Local Only
75% of the top games in China in 2016 were developed locally
Sensor Tower looks into the country's local focus
Staff
Ric Cowley
About Ric is the Editor of PocketGamer.biz, having started out as a Staff Writer on the site back in 2015. He received an honourable mention in both the MCV and Develop 30 Under 30 lists in 2016 and refuses to let anyone forget about it.
Articles by Ric Cowley
Rivals On Hold
Hi-Rez Studios halts development on Smite Rivals to focus on PC projects
Needs significant additional development
China Mobile Market January
Apple's iPhone 7 devices make up 10% of all iOS devices in China
Newzoo has some new info on the mobile market
Improbable King
King's Chief Legal Officer Robert Miller leaves to join SpatialOS developer Improbable
Taking over as Chief Legal Officer at the startup tech firm
Yes Another One
Jam City soft-launches branded match-3 title Family Guy - Another Freakin' Mobile Game
TinyCo acquisition apparently acting as gateway to the license
Supercell Shop
Supercell opens online shop to sell official Clash of Clans merchandise in the US and Canada
Supercell Shop is open for business
War Child Armistice
War Child's Armistice campaign raises $122,000 from four developers
Hoping to attract more studios next time
Whodunnit?
Marmalade Game Studio continues relationship with Hasbro by launching mobile Cluedo game
Fourth game to come from the partnership
Codeless Playable Ads
JustAd launches drag-and-drop playable ad building tool Game Zone
Everyone can have playable ads without a single line of code
Roblox Funding
Roblox closes $92 million funding round to support its 48 million MAUs
Players making up to $50,000 a month from creations in the game
Tagging In
Tag Games kicks off live ops business by collaborating with Flaregames on Nonstop Knight
Moving away from development to look after other studios' games
Zynga Solitaire
Zynga acquires four Solitaire games from little-known developer for $42.5 million
Harpan LLC just made a killing
Pick Mi
Xiaomi sets India sales record with one million Redmi Note 4s sold in 45 days
Sold 250,000 in its first ten minutes of sale
Switch Sales
Nintendo's Switch sells 1.5 million units worldwide
So says SuperData Research
February Tv Ad Spend
Top Games Inc trumps Machine Zone for TV advertising spend in February 2017
Relative newcomer to the TV ad scene spends $13.1 million in a month
In The Mix
Harmonix partners with Hasbro for mobile and card game DropMix
Playing cards in the real world to mix beats in an app
Crazy Demiurge
Demiurge Studios tapped to develop soft-launched clicker Crazy Taxi Gazillionaire
Second game with Sega will hopefully do better than the first
Double Dna
DeltaDNA doubles monthly active users to 100 million in six months
Processing 25 billion data events a month
Indie Mavens
How useful was GDC 2017 to an indie mobile developer?
Our Indie Mavens weigh in
Most Read
Madfinger experimenting with monetisation, Contest of Champions players threaten boycott, and China blocks South Korean games
The hottest articles of last week
Clash With Friends
Supercell shaking up Clash Royale's competitive scene with new 2v2 mode
Clan Battles could add a new dimension to tournaments
We Heart Indies
Apple celebrates indies with launch of 12 new games on the App Store between March 9th and 20th
A new title released and featured every day, even at the weekend
Make Games
YoYo Games launches latest edition of drag-and-drop engine GameMaker Studio 2
Pricing starts at $99
Nonstop Walker
Flaregames officially reveals brand-powered idle-RPG Nonstop Chuck Norris
Roundhouse kicking people in the face from late April
Kabam Boycott
Why Marvel: Contest of Champions' top players are threatening to walk away
Kabam could be set to lose a substantial source of their revenue from the game
Corona Sparks
Corona Labs adds GameSparks plug-in to make backend servers simpler for mobile developers
Multiplayer servers set up from one tool
Video Ads Rule
93% of all mobile gaming ad spend went on video ads in Q4 2016
AppLovin and AppsFlyer work together for the data
At The Baftas
Pokemon GO picks up three nominations at the BAFTA Games Awards
Up for Mobile, Family, and Innovation
Going Turbo
"We're still learning": Dumpling Design on revamping its first game as Dashy Crashy Turbo
Travis Ryan talks feature creep, experimental monetisation and getting Apple's attention
Gree San Francisco
Gree International cuts staff at San Francisco office to focus on marketing and publishing
Yet more jobs lost at the company
Small Giant Investment
Small Giant Games closes $5.7 million funding round to grow new game Empires & Puzzles
Brings total funding raised to around $9.5 million
Brexit Blows
40% of UK-based games companies are considering relocating to another country post-Brexit
Ukie surveys games studios on their Brexit thoughts
Unity Without Borders
Unity opens Unity Without Borders program to support developers affected by US travel ban
A free trip to Unite Europe and help with visa applications on offer
Plug In Publishing
Plug In Digital launches indie publishing label Playdius for all platforms including Switch
Six games signed, four coming to Nintendo's new console already
Flew The Coop
Rovio sells TV animation studio to former CEO Mikael Hed
Will remain as partners on future books and animation
China Bans Korea
Updated: China bans all new games developed in South Korea from launching in the country
Existing games unaffected
Switch Sales
Update: Nintendo Switch sells over 500,000 units in Japan, UK and France in first three days
Outsold the Wii in the Americas, but no exact figures released
Amp Asia
Google pushes Accelerated Mobile Pages to Asia through Baidu and Sogou partnerships
Bringing faster loading pages to the wider world
Refuel Sheil
Refuel4 hires former Twitter exec Ross Sheil as General Manager Commercial EMEA
Bringing experience in EMEA to the ad platform
Ad2china
Digital marketer ad2games expands into China with Shanghai office
Reaching clients without time differences
Grow Up
Ubisoft acquires massively-multiplayer sandbox game Growtopia
Already has 20 million registered users
Twitchbook
Twitch takes on social networking with newly rolled-out Pulse platform
Post updates, share videos, emote, and without even streaming
Loopme Funding
AI-driven mobile video marketer LoopMe closes $10 million funding round
Expanding into three countries in 2017
King Of Publishers
Cut The Rope developer ZeptoLab opens publishing business to all submissions
Looking for innovative, near-complete mobile games
Times Are A Changing
Space Ape makes good on promise of "radically different" games with two new soft-launched titles
Super Karts and Fastlane: Road to Revenge are like nothing it has done before
You're Tearing Me Apart
Fireproof Games reveals fourth entry in critically-acclaimed The Room series
More puzzles, more rooms
Unleashed
Nexon soft-launches potential big hitter Dynasty Warriors: Unleashed for mobile
Brawl with hundreds of enemies on your mobile
Most Read
Rovio sees best growth ever, Google reworks discovery on Google Play, and is Kabam's breakup really a success?
The hottest articles of last week
Github For Unity
GitHub introduces extension for Unity to allow devs easier access to code resources
Also includes storage for large binary assets
More Pixels
Google wants to "follow the rhythm of the industry" and launch a new Pixel phone in 2017
Rick Osterloh says it won't be any cheaper