Alliance Over
Disney shuts down Marvel: Avengers Alliance 2 just six months after launch
Four-year-old original title closing too
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
Apple Cleans Up
Apple to limit app name length to 50 characters in the App Store
Deleting broken apps too
Seriously Obsessed
Seriously enlists actress Kate Walsh for new influencer campaign "Don't Download Best Fiends"
Millennials love irony
Million Vr-thur
Square Enix to collaborate with HTC to bring Million Arthur VR to Vive
Obscure card-battler gets the VR treatment
Cash Flock
Worms developer Team17 scoops $21.8 million investment to grow business
Investment from now minority stake holder Lloyds Development Capital
Yeah!
Gram Games' tricky puzzler Six! achieves two million downloads in six days
Hits top of free charts on US App Store
Huge Tsums
Disney swaps LINE for Mixi to publish new toy-based game Marvel Tsum Tsum
Launched first in US and Canada
Google Games
Google recruiting game designers and engineers to build "the future of mobile entertainment"
Inexperienced candidates need not apply
Appsflyer In China
AppsFlyer partners with Tencent to bring tracking service to Tencent Social Ads
Track ad performance across WeChat and QQ
Get Ahead
Hothead on how game designers can stay ahead of the competition
Creative Director Mike Inglehart gives three key areas
Liquidation
French publisher Bulkypix goes into liquidation in a move that could leave devs out of pocket
Everyone left in the lurch
Post-brexit Britain
Ukie urges UK government to allow post-Brexit free movement of talent and data through Europe
Essentially outlines reasons why we should've stayed in the EU
Pgc Helsinki Speaker Spotlight
Asking the right questions: Scientific Revenue on the monetisation mistakes most developers make
CEO William Grosso breaks it down
Japan Arpu
With its locally-developed RPGs Japan has the highest ARPU of all the markets
App Annie report looks at ARPU around the world
Eedar Acquisition
NPD Group acquires EEDAR to expand games market research
Sum undisclosed
Dodgy Apples
EU slaps Apple with $14.5 billion tax bill
European Commission deems Ireland state aid illegal
Apple Event
Apple set to unveil iPhone 7 and new Apple Watch on 7 September
iPhone 7 rumoured to drop headphone port
Google Indie Festival
Registration opens for the 30-game strong Google Play Indie Games Festival
The chance to play mobile indie games before anyone else
Indie Mavens
Are paid apps dead or is there still life in premium mobile games for indies?
Our Indie Mavens weigh in
Pgc Helsinki Speaker Spotlight
Taking baby steps: Critical Force on the current climate of mobile eSports
CEO Veli-Pekka Piirainen tells us what's what
Most Read
Wargaming reaffirms its commitment to mobile, why Egg, Inc is the best idle game, and Clash Royale's monthly revenues halve
The hottest articles of last week
And Away We Go
Rick and Morty co-creator joins with ex-Epic Games EP to form new VR studio Squanchtendo
And they're hiring
Respawn 2016
1,500 visitors from across the globe swooped into Cologne for Respawn 2016
Respawn 2017 dates announced
Number!
1010! developer Gram Games after a new viral hit with tricky puzzler Six!
Uneven towers and giant hexagons galore
Pgc Helsinki Speaker Spotlight
Making games to be shared: Qaos Games on how to develop for virality
CEO Sebastian Lindén talks us through the key to making viral games
Sheppard Leads
Andrew Sheppard named CEO of rebranded GREE International Entertainment
Ryotaro Shima takes his old job as COO
Oysterworld In Administration
OysterWorld cuts 50 staff and leaves wages unpaid as it enters administration
Developer has debts of more than $2.6 million
Futureplay Funding
View-to-play pioneer Futureplay Games raises $2.5 million to boost its business
Increasing its team and production capabilities
Optimal
Customer marketing cloud Optimove integrates services with Google Ads
Improved retention through targeted ads
Dig Deep
Despite huge funding rounds, most VR developers are funding projects out of their own pockets
Not so lucrative after all
Pokemon Go Home
Pokemon GO was the top grossing game worldwide in July 2016
Pope owns balcony
Wargaming Mobile
Wargaming reiterates commitment to mobile despite WG Cells Seattle closure
WG Cells CEO David Bluhm explains the situation
Wg Cells Closure
Update: Wargaming closes Seattle-based studio WG Cells and lays off 60 staff
Currently unknown how this affects other operations
Vr Esports
360-degree VR eSports platform SLIVER.tv raises $6.2 million in seed funding
Bringing eSports highlights to VR
Rather Pleased Birds
Rovio greenlights Angry Birds Movie 2 as profits jump in first half of 2016
Teases new games that we already know about
Pokemon Go Away
Pokemon GO's active users are in steep decline - but does it really matter?
Axiom Capital Management seems to think so
Not So Distant Dream
Google Daydream VR could could launch in a matter of weeks
Offering six-figure sums to help promote the platform
Bigger Bang
Big Bang Racing races past three million downloads in its first month
One million user generated levels too
Mo-mo-motorious
Helsinki start-up Motorious Entertainment secures $566,000 to work on Top Gear mobile games
First game a match-3 puzzler
Free Range
Why Egg, Inc is the new gold standard for idle game monetization
One farm game has reinvented idle games
Pocket Platinum
Bayonetta developer Platinum Games enters mobile space with Cygames collaboration
Cites advancements in smartphone technology as reason for shifting development
Goodgame Job Losses
Job cuts at one of Germany’s biggest games studios Goodgame could hit “up to 600 employees”
Expats set to receive just 50% reimbursment of relocation costs
Sssmash Hit
Slither.io achieved 80 million downloads worldwide in Q2 2016
So says Sensor Tower's Q2 Data Digest
Color Me Impressed
Indie sensation Color Switch hits 100 million downloads
Next stop, 150 million downloads
Tasty Nougat
Android 7.0 Nougat rolls out on Nexus devices with Vulkan API support to boost game graphics
A bunch of emoji too
Strategy Sells
Mobile strategy games generate $194 million in the US in July, but RPGs show much better ARPDAU
And more stats from SurveyMonkey
Gamescom Grows
Record number of companies represented at Gamescom 2016
500,000 visitors to Cologne during the week
Micro Makers
Micro-studios make up 65% of the 688 game development studios in the UK
130 games companies closed in year ending March 2016
Slashed Royale
Clash Royale now making half the monthly revenue it was at launch
Not a huge surprise
What To Do
Good research; clever choices; build community; be lucky: Badland dev Frogmind on what indies need to do to be successful in 2016
Coping with a maturing market