Events
Zynga, Outfit7, Remote Control Productions and Reigns: Her Majesty narrative designer to speak at Reboot Develop Blue
Show kicks off Thursday, April 11th and runs through to Saturday, April 13th
Job News
Jagex looks to expand studio headcount by more than 25 per cent come the end of 2019
RuneScape maker hoping to bring "almost 100" new faces to the Cambridge-based company, reveals two new senior hires
Indie Spotlight
Indie Spotlight: PanicBarn’s founder Tim Constant on mistakes to avoid when starting out as a developer
“With hindsight, I should have made the jump a long time ago.”
All Around The World
How Wargaming manages a game project across two studios half a world away
Wargaming Mobile's Enya Tack explains how the company's Berlin team and the external Shanghai studio work together on World of Warships Blitz
Gamewisp
Lightstream acquires technology behind retired streamer subscription platform Gamewisp
The tech will go into expanding Lightstream Studio, as well as additional products set for release in 2019
Big Milestone
Voodoo racks up two billion mobile game downloads
Hyper-casual specialist continues to grow
New Milestone
Sniper Strike: Special Ops shoots past 20 million worldwide downloads
“We have an ambitious roadmap of unique, exciting features and game modes”
Mobile Trends
Key mobile games industry trends for 2019 and how they’ll affect the sector in 2020
An overview of leading genres and new user acquisition formats and strategies for the year ahead
Roll On 100
Roblox surpasses 90 million monthly active users
Firm also adds USK managing director Elisabeth Secker to its Trust and Safety Advisory Board.
Job News
Sumo Digital co-founder Porter becomes board COO of parent company
Gary Dunn replaces him as MD
Charts
Weekly global mobile games charts: Tencent continues its dominance as China’s top grosser but Perfect World drops to second
Charts from March 25th to March 31st
Up Year-on-year
Stillfront Group’s MAU increased by 20 per cent for Q1 2019
Daily active users also saw a rise of 26 per cent
Job News
Jen MacLean leaves IGDA executive director role
Just over one year after permanently taking the job
Bring Me Thanos
Kabam and NetEase partner for Chinese Android launch of Marvel Contest of Champions
Perfectly balanced as all things should be
Keeping Lean
How Kolibri went from minimum viable product to 70 million installs for its Idle Tycoon games
A look at the development process from concept design stage to post-release
Exclusive
Dodreams launches limited time Drive Ahead event featuring Masters of the Universe's Skeletor
By the power of Grayskull
Marketing Design
How marketing can be baked into game design
"You can't spell marketing without design," says Those Awesome Guys founder
Data
UK games industry gender pay gap widens
Median hourly wage for women drops 4.78 per cent, mean figure down four per cent
Terms And Conditions
UK's Competition and Markets Authority investigating Nintendo, Sony and Microsoft over game subscriptions
“We are fully prepared to take action”
Crowdfunding Stats
$989 million pledged to games on Kickstarter
3.2 million people have donated to games across tabletop and video gaming categories
Influencer Marketing
43% of influencers paid to do a sponsored video for a game will do it again for free
Nevaly MD looks into the benefits of sponsored videos
Live Streaming
The cost of running an influencer marketing campaign on streaming channels
A 24-hour campaign over 100 channels could cost around $60,000
The Debate Continues
FTC to hold loot box workshop in August
Due to be held at the Constitution Center in Washington, DC on August 7th, 2019
Job News
Animoca Brands hires former Sony managing director Michael Ephraim as head of partnerships
Will oversee Australia and New Zealand region
East Meets West
East Meets West: Game of Thrones joins latest China game approvals, and Hatch partners with Samsung on 5G
Keeping up with the news from the world's most influential games market
Quo Vadis
Quo Vadis 2019 games conference kicks off in Berlin
PocketGamer.biz senior editor Craig Chapple will compere Mobile Game Development Summit on day two
Hot Five
20 $1bn mobile games, Brawl Stars South Korea success, and the top April Fool’s Day gags
The hottest stories from the mobile games industry over the last week
Going Public
Scientific Games subsidiary SciPlay files for IPO
Readies itself for potential acquisition spee; has entered into $150 million revolving credit facility
Huge Growth
Global mobile user spending to reach $156 billion by 2023
Latin America and Africa were both noted as most likely to see the biggest increase in growth revenue
Wahooo
Mario Odyssey and Zelda: Breath of the Wild VR support coming to Nintendo Labo
Experience Breath of the Wild in full through virtual reality
New Ad Network
Snapchat to launch the Snap Audience Network for third-party apps
Set to launch in the coming months
Hatch A Plan
Hatch partners with Samsung to bring 5G games service to South Korea
Hatch Premium will be included with any purchase of Samsung’s Galaxy S10 5G in the country
Glitz And Glamour
Florence, Fortnite and RuneScape win big at BAFTA Game Awards 2019
Nintendo Labo picks up a couple of awards too
Busy Bees
Animoca raises $3.3 million and acquires German developer Stryking
Picks up studio initial $1.1m deal that could rise to $3.3m
Predicting Trends
SuperData launching digital game forecasting tool
The Forecaster can predict metrics such as MAUs, revenue and in-game spending
Acquisition News
Jam City acquires Berlin studio 231 Play
Opens new Berlin studio where the team will operate from
Snap Games
Snap Games is a new real-time multiplayer games platform for Snapchat
Zynga, ZeptoLab, Spry Fox, Game Closure and PikPok the first development partners
Superstar Sessions
11 videos from Pocket Gamer Connects London's Superstar Sessions
All the biggest talks
Chicago To Asia
Niantic details worldwide summer events for Pokemon Go in 2019
I will travel across the land, searching far and wide
3g 4g 5g More
SK Telecom introduces new 5G data plan that includes exclusive games and promotions
Firm states that new 5G network will utilise its 34,000 5G base stations across the country
Wild
Gamigo acquires casual games developer WildTangent
WildTanget’s portfolio features over 4,000 games including the Fate series
Critical Moment
How Critical Force's new CEO is fending off the battle royale threat
“After the dust had settled we managed to maintain a stable player base and eventually recovered to our normal DAU numbers"
You Have My Sword
The Elder Scrolls: Blades reaches one million downloads in first week of early access
$500,000 already generated in revenue
Born Again
Rising from the ashes: Former Flaregames CEO Klaas Kersting on why he’s founding Phoenix Games
“There’s a cyclical pattern of consolidation with every new platform, and we’re at the stage now with mobile where it’s more competitive and expensive than ever"
More Than Surviving
This War of Mine has raised $500k for charity after selling 4.5 million units
Developer and publisher 11 bit Studios has a new game in the works with $5.2m budget and a further two projects in preliminary development after that
Emergency Maintenance
Nippon Ichi Software stock nosedives after Disgaea RPG suffers maintenance woes after launch
Game taken offline after March 19th launch and was due to come back online at end of March, but has since suffered further delays
Competition
Win Indie Showcase space at Pocket Gamer Connects Seattle
Demo your game to the global games industry FREE this May, worth $650
Movers And Shakers
Ex-Konami head of emerging markets named Marvelous Europe GM as Harry Holmwood exits
Holmwood leaving to focus on "other business interests"
Rethinking Paid
Monetizer Mavens on what Apple Arcade needs to do to be successful
A new way to play and pay
Software
Epic Games unveils simultaneous multi-user editing for Unreal Engine 4.22
Google Stadia support out now