Catching Season
Niantic’s Pokemon Go catches $84.8m in revenue for September
The location-based AR game also added 8.86m new trainers to its ranks
Acquisitions With Friends?
Report: Zynga attracts takeover interest
Developer has received preliminary approaches but no formal talks have taken place, sources claim
Big Indie Pitch
Enter the Big Indie Pitch at next month’s Jordan Gaming Summit
Indie developer contest lands in Amman for November
Deal
Advance snaps up majority stake in games analytics firm Newzoo
The media company will make a significant capital investment in Newzoo as part of the deal
Hay Maker
Indie darling Stardew Valley launching on App Store later this month
Eric Barone’s tranquil farming RPG hybrid will drop first on the iOS, Android release TBC
Event
Pocket Gamer Connects London to feature an amazing 21 conference tracks
Covering everything from the basics to the future across mobile, PC and blockchain gaming
Clans
Supercell’s Clash of Clans brings in $41m in revenue for September
Supercell’s hit game was also downloaded by over 5.4 million players for the month
Breaking In
Can Snowprint’s Legend of Solgard break King’s midcore curse?
Studio CEO Alexander Ekvall discusses working with the Candy Crush maker as part of the latter’s new publishing initiative
Sweet Business
King’s Candy Crush Saga hits $3.91 billion in lifetime revenues
All-time downloads sit at 823 million
The Big Freeze
"I don’t think the Chinese government is ready to lose its title as the world’s biggest games market"
Taptica division CEO Rivi Bloch discusses market expansion and the big freeze
Jobs In Games
Jobs in Games: SYBO's Amy Kalson on how to get a job as a games lead
"My advice to aspiring game makers is to study psychology. We make things for humans so understanding the human mind is vital for success"
Event
What's on at Pocket Gamer Connects London 2019?
Two-day event features 21-track conference schedule, Big Indie Pitches, investor panels, networking and more across mobile, PC, VR/AR and blockchain
Fore
Playdemic’s Golf Clash gets new clans feature
The new feature allows groups of up to 50 golf clash players to chat, share replays and work together to earn in-game rewards
On The Tube
Subway Surfers developer SYBO set to tap into video streaming with new platform
SYBO TV is expected to land in the fourth quarter of 2018
Ar
Truly Social Games acquires Vancouver AR studio Cooper’s New Reality Garage
Augmented reality specialist will rebrand as Truly Social Games Vancouver
New Digs
Cloud games firm Improbable set for London HQ
Soon to be based in Spitalfields
Data Klaxon
UK economy made $3.8bn from video games industry in 2016
And it provides 50,000 jobs
Audio
Gismart’s Piano Crush becomes No.1 music App on the US App Store
Virtual keyboard beat out Spotify to top charts in multiple regions worldwide
Blast Off
Rovio soft-launches Angry Birds Dream Blast in Finland and the UK
The bubble popper is available on iOS and Android
Offline
Marmalade SDK shuts down citing increased pressure from Unity and Unreal
Unpredictable iOS changes are also stated as causing Marmalade’s developers to close up shop
Busted
Four Thirty Three’s Ghostbusters World lands in Singapore, Sweden, Denmark and New Zealand
The location-based augmented reality game is expected to release October 22nd
Service
Epic Games acquires security and service provider Kamu
Kamu brings its speciality in game security and community building to Fortnite and Unreal developers
Global Charts
Weekly global mobile game charts: Supercell's Clash of Clans shuffles up the top grossing rankings
Google Play and App Store rankings in the US, Great Britain and Ireland, and China for the week of September 24th to 30th
New-school
Subscribers can now access the RuneScape Mobile Beta
Mobile beta headlines a string of announcements made during this weekend’s Runefest event
Support A Creator
Fortnite's 'support-a-creator' initiative lets players back their favourite influencers
The event allows players to support their favourite creators when making in-game purchases
Region Spotlight
Jordan: A pioneering history and promising future in mobile games
Shining the spotlight on Jordan's games industry
Big Deal
Advantage Solutions acquires HyprMX owner Jun Group in deal that brings brands and mobile games closer together
HyprMX general manager and senior vice president Dan Laughlin tells us what the deal means for the company and the mobile games industry at large
Jobs News
ESA president Mike Gallagher steps down
SVP and general counsel Stanley Pierre-Louis will fill this spot until a successor is found
Monster Adaptation
Production begins on live-action Monster Hunter movie
Resident Evil director Paul W.S. Anderson will write, direct and produce the adaptation
Cash Royale
Fortnite iOS revenue catapults to $300 million faster than Clash Royale
But slower than Niantic’s Pokemon Go, which only took 113 days
Hot Five
Mario Kart tour firm crashes out, Rovio's Heini Kaihu on being a studio head, and Ketchapp taps Prince of Persia for mobile
The hottest mobile games industry stories from the last week
Living On?
Skybound to finish The Walking Dead: The Final Season following Telltale closure
Original team members may join development team
Dead On
The Walking Dead: Our World will feature time-limited in-game events during season nine of the AMC series
New challenges will drop every Monday with each new episode
Zombie
FTX Games to publish new The Walking Dead match-three and social casino mobile games
Publisher seals deal with AMC to create multiple flesh-eating licensed titles
Dirt
Pokemon Go celebrates the 50th anniversary of the US’s National Rivers & Trails systems
Pokemon Go studio wants to get players out and about across America’s National Parks
Undead
The Walking Dead co-creator Robert Kirkman wants to make sure Telltale Games' Clementine story is told
But right now there are no plans to bring her into the ongoing comic book series
Event
Judging starts for the Big Indie Awards at G-STAR
Which of the 400 entries will make it through to the live awards ceremony in Korea?
Homely
Playrix’s Homescapes builds up $420m in revenue for first year
The game took in $28.5 million in September
Crunched
IGDA responds to public outcry over working conditions within the gaming industry
Executive director Jen MacLean remarked that it was unfortunately common but IGDA is looking into it
Referred
Mobile gamers referred through organic social channels have up to 67% higher retention
They also have a 63 per cent higher lifetime session count versus non-referred players
Woah
In-app header bidding can increase ARPDAU by 30%, claims Appodeal
Participating app of the test also saw eCPM rise by 17 per cent
Laid Off
Report: Remaining Telltale Games staff get the boot
One of the staff affected took to Twitter to confirm the news
Indie View
The Big Indie Interviews: We talk Street Fighter meets Scrabble with Built Games
We talk to Built Games who took won our E3 Big Indie Pitch
Korea
Jagex joins the Big Indie Awards at G-STAR as sponsor
Runescape firm supports international celebration of independent game developers this November
Fishing
Digital marketing outfit Jellyfish knuckles down on app space with ASO Co purchase
Among ASO Co’s clientele are Spotify, eBay and Twitter
Funding Bytes
Chile dev TinyBytes Games picks up $1.4m investment
CEO Andres Constantinidis on why Initial Capital and London Venture Partners have made their first foray into Latin America games funding
Switch Up
New and improved Nintendo Switch in the works for 2019
The goal is to make the device brighter, thinner and more energy efficient
Invested
Tencent invests $318 million in Chinese video-sharing company Bilibili
Publisher acquires 12.3 per cent of shares in a company that dabbles in running League of Legends and Overwatch esports teams
Tale Continued?
Telltale wants another company to hire ex-staff and finish The Walking Dead: The Final Season
The third episode is reportedly nearly finished
Yo-yoing Between
Why GameMaker Studio's YoYo Games is getting into indie publishing
"This comes from something that is an extension of what GameMaker has been trying to do for years, which is making the next generation of games developers"