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
The Milestone Is Passed
Edmund McMillen's The End is Nigh sells more than 100,000 copies
Indie games maker reckons it could have performed better had he done more press, however
Addition
Social casino dev KamaGames signs exclusive Unity Ads partnership
Irish social casino games company agrees to only provide in-app video monetisation through Unity Ads platform
Ruled Out
Judge halves Facebook’s Zenimax payout to $250 million in Oculus dispute
Headset sales won’t be blocked either, Judge rules
Accelerate
Google opens applications for its Indie Games Accelerator in Asia
Four-month program open for Indian and Southeast Asian games developers
Job News
Resolution Games brings Mogi creator Mathieu Castelli aboard as chief creative officer
Stockholm studio also expands with Mojang and Paradox alumni
Fallout
Warner Bros labels Bethesda lawsuit over Westworld mobile game "baseless"
Skyrim developer accused Warner Bros and Behaviour Interactive of snagging code from Fallout Shelter
Pgc Helsinki
Hatch headlines first ever Cloud Gaming track at Pocket Gamer Connects Helsinki 2018
CEO Juhani Honkala and co-founder Vesa Jutila set to speak at event
Googled
Report: Google eyes game dev acquisitions to work on new streaming service
The internet behemoth is said to have met with devs at E3
Job Klaxon
Animoca Brands signs up former Rovio EVP of games Wilhelm Taht for strategic advisor role
Taht also holds positions at Nitro Games, Dodreams and Remedy
Pocket Gamer Connects
Today only: Double discount for Pocket Gamer Connects Helsinki 2018
Midsummer madness joins Super Early Bird prices for up to $600 saving on September tickets!
Acquisition
Pokemon Go developer Niantic acquires London-based machine learning outfit Matrix Mill
AI research outfit join the augmented reality giant
Watch Out
Yo-Kai Watch World hopes to capture Pokemon Go-like success with Japan launch
GungHo works with Level-5 to location-based AR title
That Is Unreal
Epic Games dishes out $1 million in grants for Unreal Engine 4 devs
The games publisher handed out grants to 37 teams
Keep It Clean
Nintendo’s Reggie Fils-Aime reinforces his commitment to storefront curation for Switch
“Their games are selling best on Switch because of that environment we're creating”
Switch Up
Nintendo Europe names new CEO as Shibata leaves role after 18 years
Satoru Shibata will head back to Japan to take up a new position
Oh Snap
Report: Snapchat games platform to land later this year
One games publisher is said to be lined up already
Why Not
Rovio opens Angry Birds World amusement park in Qatar
It’s called Angry Birds World, of course
Critical Hit
World of Tanks Blitz hits 100 million downloads in celebration of it’s fourth birthday
Wargaming attributes success to loyal community, major tournaments and a successful Chinese launch
It's A Hit
How a move into the hyper-casual games market provided MAG Interactive with a spring in its step
"Our teams make tonnes of prototypes and are in the habit of testing them early in the development process, which is the reason we realised that we had a real gem here"
Squared Away
Pokemon Quest lands on the iOS App Store and Google Play
The adventure RPG game has already caught 2.5 million downloads on the Nintendo Switch
Mobile Masters
Amazon names the winners of its $100,000 Mobile Masters Seattle esports event
Participants competed in World of Tanks: Blitz, Power Rangers: Legacy Wars, Critical Ops and Survival Arena
Adjusted
Adjust launches open-source performance benchmarking tool for mobile apps
Free tool should help publishers track app performance
Free No More
The Sims: Freeplay banned in seven countries due to “regional standards”
The Sims: Freeplay will be banned in China, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Oman, Kuwait, Qatar and Egypt come July 5th.
Worldwide
GungHo banks on colourful chaos to go big with Nintendo Switch release Ninjala
Japanese developer hopes the wider appeal will help the game land on a global scale
Royalties
PUBG Mobile raking in $700k a day thanks to the new Royale Pass
Revenues boosted by 365 per cent in one week
Weekly Charts
Weekly UK App Store charts: Love Island: The Game debuts at top spot in iPhone free chart and is a top grosser
Rankings from June 11th to 17th
On The Go
Pokemon Go racks up $104 million as player base reaches its highest level since 2016
The game has surged 174 per cent year-on-year in time for summer
Pay To Play
Mobile is the most popular platform for gaming, but the least for paying customers
Newzoo study finds the platform has a lower player-to-payer ratio than console or PC
Employed
Ukraine plays host to over 80 games development companies
82 per cent of them are working on mobile games titles
Digital Sports
Chinese esports market set to reach 350 million users by 2020
Experts also expect the scene to value at $1.5 billion
Job News
Kabam co-founder Holly Liu joins the Animoca Brands board of directors
Leading games entrepreneur sees potential in Animoca’s AI and blockchain endeavours
Cloned
Indie dev lambasts recently flush publisher Voodoo for ‘clone’ Hole.io
Hole.io is currently sitting at the top of the free-to-play charts on iOS
Blockchain Competition
One week left to enter $150,000 blockchain developer competition
Could you win the Alto Cryptogame Challenge powered by BlockchainGamer.Biz?
Android Stars
Supercell’s Brawl Stars arrives on Android
Enters soft launch countries