Talking Smack
MAG Interactive expands to iMessage games with trash-talking rock-paper-scissors title SmackChat
Chat smack get banged
Mansell Takes Up Mantle
Jagex's Phil Mansell becomes acting CEO as Rod Cousens departs
No word on why Cousens has left
Gsn Job Cuts
GSN Games cuts up to 20 jobs as it restructures into five distinct studios
Cross-functional teams, QA and creative affected
Influence The Future
Space Ape Games to host Indie Dev Influencers Junket on January 30th
Bringing devs and influencers together
The People's Download
Scopely releases licensed match-3 RPG WWE Champions after 13 months in soft launch
Time to smell what Scopely's been cooking
Reel It In
Gear VR fishing sim Bait! reels in one million downloads as it launches on Google Daydream
Around 20% of all Gear VR devices have game installed
Crazy Money
Sega turns Crazy Taxi into an idle clicker for soft-launched Crazy Taxi Gazillionaire
All the crazy without the driving
Surf's Up
Subway Surfers still achieving 30 million downloads a month nearly five years after release
One billion wasn't enough
Line Financials Q4 Fy16
LINE grows revenues to $1.2 billion despite global MAUs falling by three million
Revenues going up, users going down
Confirmed Deal
King buys analytics company Omniata
Terms not disclosed
Funding Uk Games
UK games industry leaders back call for new British Games Institute
Organisation would support funding, culture and education
Running Up That Hill
Fingersoft's Hill Climb Racing 2 speeds past 40 million downloads in first two months
A long way to go to catch up to its predecessor
A Kind Of Magic
Bubble Witch 3 Saga flies past 10 million downloads in first two weeks
So says Sensor Tower
London Calling
Super Early Bird tickets for Pocket Gamer Connects London 2018 are live
Save the date: it's all happening on January 15th to 16th
Pokemon Go Korea
Pokemon GO launches in South Korea and shoots straight to second in iOS top grossing chart
Jumps to 2nd place on top grossing charts
Fyber Line Partnership
LINE adds rewarded video ads to messaging app through Fyber partnership
Watch a video, earn some coins
Rate And Review
Apple to allow users to rate and review games without leaving the app in iOS 10.3
Also adding developer replies and hard limits to rating notifications
Just A Myth
Kabam cans original IP Legacy of Zeus after seven months of soft launch
Transformers: Forged to Fight still going strong
Work And Sleep
New £15.5m Dundee ‘studiotel’ aims to offer work and accomodation space for game devs
Backers claim facility could contribute £70 million to local economy
Jobs News
Good Catch Games nets new Head of Development
Mark Oxenham to lead dev team and technical development
Job Cuts
Goodgame axes 200 staff in latest round of layoffs
600 employees have left the company in the last year
Ludicious 2017
Discover how to Kickstart an indie game at the Zurich Game Festival this week
Friday afternoon at Ludicious 2017 features multiple case studies from the crowdfunding world
Smoking Phone
Samsung to officially blame exploding Galaxy Note 7s on irregularly sized batteries
Report to go out on January 23rd
Money To Burn
Chinese chemical firm acquires Talking Tom developer Outfit7 for €1 billion
Developer put up for sale in late 2016
South Korea Vr
YJM Games becomes first South Korea developer to invest in Venture Reality Fund
Hopes to expand further into AR and VR
Indie Pitch Winners
Mona Lisa steals the show at the Very Big Indie Pitch at Pocket Gamer Connects London 2017
Link Twin takes second as Starbeard comes third
Fig Funding
Crowdfunding platform Fig raises $7.84 million to boost number of campaigns
Funding platform gets additional funding
Gumi Euvr Partnership
Gumi partners with EUVR to bring VR investment to European developers
Spreading the wealth
Not Quite A Billion
Pokemon GO generated $950 million in revenue in 2016
More than global sales for Batman vs Superman: Dawn of Justice
All Winners Here
Google Play Indie Games Contest reveals 20 finalists for European competition
Overall winner to be decided on February 16th
30 Million Brains
MAG Interactive's WordBrain surpasses 30 million downloads
Sees one million players on its first Facebook Instant Game
Tapjoy Consumer Survey
Two-thirds of mobile game players don't see themselves as gamers
Tapjoy finds out what mobile gamers think of themselves
Facebook Ad Spends
Mobile video ad spend on Facebook reached a record high in Q4 2016
Nanigans digs into the details
Rapid Revolution
Netmarble's Lineage 2: Revolution surpasses $176 million in revenues in its first month
Only launched in South Korea
Fire Emblem Heroes
Fire Emblem Heroes reveal shows Nintendo is going fully free-to-play
Gacha and key art implies Super Mario Run's model has been ditched
Mighty Interesting
Ubisoft may be bringing back PC RPG The Mighty Quest for Epic Loot for mobile
App Annie listing suggests it's close to release
Fantasy Football
Nordeus swaps football for fantasy MOBA/CCG with soft-launched Spellsouls: Duel of Legend
Not even in the same ballpark
Acquisition News
Microsoft snaps up 3D optimisation tool Simplygon
Firm aims to make tech more accessible for studios
Start Your Engines
Gameloft pits itself against CSR Racing with recently soft-launched Asphalt Street Storm Racing
Drag racing is the new black
Flying High
AppsFlyer raises $56 million for better mobile marketing data and AI-driven insights
global marketing spend to breach $1 trillion in 2017
Job Hire
Unity swoops for ex-Bungie staffer as new Director of Global Graphics
Natalya Tatarchuk responsible for driving forward rendering tech and graphics performance
Cultivating Culture
“The word culture can be dangerous for a company”
The Grow Your Talent panel discusses culture and talent pools
Laying Down The Law
Game development law 101
Russells Solicitors' Marine Cabour on the basics
Worth It?
Is it even worth being a mobile games indie in 2017?
Oscar Clark asks some indies
Metagame Over Gameplay
Why PlayRaven is ditching second-to-second gameplay in favour of rich metagame
CEO Lasse Seppanen on Winterstate and Spymaster
Future Of Vr
What will happen to mobile VR in 2017?
Dave Ranyard has a few thoughts
Games > Toys
"Toys-to-life is on the way out" says Beasts of Balance developer Sensible Object
Alex Fleetwood suggests "smart toys" are the future
Going Casual
Casual games developers discuss the difficulties of shipping casual mobile games
Martine Spaans leads the chat
Grab The Prize
eSports is not just for the big boys, says Gumbler
VP and Head of Pro Gaming Simon Sunden explains at PG Connects London
Getting Paid
The keys to surviving as a mobile indie game developer
Sean Megaw talks funding and work for hire