"power Up Bands"
Super Nintendo World theme park will let visitors become Mario via wristbands and smartphone app
New Mario Kart ride revealed alongside official theme park song
Keep Testing
Soft launch to worldwide launch: Optimizing your creative for global success
How to go big
Moving Forward
Sony's mobile studio ForwardWorks partners with Kadokawa Games for new smartphone title
Cave Interactive also part of the development structure
Cloud Gaming
Learn all about cloud gaming, 5G, and subscriptions at Pocket Gamer Connects London 2020
One of 15 tracks at the event
Indies Unite
Track and Build competition offering indie game studios professional soundtrack by duo Koven
Cinematic bass pair will produce the soundtrack for the winner
Inside Story
Nintendo files trademark for Mario & Luigi series following developer's closure
AlphaDream shut down in October following "sluggish" revenue
Dice Summit
What the Golf? and Sayonara Wild Hearts score multiple nominations at DICE Awards 2020
Call of Duty, Grindstone and Sky: Children of Light all feature too
Next Big Thing
Rollic, hyper-casual publishing star of 2019, launching its SDK equipped with analytic features powered by AI
Rollic co-founder and managing director Burak Vardal tells the story behind the huge scale his company achieved in less then a year, and Rollic's plans for 2020
Exit Strategy
Enter the Gungeon shoots past three million units sold
Follow-up mobile title Exit the Gungeon being ported to PC and console
Sayonara Mutazione
Simogo's Sayonara Wild Hearts steals three nominations at the Game Developers Choice Awards
Die Gute Fabrik's Mutazione nabs four noms in the Independent Games Festival awards
Awesome Games Do Good
Awesome Games Done Quick 2020 raises $3.1 million for Prevent Cancer Foundation
Super Cat Tales the only mobile game showcased at the event
Hot Five
Hot Five: Miniclip buys Ilyon, Nifty Games goes on recruiting spree, and how Riot avoided backlash from going mobile
The hottest stories of last week
Peer-to-peer
Rainway launches streaming app for playing PC games on mobile
Can be downloaded across iPhones, iPads and iPods and Android for free
Playable Platform
Playable Platform introduces self-optimizing ads
“Self-optimizing playable ad technology is probably the greatest creative invention we’ve seen since video ads were first introduced”
Bytedance Levels Up
TikTok owner ByteDance picks up Beijing AI developer LevelupAI
Expanding its games portfolio even further
Funding
Hamburg to invest $2.2 million into local games industry over next four years
Open to developers of any size in the city
Better Mental Health
China to crack down further on violence in games to improve children's mental health
Healthy China 2030 plan backed by 12 government departments
Slideshow Fun
The Pocket Gamer 2020 Sessions land in London this month!
Fun speed-lecture sessions with 20 seconds per slide at Pocket Gamer Connects London
A Few More Knights
South Korean dev Npixel raises $25.9 million in series A funding
Reportedly the largest series A round ever for a South Korean game dev
P.l.a.y
Former footballer Rio Ferdinand teams up with Ukie for parental control awareness campaign in games
"They're easy to use and save a lot of arguments in the long run"
Holiday Spending
Roblox enters the global top grossing chart at #4
Crunching the data with App Annie
No Slowing Down
Pokemon GO evolves to best year ever at $894 million in revenue from 2019
Over $3.1 billion in lifetime revenue
Industry Vision And Values
Discover the Industry Vision and Values track at Pocket Gamer Connects London 2020
It is one of 15 tracks to feature at the event
Job News
Casual games publisher Kwalee names Simon Prytherch new head of publishing
"There’s a great opportunity to grow the publishing department"
Schedule Revealed
Final conference schedule revealed for Pocket Gamer Connects London 2020
Check out what’s happening this month at Europe’s biggest mobile games B2B conference
Tres Bien
Nintendo Switch surpasses 3.3 million units in France
Pokemon Sword and Shield rank as best selling games
Giganta-update
Pokemon Mystery Dungeon plus Sword and Shield expansion pass revealed in Direct
Pokemon Home will launch in February
Homa's Odyssey
Olivier Le Bas discusses the success of Homa Games
"We work with developers to improve their games"
Push Notifications
Mobile engagement platform Openback on lower cost, child privacy friendly push notifications using edge computing
New on-device approach to app messaging and push notifications now ensures privacy for kids, increases control to more than double click through, all while lowering costs using edge computing
Hotel Mario
Nintendo's former Kyoto headquarters to become hotel in 2021
20 rooms, including restaurant, gym, bar and spa
Interactive Futures
Interactive Futures 2020 confirms Brenda and John Romero as headline speakers
Two-day conference taking place in Leamington Spa on January 31st-February 1st
Hatch A Plan
Pascal Debroek from Hatch Entertainment on the future of streaming mobile games
"We aim to bring people together to play games in new ways"
New Year's Day
Apple App Store revenue soars to new record of $386 million in one day
$1.42 billion accumulated between Christmas Eve and New Year's Eve
Gold Pass Success
Clash of Clans achieves first year-over-year revenue increase since 2015
27 per cent increase over 2018
The Indie Track
Discover The Indie Track at Pocket Gamer Connects London 2020
It is one of 15 tracks to feature at the event
Event
Discover the Top 50 Blockchain Games Companies at Blockchain Gamer LIVE! on Tuesday 21 January
The blockchain businesses making waves in the last 12 months
Closure
Digital tabletop game studio Fantasy Flight Interactive to shut down in February
"It's been an amazing journey"
The Whole Package
Classic UK games celebrated by Royal Mail with new line of stamps
Influential UK-designed games from the '80s and '90s featured
Sensor Tower
Hypercasual specialist SayGames sees a 453% rise in downloads over 12 months
Facebook and Google top non-specific mobile game publishers
Talking Heads
Microsoft, Google, MoPub, Rollic and Enthusiast Gaming confirmed to speak at Pocket Gamer Connects London 2020
The speaker lineup is set for the two day B2B mobile games industry conference to make an incredible return to London
Up Your Game
Patrik Wilkens from Azerion on the rising cost of UA and the emergence of hypercasual
"There is room and demand for innovation"
Time For Change?
Communications Workers of America launches campaign to support video game unionisation
Project began after discussions with Game Workers Unite
This Seems Familiar
CES 2020: Alienware and Razer take inspiration from Nintendo's Switch for new device and controller
Razer Kishi and Concept UFO take the spotlight
Flexing To Meet Demand
Why solving games' networking problems in 2020 will require more than additional bandwidth
Networks need to scale in new ways
Top Trends
Sony's Fate/Grand Order was the most talked about game on Twitter in 2019
Second year in a row
Delayed Release
Square Enix partners with JSC and Gaea for Final Fantasy XV on mobile
Set to launch in China before releasing worldwide
Hammo Time
Hussam Hammo from Tamatem on publishing for the Arabic and emerging markets
"The data behind it is fascinating"
Indie Spotlight
Studio Zero creative director William Mesilane on wanting to create "stories that subvert the genre"
"I want to make smaller-scale games that tell more meaningful stories that subvert the genre"
Pgc London Editors Picks
PGC London 2020: Our editor's top picks on what to do at the conference
Take in some talks and have a drink (or two)
Pgc London
Learn more about Hypercasual and Social Games at Pocket Gamer Connects London 2020
It is one of 15 tracks to feature at the event