Marketing
AppsFlyer claims the app ad market will hit $64 billion by 2020
Ads market is set to grow 34 per cent annually on average between 2017 and 2020
Christmas Countdown
Pocket Gamer Connects London advent calendar
Day 24 - What’s behind today’s door? Christmas special offer - 20% off!
Struck A Chord
Games chat platform Discord raises $150 million at $2bn valuation
Funding round led by Greenoaks Capital
Speaker Spotlight
Speaker Spotlight: Amazing Soul Games Studio CEO Jorge Castaño on the business of games and the blockchain
Pocket Gamer Connects London 2019 will take place on January 21st to 22nd
Media Meets
Developers: book your appointment to meet journalists at Pocket Gamer Connects now
A chance to demo your game one-on-one with our consumer writers
Speaker Spotlight
Speaker Spotlight: Tamatem's Hanin Suradi on data-driven UI/UX for the MENA region
Pocket Gamer Connects London 2019 will take place on January 21st to 22nd
Data
App Annie reports game and app downloads pushed 113 billion this year
The figure represents a 10 per cent year-over-year increase in mobile app downloads
Cash Cows
Pokemon Go world's top grossing mobile game in November
SuperData top 10 grossers includes Puzzle & D
More Is More
Despite spending over $1 billion Zynga’s M&A activity isn’t over yet
CEO Frank Gibeau is unsated
Christmas Gift?
App Store users could soon gift in-app purchases
But functionality is not yet in place
Prime Competition
Pokemon Go dev Niantic opens $1m Beyond Reality Developer Contest for AR games
10 teams will get the chance to bring their projects to life using the Real World Platform
It’s Always Sunny
Keywords acquires marketing services outfit Sunny Side Up for $4.3m
Clients for Quebec City outfit include Ubisoft, EA and Eidos
Unstuck
China's big games freeze finally comes to an end after nine months
New licences set to be issued for fresh launches
Indie View
The Big Indie Interviews: Angry Kid tell us all about Pixel Express and coming third at The Big Indie Pitch
We chat to the third place finalist at the second Big Indie Pitch in Poland which once again took place at GIC
Indie View
The Big Indie Interviews: We talk adapting retro beat em ups for the mobile market with the G-STAR Big Indie Pitch winner ThinkBIT
We chat to the winner of the second Korean Big Indie Pitch which took place at G-STAR 2018
Bold Buy
Zynga buys Empires & Puzzles dev Small Giant Games in deal worth over $700 million
Finnish indie snapped up
Family
Consumer group complains to FTC over 'inappropriate' kids apps
Children's games and apps were found to breach federal privacy laws in the United States
Nestling In
DoDreams brings aboard former Rovio marketing director Edvard Groundstroem
Drive Ahead developer brings yet another Angry Birds alum into its roster
Event
Bigger, better, newer: Meet Steel Media's 2019 event line-up
Which of the 45 events across 11 nations will you come to?
Vroom
Hutch races into a multi-year licensing partnership with Formula One
Racing organising looks to the mobile driving developer to help expand its global audience
Unity Icon Collective
Unity Icon Collective aims to offer ready-made triple-A assets on the Asset Store
First pack is free for Unity Pro users
Ich Bin Ein Berliner
From Gram Games to Voodoo: Alexander Willink's vision for the new Berlin studio eyeing a future outside of hyper-casual
"Berlin has a unique video games community that embodies a passion that is exciting and vibrant, while highly skilled"
2019 Trends
Get ready for 2019 with these key mobile trends
Check out what Lab Cave experts are saying about upcoming Stores’ features, keywords strategies, KPIs and other mobile predictions for the next year
Invested
Atomico's Alexis Bonte on what's to come for the investment landscape in the games industry
"I believe that with the lower valuations and rising marketing costs we are going to see continued consolidation in the industry"
Fresh Deal
Gameloft acquires SongPop trivia game maker FreshPlanet
CEO Mathieu Nouzareth will continue on in role
Gold Star
Brawl Stars nets Supercell over $5 million in opening week
Comparatively, it made $6m from its one and a half years in soft-launch
Bad Game
Esports organisations could be in trouble as experts fear market correction due to over-evaluation
There is a reported disparity between the valuation of esports organisations and their revenue
Virtual Birds
Rovio is bringing Angry Birds to virtual reality in 2019 with Isle of Pigs
A partnership with Resolution Games is bringing the long-running mobile hit to headsets next year
Game On
Candy Crush Saga was the top grossing mobile game on the US app stores in November
Supercell’s Clash of Clans and Roblox also featured
Streamlined
How does Brawl Stars monetise?
Supercell’s new release analysed
Advertising
Developer survey shows in-game ads are an increasingly lucrative monetisation option
The number of games making a majority of revenue through in-game adverts has increased 29 per cent
Jobs News
Splash Damage CEO Paul Wedgwood departs after 17 years
Chief marketing officer and fellow co-founder Richard Jolly takes on top job
Court Battle
Qualcomm insists Apple is in breach of Chinese court order it claims prohibits iPhone sales
“Apple’s statements have been deliberate attempts to obfuscate and misdirect”
Block In The Chain
Atari makes strategic investment in blockchain specialist and mobile publisher Animoca Brands
Hong Kong-floated publisher set to bring Rollercoaster Tycoon Touch and Good Squad to the blockchain
Branching Out
Reigns publisher Devolver getting ‘more serious’ about mobile, F2P and China
Hires ex-Appler Mark Hickey
Sell
Nintendo Switch is this generation’s fastest-selling console in the US
The Nintendo Switch has sold over 8.7 million units in the country over the last 21 months
Super Data Energy
How is Brawl Stars performing on the download and grossing charts for Supercell?
We chart Supercell's fifth release through its first week in the charts
Key Data
How to predict mobile game launch week installs
A deep dive into calculating key factors that affect downloads on release
Global Charts
Weekly global mobile games charts: Lion Studios' Popular Wars lives up to its name around the world
Rankings for the week of December 3rd to 9th
Spotted
Activision and Tencent’s Call of Duty Legends of War surfaces in Australia on Android
The classic shooter is currently in Alpha
In An Instant
CrossInstall’s Instant Playables tech powers Google Play app demos
Latest ad tech firm to support Google Play Instant
Calm Down
Honor of Kings skips past $4 billion in lifetime revenue
278 million downloads to date
Fund 'em All
Report: Pokemon Go developer Niantic eyes new $200m funding round
Would raise company valuation to $3.9 billion
Rest In Peace
HQ Trivia CEO Colin Kroll dies aged 34
"It's with deep sadness that we say goodbye"
Assuring Quality
MoGi Group brings a new level of quality to quality assurance
The global QA specialist details its expansive offering
Hot Five
Hot Five: Supercell and Brawl Stars dominate in our most-read stories roundup
The hottest mobile games industry stories from the last week
War And Peace
InnoGames on taking over Warlords from Wooga and making it all its own
“We had to keep track of our existing community, whatever changes we did had to be considered with them in mind as they like the game as it is”
Smashed It
Super Smash Bros Ultimate sold over 1.2 million copies in Japan during its first three days on sale
First-week figures for crossover brawler are Nintendo’s best ever in Japan, excluding Pokemon
Time To Recalculate
Why the 70:30 App Store revenue split is doomed
The old order is passing
Speaker Spotlight
Speaker Spotlight: Softgames' Alexander Krug on the future of messenger games
"Messenger Games have already been a huge success story for us, and I expect this trend to continue in 2019"