Valor
Tencent’s Arena of Valor breaks $3 million in revenue in the US
Tencent’s MOBA hits one million downloads
Staff
Iain Harris
About Iain is a freelance writer based in Scotland with a penchant for indies and all things Nintendo. Alongside PocketGamer.Biz, he has also appeared in Kotaku, Rock Paper Shotgun, PCGamesN and VG24/7.
Articles by Iain Harris
Winner Winner Second Dinner
Former Hearthstone game director Ben Brode opens new studio Second Dinner
The ex-Blizzard dev took to Twitter to reveal the news but details are sparse
Big Data Energy
The numbers behind the iOS App Store's 10-year stay
You could say it's been a bit of a success
Lovin It
AppLovin launches publishing division Lion Studios
The developer is also putting up $300K in prizes for the four best mobile gaming apps submitted
Oh The Horror
Asymmetrical Horror: NetEase on hitting 100m downloads with Identity V
"We are so proud of the results we’ve achieved!"
Closure
Final Fantasy XV: A New Empire dev MZ lays off 125 staff as it shuts down ad-tech branch Cognant
The entire Cognant team and about half of its in-house media buyers are said to have been laid off in June
Big Switch
Nintendo Switch sales set to eclipse PlayStation 4 and Xbox One in the US for the year
The Switch is also expected to generate the most software revenues at retail
Branded
Mobile publisher Animoca Brands raises $4.5 million through over-subscribed share placement
The Hong Kong-based publisher also entered a partnership with HTC
Sirius Business
Harry Potter: Hogwarts Mystery drops in Hong Kong and Taiwan
The narrative adventure game is available on both iOS and Android
Ah Ah Ah
FoxNext and East Side Games team up to bring It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia to mobile
Planned for release on both the App Store and Google Play in 2018
Tilted
Tilting Point out to invest $132m in mobile games user acquisition annually
The mobile games publisher is out to solve fundamental challenges in the free-to-play mobile games marketplace
Royalty
Supercell’s Clash Royale plunders $2 billion in revenues in just over two years
It’s the first mobile publisher to have more than one multi-billion-dollar title on the App Store and Google Play
Indie Spotlight
"Part of art is about connecting with the audience and making them feel something"
Kim Savory on art, games and Only When Howling
That’s A Lot
Nintendo targets 20 to 30 indie releases per week on Switch
Senior executive officer Susumu Tanaka and former president Tatsumi Kimishima were on hand to take questions at the latest shareholders meeting
Toying Around
EA snags Industrial Toys
The mobile development studio is headed up by former Bungie CEO Alex Seropian
Cashed Out
Monopoly Towns goes straight to jail as Backflip cans soft-launched title
Support will cease September 3rd
Hot Five
Clash of Clans breaks $4 billion, PUBG Corp drops Epic lawsuit, and indies rocked by Google Play download woes
The past week's hottest articles
Gotta Catch ‘em All
Pokemon Quest passes 7.5 million downloads across iOS, Android and Nintendo Switch
It captured 3.5 million downloads on mobile alone within days of launching
Data Klaxon
Taiwan’s pool of 14.5 million players to spend $1.3 billion in 2018
The Taiwanese games market is the 15th largest in the world
Train Of Thought
How DomiNations kept going for three years and made $150 million in the process
Big Huge Games’ CEO Tim Train on passing the $150 million revenue milestone and keeping relevant for three years
Simple
The Sims Mobile builds up $15 million in revenues after four months
59 per cent of revenues come from the US
Exclusive
NetEase’s Identity V racks up over 100 million downloads
More than 10 million people are playing every single day
Yahtzee
US publisher Scopely’s Yahtzee with Buddies lands on iMessage
The dice-rolling game will also release on Facebook Instant Games in due course
On The App
Over 90% of Google Play revenue in South Korea comes from games
Wise App surveyed 23,000 Android smartphone users in Korea from May 1st to 31st
Return Of The King
Candy Crush dev King launches new IP Diamond Diaries Saga on iOS and Android
The physics-based linker game has been in soft-launch since October of last year
Indie Mavens
Which marketplace has been better for indie developers: The App Store or Google Play?
Our Indie Mavens weight in
Battle Royale
Fortnite Mobile has five times the revenue of PUBG but half the downloads
Fortnite made $92 million revenue in the 11 weeks ending on June 18th, compared to PUBG’s $19 million
Making A Splash
MAG Interactive’s Paint Hit breaks five million downloads
Real-time word game Word Domination brought in one million downloads
Mobile Game Of Thrones
Tencent snags rights to publish Game of Thrones: Winter is Coming to China
Shanghai-based developer Yoozoo originally acquired the rights from Warner Bros last year
Feast On This
Dead Island: Survivors gets worldwide release after two-years in soft launch
The zombie action game soft-launched on iOS in November 2016 with an Android beta following soon after
Gotta Dash
Diner Dash inspired title Mak Cun’s Adventure serves up 100k downloads in 10 days
The game puts a Malaysian twist on the diner management game
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
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
Indie Spotlight
How a brush with closure led to Broken Rules' hit Old Man’s Journey
CEO Felix Bohatsch on regaining confidence and striking the balance between work and family
Hot Five
Brawl Stars comes to Android, King enters the social casino space, and why Gabe Leydon swapped mobile for blockchain
Last weeks hottest articles
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
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
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
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
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
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.
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