Indie View
The Big Indie Pitch interviews: Team Ocmo on redefining hardcore platformers for mobile devices
We speak to Team Ocmo, who won The Very Big Indie Pitch at Pocket Gamer Connects Helsinki 2017
Partner Up
Nintendo could partner up with more developers to make mobile games
"If we find other partners that can bring unique strengths that are not found within Nintendo, then we may work with them as well"
United
Unity introduces scriptable render pipelines and C# Job System in 2018.1 update
Latest version includes 330 new features and improvements
Smart Expansion
Mobile a key driver for Nintendo's growth in Asia and Middle East
Access to IP leads to strong Switch sales, says company president
Ready To Float
Chinese smartphone maker Xiaomi files for world's biggest IPO since 2014
Could value company at as much as $100 billion
Heroic
Crazy Defence Heroes helps boost Animoca Brands’ revenues to A$3.4 million for 1Q18
The tower defence RPG game brought in A$2.6 million during the quarter
Majority Stake
Mail.RU acquires 51% stake in Russian Guild of Heroes dev Bit.Games
Developer making $1 million-plus a month from hit title
Not Bad
Fate/ Grand Order helps launch Sony Music’s revenue to $7 billion in FY17
The division saw a 24 per cent year on year increase
On The App
Annual consumer app store spend to increase to $157 billion by 2022
Mobile app downloads will also increase to 258 billion by 2022, according to App Annie
Four In A Row
CSR Racing 2 and Words With Friends 2’s strong performance extends Zynga’s profit streak
Plus Willy Wonka’s Sweet Adventure in testing
Preparing For Takeoff
Building up to IPO, Flexion adds experienced game exec Chris Bergstresser to its board
Bolt-on experience
One Share, One Vote
Mark Pincus’ decision to relinquish Zynga majority voting rights reflects “my confidence in the company”
Founding CEO is stepping back
Ouch
Next Games revenue down 56% in Q1 2018 as Walking Dead: No Man’s Land loses players
Finnish developer cites change in daily active and monthly active users as the primary reason for drop in revenues
Less Mario, More Rpg
How Nintendo plans to create an annual $1 billion mobile games business
Starting over with a clean slate
Formulated
Gumi’s The Alchemist Code racks up five million downloads worldwide
The Japanese mobile games developer is celebrating with special in-game events
Chicken Little
PUBG Mobile’s first week revenues on iOS only a fifth of Fortnite’s
Players outside of China spent $700,000 in its first week of monetisation
Indie View
The Big Indie Pitch interviews: From tiny bubbles come big things
We speak to Pine Street Codeworks about their multi-awarding winning game Tiny Bubbles
Making Of
Hack and slash: The making of MIHOYO's Honkai Impact 3rd
MIHOYO president Forrest Wei Liu breaks down Honkai Impact 3rd's world
Top Tips
8 tips for mobile games publishing success in China
Mobvista lays out some key advice from its ‘Looking East: How to launch mobile games in China 2018’ report
Instant Hit?
In-app purchases come to Facebook Instant Games
But monetisation through Google Play will smaller less returns for developers
Into The Wild
Facebook wants to make virtual reality more accessible with $199 Oculus Go launch
F8 Developer Conference attendees get free headset each
Connect
CyberAgent’s new release Princess Connect! Re:Dive propels games revenues to $368m in Q2 2018
Company credits Princess Connect! Re:Dive for the improved financial performance
Marvellous
Marvel Future Fight breaks the 70 million players mark
Netmarble celebrates the milestone by extending its in-game event campaign
Competitive Gaming
Amazon’s $100,000 Mobile Masters esports tournament returns in June
Games include Power Rangers: Legacy Wars, Survival Arena, World of Tanks Blitz and Critical Ops
Amazing
Games Week Berlin 2018 brings in 15,000 visitors
The seven-day rendezvous featured over 12 individual events including A MAZE/ Berlin
Indie Spectacle
Develop:Brighton opens submissions for Indie Showcase
10 developers will get a chance to show off their game at the event
Indie Spotlight
Indie Spotlight: Little Lost Fox's Niamh Fitzgerald on Valleys Between and finding the balance
"Some of my favourite days are ones where I get to focus on game design or technical art"
Silly Money
Ads generate majority of $270k revenue for Finnish indie Part Time Monkey's Silly Walks
Unity Ads-driven earnings made up 97 per cent of all revenue
Big Deal
Tencent eyes investment in Playerunknown's Battlegrounds outfit Bluehole
Local media reports investment could equal around $468 million
On The App
Mobile games revenues to hit $70 billion in 2018
Revenues will account for more than half of the $137.9 billion made across all platforms
Key Release
$1 billion mobile title Disney Tsum Tsum comes to Facebook Instant Games
'Introductory version' launches globally
Face Games
Snapchat gets ‘Snappables’ augmented reality games
Weekly games launch on the platform
Most Impressive
Fingersoft's Hill Climb Racing franchise rolls past one billion downloads
CEO Teemu Närhi and marketing director Sami Saari on how it got here and how it plans to get the next billion
Ad Strategy
Space Ape's Fastlane: A growth engine fuelled with ads
The developer's head of growth Nicolas Boulay on how it refined its ad implemtation to generate nearly $30m in yearly revenue
On The App
Games featured on iOS 11’s Games Tab see 450% more installs
Largest increase in percentage was seen in the Medium List which resulted in a 451 per cent increase
Time Is Money
How does Harry Potter: Hogwarts Mystery monetise?
Casting a consumerius spell?
Finnternal Promotions
Next Games promotes from within for management team
Finnish games developer also promotes former Head of Games Sami Nurmio to Head of New Projects
Lost And Found
Nintendo taps up Cygames for new RPG game Dragalia Lost
New RPG will be released this summer
Not Bad
Fortnite made $223 million across all platforms in March
Revenue was up 73 per cent from February according to SuperData
Switching It Up
Nintendo’s mobile games brought in $359.5 million in the last year
Overall revenue increased 116 per cent to $9.66 billion
Events
Blockchain Gamer Connects San Francisco speakers: The third wave
The talent behind CryptoKitties and CryptoWars, plus Super Game Chain, PlayTable and more
Going Up
Chinese publisher 37 Interactive doubled its mobile revenue to more than $500m in 2017
Overseas revenue for mobile games also jumped up 80 per cent
Spellbinding
Harry Potter: Hogwarts Mystery tops App Store download charts in first 24 hours
Tops rankings in UK, US, France, Germany and Spain
Ir Guide
Mobile games industry financials calendar
Keep up to date with financial releases with this handy guide
Rediscovering Value
Why mobile game consultancy group DOD Media is moving into legacy publishing
Leveraging app store muscle
Content-tastic
Pocket Gamer Connects San Francisco 2018 schedule is live
Niantic, King, Super Evil, EA, Zynga lead best line-up to date for May 14th to 15th conference
Loot Box Crisis
Landmark Belgium gaming authority ruling defines loot boxes as gambling
Publishers could face sizeable fines if they don't remove paid loot crates
Come Together
Unity aims to double down on mobile at Unite Berlin
A look ahead at what to expect from the conference in June
Stepping Down
Nintendo president Tatsumi Kimishima to retire
Leaves after nearly three years in the role
Updated
Bidalgo launches self-serve tool for optimising Google universal app campaigns
The mobile app user acquisition platform aims to help marketers grow apps