Small teams, financial gambles, and the classic inspirations of Micro RPG
JoliYeti co-founders Frederic Smyczynski and Dominic Hamelin-Blais discuss sustaining the popularity of their game, Micro RPG, despite no UA spend
Homa Hires
Homa Games hires former GameAnalytics CEO Ioana Hreninciuc as new CPO
Tasked with scaling the Homa Lab platform and providing data insights
Solidarity With Ukraine
Update: the Ukraine games industry voices speaking out against Russian invasion
Ukrainian studios and team update
Viving All Day
HTC Vive unveils VR metaverse – including Web3 and NFT content – plus online safety program at MWC
Viverse and Guardian launched for virtual reality in Barcelona this week
Siege Once More
Square Enix to bring Dungeon Siege to The Sandbox
Will operate Dungeon Siege Land from virtual real estate plot
Smooth Like Butter
Garena to bring K-Pop band BTS to Free Fire in March 2022
Musical group will be part of "never-before-seen" event
Adding Adtech
NBCUniversal partners with Anzu to expand in games and esports
Gaining access to adtech integrations
Platform Boost
Wemade and RedFox Games partner to bring Kingdom Hunter to WEMIX blockchain platform
Targeting the play and earn mobile community in South America
Pg Connects Interviews
PG Connects London: AppLovin talks smarter in-game ad integration and the new world of privacy
AppLovin's Tony Deane talks ad delivery in a more private world, smarter integration, machine learning, and more at PG Connects London
Gameloft Gets Greener
Gameloft joins Playing for the Planet Alliance
Commits to decarbonation across operations
Subscription Service Expands
Google Play Pass launches in India with more than 1,000 titles
Requiring Android 4.4 or above to run
Most Read
Hot Five: Bandai Namco shuts down Digimon ReArise, Apple privacy update causes IAP decline, and NFT and blockchain gaming to the mass market
The hottest news articles on PG.biz
Time To Nominate
Last chance to nominate your company for the Pocket Gamer Mobile Games Awards 2022
You have 24 hours left to nominate your game or company for recognition at this year’s prestigious awards!
Travel Hardship
Alex Nichiporchik shares tinyBuild's staff support plans ahead of Russia's invasion of Ukraine
"If you can do anything here, highlight the travel issue. Encourage the UK and other governments to create a simplified GAMEDEV-VISA procedure."
Advancing On Apac
Riot Games to expand publishing efforts in APAC
To focus in on a region with a "strong appetite" for mobile gaming
Limited Launch
Apex Legends Mobile to come to 10 countries next week
Will allow the studio to continue working on in-game systems, features, and more
Casual Control
Playtika revenue grew 8.9% to $2.58 billion in 2021
Board of directors considering the sale of the company
Black Box Begone
For mediation, I chose independence – the importance of Fyber's focus on transparency
Fyber's Director of Product Management, Pedro Miranda discusses the value of transparency and independence when it comes to mediation within mobile ads
Love Island Launch
Love Island The Game 2 is now Fusebox Games’ most successful launch
Seeing high retention rates
Saved By Q4
Netmarble scraped 0.8% revenue growth in 2021 to $2.12 billion
Q4 revenue climbed 20.4% to $656.6 million
Hiring Hundreds
Epic Games hiring hundreds as full employees with benefit plans
QA testers make up bulk of hires
Top Charts
Uptodown: The platform's most popular mobile games from the past 10 years
From Angry Birds and Plants vs. Zombies to PUBG Mobile and PUBG Mobile
Privacy Problems
AppsFlyer: Apple’s privacy update caused 35% in-app purchase revenue decline
iOS user acquisition spend fell 13%, Android jumped 35%
New State X Nier
Krafton and Square Enix partner for PUBG New State and NieR collab
Will bring Nier Automata event back to Nier Reincanation
Ads Value
Adverty releases updated Unity SDK for in-game ads
Adverty releases Unity SDK 4.0, with 2D games support and a refreshed suite of high-quality ad assets for the ultimate in-game advertising experience
Global Launch
Potato Play raises $5 million, launches Merge Restaurant
Investments from Everblue Management, Play Ventures and more
Going Green
Tencent vows carbon neutrality by 2030
Will switch to 100% green energy with the next 8 years
Bye Bye Barriers
Coda launches Infinite Arcade to bring mass blockchain gaming to casual mobile games
Blending NFTs and cryptocurrency to turn F2P to P2E