Event
What's on at Pocket Gamer Connects London 2019?
Two-day event features 21-track conference schedule, Big Indie Pitches, investor panels, networking and more across mobile, PC, VR/AR and blockchain
Fore
Playdemic’s Golf Clash gets new clans feature
The new feature allows groups of up to 50 golf clash players to chat, share replays and work together to earn in-game rewards
On The Tube
Subway Surfers developer SYBO set to tap into video streaming with new platform
SYBO TV is expected to land in the fourth quarter of 2018
Ar
Truly Social Games acquires Vancouver AR studio Cooper’s New Reality Garage
Augmented reality specialist will rebrand as Truly Social Games Vancouver
New Digs
Cloud games firm Improbable set for London HQ
Soon to be based in Spitalfields
Data Klaxon
UK economy made $3.8bn from video games industry in 2016
And it provides 50,000 jobs
Audio
Gismart’s Piano Crush becomes No.1 music App on the US App Store
Virtual keyboard beat out Spotify to top charts in multiple regions worldwide
Blast Off
Rovio soft-launches Angry Birds Dream Blast in Finland and the UK
The bubble popper is available on iOS and Android
Offline
Marmalade SDK shuts down citing increased pressure from Unity and Unreal
Unpredictable iOS changes are also stated as causing Marmalade’s developers to close up shop
Busted
Four Thirty Three’s Ghostbusters World lands in Singapore, Sweden, Denmark and New Zealand
The location-based augmented reality game is expected to release October 22nd
Service
Epic Games acquires security and service provider Kamu
Kamu brings its speciality in game security and community building to Fortnite and Unreal developers
Global Charts
Weekly global mobile game charts: Supercell's Clash of Clans shuffles up the top grossing rankings
Google Play and App Store rankings in the US, Great Britain and Ireland, and China for the week of September 24th to 30th
New-school
Subscribers can now access the RuneScape Mobile Beta
Mobile beta headlines a string of announcements made during this weekend’s Runefest event
Support A Creator
Fortnite's 'support-a-creator' initiative lets players back their favourite influencers
The event allows players to support their favourite creators when making in-game purchases
Big Deal
Advantage Solutions acquires HyprMX owner Jun Group in deal that brings brands and mobile games closer together
HyprMX general manager and senior vice president Dan Laughlin tells us what the deal means for the company and the mobile games industry at large
Jobs News
ESA president Mike Gallagher steps down
SVP and general counsel Stanley Pierre-Louis will fill this spot until a successor is found
Monster Adaptation
Production begins on live-action Monster Hunter movie
Resident Evil director Paul W.S. Anderson will write, direct and produce the adaptation
Cash Royale
Fortnite iOS revenue catapults to $300 million faster than Clash Royale
But slower than Niantic’s Pokemon Go, which only took 113 days
Living On?
Skybound to finish The Walking Dead: The Final Season following Telltale closure
Original team members may join development team
Dead On
The Walking Dead: Our World will feature time-limited in-game events during season nine of the AMC series
New challenges will drop every Monday with each new episode
Zombie
FTX Games to publish new The Walking Dead match-three and social casino mobile games
Publisher seals deal with AMC to create multiple flesh-eating licensed titles
Dirt
Pokemon Go celebrates the 50th anniversary of the US’s National Rivers & Trails systems
Pokemon Go studio wants to get players out and about across America’s National Parks
Undead
The Walking Dead co-creator Robert Kirkman wants to make sure Telltale Games' Clementine story is told
But right now there are no plans to bring her into the ongoing comic book series
Event
Judging starts for the Big Indie Awards at G-STAR
Which of the 400 entries will make it through to the live awards ceremony in Korea?
Homely
Playrix’s Homescapes builds up $420m in revenue for first year
The game took in $28.5 million in September
Crunched
IGDA responds to public outcry over working conditions within the gaming industry
Executive director Jen MacLean remarked that it was unfortunately common but IGDA is looking into it
Referred
Mobile gamers referred through organic social channels have up to 67% higher retention
They also have a 63 per cent higher lifetime session count versus non-referred players
Woah
In-app header bidding can increase ARPDAU by 30%, claims Appodeal
Participating app of the test also saw eCPM rise by 17 per cent
Laid Off
Report: Remaining Telltale Games staff get the boot
One of the staff affected took to Twitter to confirm the news
Korea
Jagex joins the Big Indie Awards at G-STAR as sponsor
Runescape firm supports international celebration of independent game developers this November
Fishing
Digital marketing outfit Jellyfish knuckles down on app space with ASO Co purchase
Among ASO Co’s clientele are Spotify, eBay and Twitter
Funding Bytes
Chile dev TinyBytes Games picks up $1.4m investment
CEO Andres Constantinidis on why Initial Capital and London Venture Partners have made their first foray into Latin America games funding
Switch Up
New and improved Nintendo Switch in the works for 2019
The goal is to make the device brighter, thinner and more energy efficient
Invested
Tencent invests $318 million in Chinese video-sharing company Bilibili
Publisher acquires 12.3 per cent of shares in a company that dabbles in running League of Legends and Overwatch esports teams
Tale Continued?
Telltale wants another company to hire ex-staff and finish The Walking Dead: The Final Season
The third episode is reportedly nearly finished
Jobs News
Blizzard Entertainment president and co-founder Mike Morhaime steps down
World of Warcraft executive producer employee J. Allen Brack replaces him in top job
Get Up And Vote
Games publisher Jam City wants to get US voters mobilised for the midterm elections
Happy or unhappy with the state of the country? Then you need to vote
Event
PC Connects returns to London next year
Pocket Gamer Connects London brings its own backup as PC joins blockchain sister event at The Brewery
Growing Sales
Playrix’s hit mobile match-three Gardenscapes rakes in $880 million
Game picks up $35 million in September alone thanks to Annie Smith update
Royalties
Ketchapp brings Ubisoft’s Prince of Persia IP to mobile
Prince of Persia: Escape landed on iOS and Android September 27th
New Motto, New Tech
Applift rebrands to focus on UA and retargeting
Company launches new toolset Mobile Journey Advertising, along with new website, slogan and logo
User Ad Revenue
IronSource unveils new tool to measure ad revenue sources
User Ad Revenue tool tracks which marketing channel user came from to help developers identify the top performing networks
Event
The Jordan Gaming Summit is one month away
We’ll be there with another of our hotly contested Big Indie Pitch competitions
Returning
Garena Online publishes Contra: Return in Southeast Asia
The retro-classic is currently available in Philippines, Thailand, Macau, Singapore, Malaysia, Taiwan, Indonesia and Hong Kong
Enough Is Enough?
Studio employees campaign against poor working conditions with #AsAGamesWorker hashtag
Developers let out their frustrations over industry working conditions
Jobs News
Animoca Brands brings in Xbox co-founder Ed Fries as strategic advisor
Former Microsoft exec had been advising developer Pixowl before it was acquired by the Hong Kong publisher
Game Of The Year
Nominate your game for the Pocket Gamer Mobile Games Awards 2019
Lobbying ends on October 22nd
Heading East
Supercell takes Clash Royale League World Finals 2018 to Japan
Event leaves London behind in favour of Asia
Report
Facebook dominates AppsFlyer Performance Index rankings, but Google is catching up
Apple Search Ads establishes itself as a mainstream player
Craft
Fortnite isn't top dog yet - Minecraft is now pushing 90 million monthly active users
The second-highest selling game of all time found an extra 20 million monthly users in 2018