Gone West
Fallout Shelter publisher Bethesda ends legal battle against Warner Bros over Westworld "rip-off"
The dispute between the two mobile management games has been "amicably resolved"
Event
Pocket Gamer Connects London - full conference schedule now live
More than 250 world-class expert speakers covering the hottest topics across mobile, PC and blockchain gaming
Events
What’s trending: Here’s what to look out for at the Pocket Gamer Connects London Trade Trends track
The track to take for those looking for mobile market trends and the state of British gaming
Feel The Hype
Keep it casual: Here’s the lineup for Pocket Gamer Connects London’s Game Changers – Hyper-casual track
Track features the leading lights in the hyper-casual and the chat app gaming sectors
Marvellous
Hearthstone director's Second Dinner snags $30m from NetEase and secures Marvel licence agreement
New studio has been working on its first game for six months
Financial Slowdown
Apple blames China as it posts sales warning
Points the finger at Trump administration for trade war exacerbating country's economic downturn
Whew
App Store users forked out $1.5 billion between Christmas Eve and New Year's Day
Customers spent $322 million on January 1st alone
Jobs News
Blizzard loses CFO to payment company Square
Follows Activision Blizzard CFO Spencer Neumann out the door after he joined Netflix
Funding Go
Pokemon Go dev Niantic pulls in $190 million investment
Studio has raised around $420m so far at an estimated $3.9 billion valuation
Growth
Square Enix eyes India as part of year of “aggressive” overseas expansion
India and China will play a key role in the Square Enix president’s plans for global growth
Events
Anita Sarkeesian, Mikael Haveri and Robin Hunicke headline Ludicious 2019 from January 31st
Swiss event will feature presentations and workshops from over forty industry speakers
Say What?
Report: Nexon put up for sale as founder and controlling stakeholder exits
Total 98.64 per cent stake owned by Kim Jung-ju up for grabs, it seems
Engine Of Change
Corona game engine goes open source
Company hopes move will make development process more transparent
Heading North
Rebellion acquires Yorkshire studio TickTock Games
Developer to become Rebellion North
Critical Hit
Pokemon Go bagged nearly $800 million from in-app purchases in 2018
Sales up 35 per cent on 2017
Speakers
Huawei, Playtika, Plarium, JoyPac and Game Workers Unite to speak at Pocket Gamer Connects London 2019
Two-day conference schedule adds more international names for this month’s event
Global Charts
Weekly global mobile games charts: Brawl Stars fires into US top 10 download and grossing rankings
Rankings for the week of December 17th to 23rd
Jobs In Games Special
Jobs in Games Special 2019: Contributors wanted
Help others level up their careers
Blockade Lifted
China's games market is officially open for business again
First 80 games approved for release in China since end of games freeze
Jobs News
Activision Blizzard set to fire chief financial officer
Spencer Neumann could be about to join streaming giant Netflix
Ua Tool
IronSource launches ROAS Optimiser tool
Solution aims to help user acquisition managers automatically bid on dynamic cost-per-install rates
That's All Folks
Scopely’s Looney Tunes: World of Mayhem topped 1m downloads on launch day
Release supported by Crushathon livestream
Avengers Disassemble
TinyCo’s Marvel Avengers Academy to close
Servers shut down on February 4th, but will be unavailable for download from January 1st
Jobs News
Over 100 Blizzard customer support staff accept cash to quit
At least five payments of increasing value offered over last few months, sources claim
New Studio
New studio Wanderword to develop interactive audiobooks for mobile devices and smart speakers
Formed by Microsoft and Fatshark execs Peter Zetterberg and Thomas Lindgren
Marketing
AppsFlyer claims the app ad market will hit $64 billion by 2020
Ads market is set to grow 34 per cent annually on average between 2017 and 2020
Struck A Chord
Games chat platform Discord raises $150 million at $2bn valuation
Funding round led by Greenoaks Capital
Media Meets
Developers: book your appointment to meet journalists at Pocket Gamer Connects now
A chance to demo your game one-on-one with our consumer writers
Data
App Annie reports game and app downloads pushed 113 billion this year
The figure represents a 10 per cent year-over-year increase in mobile app downloads
Cash Cows
Pokemon Go world's top grossing mobile game in November
SuperData top 10 grossers includes Puzzle & D
Christmas Gift?
App Store users could soon gift in-app purchases
But functionality is not yet in place
Prime Competition
Pokemon Go dev Niantic opens $1m Beyond Reality Developer Contest for AR games
10 teams will get the chance to bring their projects to life using the Real World Platform
It’s Always Sunny
Keywords acquires marketing services outfit Sunny Side Up for $4.3m
Clients for Quebec City outfit include Ubisoft, EA and Eidos
Unstuck
China's big games freeze finally comes to an end after nine months
New licences set to be issued for fresh launches
Bold Buy
Zynga buys Empires & Puzzles dev Small Giant Games in deal worth over $700 million
Finnish indie snapped up
Family
Consumer group complains to FTC over 'inappropriate' kids apps
Children's games and apps were found to breach federal privacy laws in the United States
Nestling In
DoDreams brings aboard former Rovio marketing director Edvard Groundstroem
Drive Ahead developer brings yet another Angry Birds alum into its roster
Event
Bigger, better, newer: Meet Steel Media's 2019 event line-up
Which of the 45 events across 11 nations will you come to?
Vroom
Hutch races into a multi-year licensing partnership with Formula One
Racing organising looks to the mobile driving developer to help expand its global audience
Unity Icon Collective
Unity Icon Collective aims to offer ready-made triple-A assets on the Asset Store
First pack is free for Unity Pro users
Fresh Deal
Gameloft acquires SongPop trivia game maker FreshPlanet
CEO Mathieu Nouzareth will continue on in role
Gold Star
Brawl Stars nets Supercell over $5 million in opening week
Comparatively, it made $6m from its one and a half years in soft-launch
Bad Game
Esports organisations could be in trouble as experts fear market correction due to over-evaluation
There is a reported disparity between the valuation of esports organisations and their revenue
Virtual Birds
Rovio is bringing Angry Birds to virtual reality in 2019 with Isle of Pigs
A partnership with Resolution Games is bringing the long-running mobile hit to headsets next year
Game On
Candy Crush Saga was the top grossing mobile game on the US app stores in November
Supercell’s Clash of Clans and Roblox also featured
Advertising
Developer survey shows in-game ads are an increasingly lucrative monetisation option
The number of games making a majority of revenue through in-game adverts has increased 29 per cent
Jobs News
Splash Damage CEO Paul Wedgwood departs after 17 years
Chief marketing officer and fellow co-founder Richard Jolly takes on top job
Court Battle
Qualcomm insists Apple is in breach of Chinese court order it claims prohibits iPhone sales
“Apple’s statements have been deliberate attempts to obfuscate and misdirect”
Block In The Chain
Atari makes strategic investment in blockchain specialist and mobile publisher Animoca Brands
Hong Kong-floated publisher set to bring Rollercoaster Tycoon Touch and Good Squad to the blockchain
Branching Out
Reigns publisher Devolver getting ‘more serious’ about mobile, F2P and China
Hires ex-Appler Mark Hickey