Surprise!
Keywords acquires The Trailer Farm and Sound Lab
Firm made $128.6m for the six months ending June 30th
Switching It Up
The good, the bad and the ugly of Nintendo’s Online Service
From cloud saves to NES games, we run the rule on some new features
Company Expansion
Talking Tom developer Outfit7 to open new Barcelona studio
Team led by company's own senior director of design and animation Dani Bajc
Jobs News
Tencent's director if investments and biz dev in the West departs
Jonathan Lai’s new employer Coatue Management and is looking for new investments in games
Play Bigger
The surprising successes of PC-based Android gaming platform BlueStacks
Mobile games flourish on PC
Leadership Shuffle
HQ Trivia dev gets new CEO as it reveals latest game HQ Words
Colin Kroll takes the reins as Rus Yusupov named chief creative officer
Global Charts
Weekly global mobile game charts: Lion Studios rules the roost in China, UK and US
Google Play and App Store rankings in the US, Great Britain and Ireland, and China for the week of September 3rd to 9th
Big Indie Awards 2018
The best of The Big Indie Pitch 2018 - Dead End Job
We take a look back at the winner of last year's Big Indie Pitch at Abertay University in Dundee
Tmi
Twitter erupts over Stormy Daniels claims Trump has a “dick like the mushroom character in Mario Kart”
Unfortunate details of alleged affair surface
Skin In The Game
How real-money competition platform Skillz is riding the wave of mobile esports for all
Hits $400 million annualised run-rate
Home Comforts
Tencent’s Honor of Kings rakes in over $3.5 billion in global revenue
China makes up 96 per cent of the total
Job News Klaxon
Nordisk Film Games eyes further investments as it snaps up new director of partnerships
Sofie Filt Læntver will enter the fray on October 1st
Of Kings And Valour
From esports to Nintendo Switch: Tencent on its ambitions to grow Arena of Valor in the West
“The console space is an exciting one for us, and there really hasn’t been a big mobile game on the Switch device yet”
Record Breaker
Finland's hottest games conference Pocket Gamer Connects Helsinki 2018 smashes records with over 1,300 delegates
Over 1,300 delegates representing more than 620 companies attended show
Divorce Royale
Report: Fortnite to blame in over 200 UK divorces this year
"It is no surprise to us that more and more people are having relationship problems because of our digital addictions"
New Studio Alert
World of Tanks maker Wargaming opens UK games development studio
Free-to-play specialist rolls into Guildford
Not So Mini Milestone
8 Ball Pool developer Miniclip hits 1.5 billion mobile game downloads
"We are now reaching even greater levels of recognition within mobile games"
Fraud Against The Machine
Mobile gaming apps are the biggest victim of fraudulent app installs
Analysis of the impact of app install fraud
Retired
Disney to shut down Star Wars: Rivals mobile game
The cover-based shooter had been in soft launch since June of last year
Japan
Meet us at Tokyo Game Show
PocketGamer.biz will be at TGS this week - and we’d love to hear from you!
Big Indie Awards 2018
The best of The Big Indie Pitch 2018 - Defenoid
We take a look back at the winner of The Big Indie Pitch at last year's G-STAR conference
Blurred Lines
European regulators claim “blurring of lines” between gambling and gaming in joint statement
"We have joined forces to call on video games companies to address the clear public concern around the risks gambling and some video games can pose to children"
Hot Five
Supercell on why cell structure is super, Subway Surfers hits 52.5m downloads in June, and Mobile Strike grabs $1 billion
The past weeks hottest articles
Big Indie Awards 2018
The best of The Big Indie Pitch 2018 - Daft Jump
We take a look back at the winner of The Big Indie Pitch at the last Jordan Gaming Summit
Good Cause
Supercell, Rovio, Outfit7 and more back One Special Day charity fundraiser
Takes place on September 28th
Delicious Downloads
Nukebox’s Food Truck Chef serves up 16 million installs
Average monthly revenue said to have triple since $18 million Tilting Point partnership
Monetisation Blow
China's regulatory roadblocks stop most downloaded game PUBG Mobile from making money
Despite 100 million downloads and 50 million active users, there are no IAPs
Switch Up
Players will need to sign up to Nintendo Switch Online for cloud saves
Service will go live September 18th and will cost $3.99 a month, $7.99 for three months or $19.99 for 12
Jobs In Games
From the world's top Clash of Clans player to game dev: Space Ape's George Yao on getting a job as a product manager
"It all boils down to personal attitude and the desire to learn."
Pocketed
Miniclip pockets over $400 million from 8 Ball Pool on mobile
Lifetime installs more than 80 million
London Calling
Super Early Bird prices for Pocket Gamer Connects London end next week
Ticket prices now lowest they'll ever be for January event, to rise after next Friday
Hot Trends
China mobile game trends H1 2018: Honor of Kings and PUBG Mobile top the grossing and download charts
Niko Partners analyst Daniel Ahmad delves into what the first six months of 2018 tell us about the Chinese mobile games market
Off The Blockchain
Cocos-BCX raises $40m in funding to accelerate development of blockchain games platform
Funding led by Binance Labs, NEO Global Capital, 500 Startups, among others
Co-op
Skybound teams up with Sky to create narrative focused mobile games
Skybound Stories will create games based on new and existing IPs
Scrollin
Bethesda's Todd Howard shows off Elder Scrolls: Blades gameplay at Apple’s iPhone event
Elder Scrolls game set for a fall release this year
All The Range
iPhone XS, XS Max and XR unveiled at Apple keynote event
Previous ranges also discounted or discontinued
Indie Spotlight
The story of Triple Topping Games’ Spitkiss puts polyamory front and centre
“We thought it was an interesting subject and also something you may have a lot of questions about”
Direct
Delayed Nintendo Direct set to go ahead September 13th at 11pm UK time
Last weeks direct was delayed due to natural disasters
Pokemon Go
Pokemon Go saw a 35 per cent increase in activity over the last 4 months
Niantic also announced a scheme to tie Pokemon Go to civic engagement events
Super Cells
Supercell’s Ilkka Paananen explains why its cell structure puts developers before management
“The less the management had to do with their games, the better their chances of success”
Big Indie Pitch
Boom Slingers dazzles judges to clinch top spot at the Very Big Indie Pitch at PGC Helsinki 2018
Top five revealed
Super
The first mobile Spider-man game almost made its creator bankrupt on day one of development
Indiagames reflects on creating the web-slinging mobile title on a low budget with four developers
Bird Feed
Rovio teams up with Jazwares to create range of toys for Angry Birds
The range of toys will support Rovio’s upcoming entertainment ventures
Surf's Up
Subway Surfers hit monthly download record of 52.5m in June 2018
2.1 billion-plus downloads in total
Fated
Former Fate/Grand Order and Zero Escape devs launch new indie studio
Four titles are currently in the works, one anime and three games
Here Comes The Boom
Boom Beach blows past $820m in revenue for Supercell
The MMO real-time strategy released back in 2013
Exclusive
Vinnie Jones is the face of Stanga Games' Underworld Football Manager
The Snatch actor will be the face of the game for an undisclosed period of time
China
It could take another four-to-six months for China to start approving new games again
Governmental restructure may see the region’s normally-booming market frozen for another half year.
Pgc Helsinki
Pocket Gamer Connects day two begins with Blockchain, Indie and Growth tracks
A packed second day awaits
Switch
Nintendo cites cheaters for the decision to restrict cloud saves on Switch
Switch Online cloud saves won’t be enabled on a number of titles