Whew-two
Niantic's Pokemon Go catches $1.8 billion in revenue in two years
US players splash out $607 million on title
Cashed Out
Monopoly Towns goes straight to jail as Backflip cans soft-launched title
Support will cease September 3rd
Weekly Charts
Weekly UK App Store charts: Pokemon Quest jumps into top 10 download rankings for iPhone and iPad
Rankings from June 25th to July 1st
Event
Join us for The Big Indie Pitch & Big Indie Drinks @ Develop:Brighton 2018
Software by the seaside with sponsors Space Ape, Jagex, The Games Hub and G-STAR.
Doors Open
The Big Indie Fest @ ReVersed consumer games expo kicks off in Vienna
Around 4,000 visitors expected across two days
Gotta Catch ‘em All
Pokemon Quest passes 7.5 million downloads across iOS, Android and Nintendo Switch
It captured 3.5 million downloads on mobile alone within days of launching
Big Indie Pitch
Experimental collaborative drawing game Mish Mash wins Big Indie Pitch at The Big Indie Fest @ ReVersed
Hamsterdam comes second as Golf Club: Wasteland takes third
Shiny
Disney releases Moana production assets for public use
Cloud data and island geometry released to provide an insight into CG production techniques
Tip Top
Global Top Round’s $300,000 accelerator program is open for submissions
Accelerator invites small studios to apply in its fourth consecutive program
Live Drop
Live.me’s new streaming app Fluxr will promote Playerunknown’s Battlegrounds esports
Streaming platform’s new app is looking to grow the mobile esports market
Localisation
5 reasons to localise your game as an indie
Applanga CTO Steffen Romer discusses why translating indie games for various markets is worthwhile
Data Klaxon
Taiwan’s pool of 14.5 million players to spend $1.3 billion in 2018
The Taiwanese games market is the 15th largest in the world
Simple
The Sims Mobile builds up $15 million in revenues after four months
59 per cent of revenues come from the US
Exclusive
NetEase’s Identity V racks up over 100 million downloads
More than 10 million people are playing every single day
Big Indie Festival
Indie is dead. Long live indie
Vlambeer's Rami Ismail discusses the history of indie games and what it means today
Competition
Win: Indie Showcase space at Pocket Gamer Connects Helsinki
Demo your work to 1,200 games industry professionals this September free; worth $650
Excellent
Google Play Excellence program welcomes Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp and six other games
World of Warships: Blitz and Flutter: Starlight also feature in high-quality highlights list
Yahtzee
US publisher Scopely’s Yahtzee with Buddies lands on iMessage
The dice-rolling game will also release on Facebook Instant Games in due course
Legal
San Mateo County drops charges against Vungle founder Zain Jaffer
Child abuse and assault against the former CEO cleared by district attorney
On The App
Over 90% of Google Play revenue in South Korea comes from games
Wise App surveyed 23,000 Android smartphone users in Korea from May 1st to 31st
Not So Hollow
Nintendo Switch makes up a fifth of Hollow Knight's 1.25 million total sales
PC sales hit 1 million a day before the sidescrolling soulslike's switch launch
Return Of The King
Candy Crush dev King launches new IP Diamond Diaries Saga on iOS and Android
The physics-based linker game has been in soft-launch since October of last year
Battle Royale
Fortnite Mobile has five times the revenue of PUBG but half the downloads
Fortnite made $92 million revenue in the 11 weeks ending on June 18th, compared to PUBG’s $19 million
Milan Bound
505 Games taps up Ovosonico for a new and "ambitious" IP
Italian studio is moving its headquarters to a new Milan office
Making A Splash
MAG Interactive’s Paint Hit breaks five million downloads
Real-time word game Word Domination brought in one million downloads
$$$
Keywords sets up venture capital division
Amount backing this arm unclear
On Your Marks
International Olympic Committee to host esports-focused forum
IOC to start discussing the future of relationships between games and sports
Go Wild
170,000 Pokemon Go trainers flood Dortmund during Safari Zone event
Trainers from across the world caught over 28.6 million Pokemon in the city last week
Mobile Game Of Thrones
Tencent snags rights to publish Game of Thrones: Winter is Coming to China
Shanghai-based developer Yoozoo originally acquired the rights from Warner Bros last year
Grand Strategy
Paradox expects 10 per cent of sales to come from mobile by 2020
Tencent-backed PC strategy giant has eyes set on mobile development and more acquisitions
Feast On This
Dead Island: Survivors gets worldwide release after two-years in soft launch
The zombie action game soft-launched on iOS in November 2016 with an Android beta following soon after
Love Better
Failbetter Games sets up Love Indies Week to celebrate developers and communities
The week-long event looks to highlight the importance of reviews on indie games
Gotta Dash
Diner Dash inspired title Mak Cun’s Adventure serves up 100k downloads in 10 days
The game puts a Malaysian twist on the diner management game
Going East
Ad sales house Venatus expands east with new Seoul office
Venatus provides ad sales services to studios including Rovio, EA and Spil Games.
What A Steel
Casual action game Hills of Steel rolls past 10 million downloads
The publishing label Round Zero was formed by Fingersoft last year
Excellent
Oasis Games heads up $3 million investment in Austrian indie developer Iron Mountain
Beijing publisher set to snag a minority stake in the company along with publishing rights to an unannounced title
I Want To Be The Very Best
Pokemon Quest catches $3million in revenues during first week on mobile
The cubed up adventure also snagged 3.5 million downloads
Catch Of The Day
Big Fish appoints 15 year industry veteran Jeff Karp as new managing director and president
Karp brings aboard executive experience from some of the industry’s biggest players
Quizzed
Indian publisher Nazara acquires minority stake in quiz studio Crimzoncode
Partnership will see Nazara publish the studio’s flagship quiz title in emerging markets
Skip, Jump
Super Mario Run leaps past $60 million worldwide revenue
American players account for nearly half of the revenue brought in since launching in 2016
Event
This week: The Big Indie Fest @ ReVersed
Vienna’s four-day celebration of gaming opens this Thursday to Sunday
Drop
Drastic drop in Google Play downloads rocks indie devs after discovery algorithm fiasco
Devs started noticing the abnormal behaviour on Thursday, June 21st
10 Years
App Store users have spent over $4 billion on Supercell’s Clash of Clans
Supercell is just behind majority owner Tencent in terms of consumer revenue made per company
Click
Nintendo Switch is played docked about as often as undocked
Individual games more likely to skew one way or the other
Loot Boxes
French regulator concerned about loot boxes but concedes it isn't gambling
Paris proves less hostile to the practice than its Dutch and Belgian counterparts
Sneak Peek
Niantic opens up preview of its AR Real World Platform
Pokemon Go developer looks to collaborate with third parties to advance augmented reality
Weekly Charts
Weekly UK App Store charts: Love Island: The Game pips Pokemon Go to be the third highest grossing game
Rankings from June 18th to 24th
Korean Event
Early Bird registration opens for South Korea’s G-STAR 2018
10% off tickets to the major Asian show taking place November 15th to 18th in Busan
Event
First speakers revealed for Pocket Gamer Connects Helsinki 2018
September conference features Unity, Epic Games, King, Gameloft and many more sharing their expertise on games for mobile, PC, VR, AR and Nintendo Switch
Goodnite
PUBG Corp ends Epic Games lawsuit over PUBG and Fortnite copyright infringement claims
Brings end to battle royale spat