That Is Unreal
Epic Games dishes out $1 million in grants for Unreal Engine 4 devs
The games publisher handed out grants to 37 teams
Keep It Clean
Nintendo’s Reggie Fils-Aime reinforces his commitment to storefront curation for Switch
“Their games are selling best on Switch because of that environment we're creating”
Switch Up
Nintendo Europe names new CEO as Shibata leaves role after 18 years
Satoru Shibata will head back to Japan to take up a new position
Oh Snap
Report: Snapchat games platform to land later this year
One games publisher is said to be lined up already
Beyond Games
5 things we learned about influencers, hyper-casual and esports at the Beyond Games Mini-Summit
Leading industry experts deal out their knowledge and advice
Why Not
Rovio opens Angry Birds World amusement park in Qatar
It’s called Angry Birds World, of course
Critical Hit
World of Tanks Blitz hits 100 million downloads in celebration of it’s fourth birthday
Wargaming attributes success to loyal community, major tournaments and a successful Chinese launch
It's A Hit
How a move into the hyper-casual games market provided MAG Interactive with a spring in its step
"Our teams make tonnes of prototypes and are in the habit of testing them early in the development process, which is the reason we realised that we had a real gem here"
Squared Away
Pokemon Quest lands on the iOS App Store and Google Play
The adventure RPG game has already caught 2.5 million downloads on the Nintendo Switch
Mobile Masters
Amazon names the winners of its $100,000 Mobile Masters Seattle esports event
Participants competed in World of Tanks: Blitz, Power Rangers: Legacy Wars, Critical Ops and Survival Arena
Adjusted
Adjust launches open-source performance benchmarking tool for mobile apps
Free tool should help publishers track app performance
Free No More
The Sims: Freeplay banned in seven countries due to “regional standards”
The Sims: Freeplay will be banned in China, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Oman, Kuwait, Qatar and Egypt come July 5th.
Worldwide
GungHo banks on colourful chaos to go big with Nintendo Switch release Ninjala
Japanese developer hopes the wider appeal will help the game land on a global scale
Royalties
PUBG Mobile raking in $700k a day thanks to the new Royale Pass
Revenues boosted by 365 per cent in one week
Weekly Charts
Weekly UK App Store charts: Love Island: The Game debuts at top spot in iPhone free chart and is a top grosser
Rankings from June 11th to 17th
On The Go
Pokemon Go racks up $104 million as player base reaches its highest level since 2016
The game has surged 174 per cent year-on-year in time for summer
Grass Is Greener
Why MZ CEO Gabe Leydon has left mobile games for blockchain data outfit Satori
One example of a wider trend
Pay To Play
Mobile is the most popular platform for gaming, but the least for paying customers
Newzoo study finds the platform has a lower player-to-payer ratio than console or PC
Employed
Ukraine plays host to over 80 games development companies
82 per cent of them are working on mobile games titles
Digital Sports
Chinese esports market set to reach 350 million users by 2020
Experts also expect the scene to value at $1.5 billion
Job News
Kabam co-founder Holly Liu joins the Animoca Brands board of directors
Leading games entrepreneur sees potential in Animoca’s AI and blockchain endeavours
Indie Spotlight
“The stories that they told us were so moving": The making of My Child Lebensborn
Teknopilot’s co-founder Elin Festøy on balancing messages
Cloned
Indie dev lambasts recently flush publisher Voodoo for ‘clone’ Hole.io
Hole.io is currently sitting at the top of the free-to-play charts on iOS
Blockchain Competition
One week left to enter $150,000 blockchain developer competition
Could you win the Alto Cryptogame Challenge powered by BlockchainGamer.Biz?
Game Changer
Inspiration not just adaptation: Asmodee Digital's new editorial policy
Despite Carcassonne coming to Nintendo Switch, Scythe coming to PC and Ticket to Ride coming to PlayStation, it's not all about old IP
Android Stars
Supercell’s Brawl Stars arrives on Android
Enters soft launch countries
About Time
Report: Telltale Games to ditch its own its own tech for Unity game engine
Follows 15 years of using Telltale Tool
Monumental
Premium isn’t dead yet: Monument Valley 2 makes over $10 million in first year
A year on from the puzzling sequel’s launch, Ustwo releases an impressive infographic
Heading For Ipo
King of Fighters creator SNK and RPG dev Vespa set for South Korea flotations
Vespa joins the Japanese giant in going public in 2018
Market Data
Turkey’s mobile games industry brought in $372.4 million in 2017
Highlights from the Turkey Game Market 2017 report
Big Pull
King enters the social casino space with Royal Charm Slots
The title had been in soft-launch since August 2017
Going Public
Xiaomi heads for $6bn Hong Kong IPO but shelves mainland China listing
Smartphone manufacturer rolls back reported plans to raise $10 billion
Android Stars
Supercell teases Brawl Stars Android release
Could it suggest the MOBA-esque shooter is on its way to a full global launch?
Fallout World
Fallout Shelter publisher Bethesda sues Warner Bros over “blatant rip-off” Westworld
Lawsuit claims "highly similar" game design, art style, animations and features
Roundup
Games industry roundup: The hottest stories across the PC, blockchain and influencer sectors
15 articles from PCGamesInsider.biz, InfluencerUpdate.biz and BlockhainGamer.biz
Hot Five
Shadowgun Legends took two days to be Switch ready, Tencent to acquire Bluehole, and Lineage M breaks $1.2bn
The past weeks hottest articles
The Weekly
The Weekly: The Legend of Nintendo, phones within phones, and Twitch's games streaming dominance
Rounding up the week's games industry analysis and news from around the internet
Winner Winner Chicken Dinner
Steel Media wins SpecialEffect’s #ChickenForCharity PUBG tournament as event raises over £10k
Incredible scenes
Hoppin’
No Yetis Allowed picks up licence for Peter Rabbit mobile game
Pocket Shrek developer partners with brand owner Penguin Ventures
Tweeted
Nintendo the most talked about games company on Twitter during E3 2018
Super Smash Bros also received the most tweets out of the games on show
Chart Check
Top 50 US App Store games take 76% of the revenue
Apptopia research finds iOS games peak quickly, with harsh falloff
Key Takeaways
5 things we learned at Unite Berlin 2018
Google, machine learning, mixed reality and more were the key topics in Germany
Lovestruck
Intel CEO steps down after breaching "non-fraternisation" policy
Brian Krzanich resigned from the tech giant after five years
Playing The End Game
It’s raised another $100 million but where next for Scopely?
Looking for the perfect combination
Building Blocks
Roblox set to raise up to $150 million
PitchBook estimates funding would value the company at $2.4 billion
Arrr
Nintendo bans Switch consoles with pirated games
Reddit post warns against pirating games to the handheld
Beef
Nintendo and Microsoft dunk Sony on Twitter over Minecraft cross-play
Sony’s cross-play policy has been under public scrutiny since Fortnite launched on Switch
Winner
Report: PUBG developer Bluehole snaps up mobile studio Delusion Studio
The terms of the deal are currently unknown
To Infinity
Sign up for next week's Beyond Games networking mixer in London
The mini-summit and mixer will also feature Game Insight’s Tanks of Boom
Takeover
Americans will soon be spending more time on mobile than their telly
Time spent on mobile may be reaching a peak, however