GDC Europe is no more, rising Rival Kingdoms revenues, and Zynga opens Finland office

The hottest articles of last week

• 5 Why Samsung is giving $10,000 to every developer in the Tizen Store's top 100

  

  The Tizen mobile operating system is yet to breakthrough like Google’s Android, but Samsung is looking to change that.

  The OS is powering just a few Samsung phones right now in African and Asian markets such as Nigeria and India, but the company is yet to step foot in the US or Europe with it.

  Money-makers

  To try and increase developer interest in the regions where its Tizen devices are available, Samsung is offering top grossing developers using the Tizen Store $10,000 as a reward.

  It’s an interesting strategy, and one Samsung's Head of Tizen Business Hokyu Choi was keen to discuss with us.

  
  

• 4 Former Crytek employee launches crowdfunding campaign to sue developer for unpaid wages

  

  Crytek has yet to break its silence, but word is increasingly emerging that all is not well at the Crysis and CryEngine developer.

  It has been alleged that the company, with offices all around the world, has been late paying staff for months, and in some recent cases, has yet to pay employees at all.

  In crisis

  In an effort to retrieve some money, a man claiming to be a former Crytek employee has set up a crowdfunding campaign to raise money to sue the company over unpaid wages.

  Ludvig Lindqvist, a former FX Artist at the developer, is looking for €30,000 to begin his lawsuit, and says any excess funds will go toward helping other Crytek employees with legal action.

  
  

• 3 GDC Europe is no more

  

  UBM has cancelled its series of GDC Europe events to focus on the hugely popular GDC in San Francisco.

  The conference had taken place in German for years alongside consumer expo Gamescom.

  Re-focus

  But with Gamescom growing its own business area, GDC Europe organisers have decided to cancel all future events in the region.

  UBM said however it still plans to increase efforts to support the growth of European games professionals at its main global event.

  
  

• 2 How Space Ape grew revenues in the one-year-old Rival Kingdoms for six consecutive months

  

  Space Ape Games is one of the most successful UK studios in the mobile space and its staff are always happy to share their learnings with everyone else.

  To that end, we spoke to the studio’s COO Simon Hade about how it runs live operations for its games and how it’s always learning improved methods for developing and running its games.

  Mobile siege

  He said that while its game Rival Kingdoms was launched over a year ago, the game has grown in revenue for six consecutive months as it proves to be increasingly popular long after release.

  “Rival Kingdoms is making significantly more than it was six months ago,” said Hade.

  “And Samurai Siege has been pretty flat for 12 months - which is very rare for a three-year-old game.”

  
  

• 1 Zynga opens Helsinki office

  

  Zynga has acquired numerous studios over the years, and more recently has closed down many as well.

  But the company is slowly turning itself around under new CEO Frank Gibeau. And with that turnaround has come the potentially exciting news of a new office in Helsinki, Finland.

  A new development branch?

  Little is known about the office, other than a company registry filing for a Zynga Finland.

  But it could point to a new development studio for the firm, with Finland known as a hotbed of games activity that's home to companies like Supercell, Rovio, Seriously and Remedy Entertainment.