The Debate Continues
FTC to hold loot box workshop in August
Due to be held at the Constitution Center in Washington, DC on August 7th, 2019
Staff
Matthew Forde
About Matthew Forde is the deputy editor at PocketGamer.biz and also a member of the Pocket Gamer Podcast. You can find him on Twitter @MattForde64 talking about stats, data and everything pop culture related - particularly superheroes.
Articles by Matthew Forde
Job News
Animoca Brands hires former Sony managing director Michael Ephraim as head of partnerships
Will oversee Australia and New Zealand region
Huge Growth
Global mobile user spending to reach $156 billion by 2023
Latin America and Africa were both noted as most likely to see the biggest increase in growth revenue
Wahooo
Mario Odyssey and Zelda: Breath of the Wild VR support coming to Nintendo Labo
Experience Breath of the Wild in full through virtual reality
Hatch A Plan
Hatch partners with Samsung to bring 5G games service to South Korea
Hatch Premium will be included with any purchase of Samsung’s Galaxy S10 5G in the country
Glitz And Glamour
Florence, Fortnite and RuneScape win big at BAFTA Game Awards 2019
Nintendo Labo picks up a couple of awards too
Chicago To Asia
Niantic details worldwide summer events for Pokemon Go in 2019
I will travel across the land, searching far and wide
3g 4g 5g More
SK Telecom introduces new 5G data plan that includes exclusive games and promotions
Firm states that new 5G network will utilise its 34,000 5G base stations across the country
Wild
Gamigo acquires casual games developer WildTangent
WildTanget’s portfolio features over 4,000 games including the Fate series
You Have My Sword
The Elder Scrolls: Blades reaches one million downloads in first week of early access
$500,000 already generated in revenue
Emergency Maintenance
Nippon Ichi Software stock nosedives after Disgaea RPG suffers maintenance woes after launch
Game taken offline after March 19th launch and was due to come back online at end of March, but has since suffered further delays
Software
Epic Games unveils simultaneous multi-user editing for Unreal Engine 4.22
Google Stadia support out now
$4 Million A Day
Pokemon Go surpasses $2.5 billion in worldwide player spending
Augmented reality title yet to reach third anniversary
Pubg Prime
PUBG Mobile introduces in-app subscriptions for sixth season
Gross revenue grew 83 per cent in March 2019 overtaking Fortnite for the month
Indie Spotlight
Indie Spotlight: Nitrome’s Matthew Annal on coming back from the brink
"Survival is success”
Jobs In Games
Jobs in Games: Ludia studio art manager Serge Mongeau on how to get a job creating art for games
"Your portfolio is your window to the world. You need to let the world know how you think"
Job News
Former Exient, Chimera and ZenGuard staff join Idle Miner Tycoon dev Kolibri Games
Former Chimera Entertainment lead game designer Boris Conrad Heisserer takes the role
Foreign Games Too
China’s games regulator approves nearly 100 new games including Game of Thrones and Angry Birds
Bringing the total for new games in 2019 up to 987
Growth
Live game management platform ChillConnect raises $450,000 in funding
“We can now market the platform to an even larger range of potential customers”
Focus On Ip
Konami rebrands New York office to Konami Cross Media
Yuta Kose has been named president for the renamed studio
Indie Track
16 videos from Pocket Gamer Connects London's Indie Track
Track sponsored by Fingersoft
Power Of The Cloud
Tencent is readying to test another streaming platform Start in China
Appears to be separate to Intel Instant Play partnership
Mansion Money
Matchington Mansion surpasses $100 million in global IAP revenue
50 million downloads
Done Deal
Animoca Brands invests $2 million in creative networking platform Talenthouse
Deal equal to 448,413 shares in art networking platform
The Future Is Now
What does Apple Arcade mean for indie games developers?
The Indie Mavens have their say on the new subscription service
Mr. Worldwide
Pre-registrations open for Supercell’s Brawl Stars in China
No official release date given
Venture Gained
Rovio invests $3 million in games start-up fund Play Ventures
Play Ventures was founded in 2018 by video game entrepreneurs Harri Manninen and Henric Suuronen
Beta Time
The Elder Scrolls: Blades swings into Early Access
Players can still sign-up for iOS and Android
Clash With Ash
Clash Royale YouTuber Ash CWA on the ever-changing mobile esports scene and dealing with influencers
"The biggest misconception I've seen from companies when it comes to making competitive games is that they need to act immediately"
Mobile Hunt
CD Projekt Red reveals Witcher card game Gwent will come to mobile
Due to arrive on iOS later this year with Android planned at a later date
Gotta Clean’em All
Niantic launches second annual Earth Day utilsing Pokemon Go and Ingress
Incentives given in-game to promote global cleanup
Start Your Engines
Animoca Brands partners with Formula 1 on blockchain game F1 Delta Time
First phase will launch from May 10th, 2019
No Monitisation
Indie Spotlight: Big Indie Pitch winner E McNeill on cutesy puzzler Squeelings and making it as a solo developer
"I'd love to keep making games as an indie for the rest of my life, but since I have no idea how the industry will change, I feel like I need to launch a hit game"
Charts
Weekly global mobile games charts: Tencent’s Perfect World dethrones Honor of Kings as China’s top grosser
Charts from March 11th to March 17th
More Job Losses
EA lets go 350 employees across marketing, publishing and analytics
“This is a difficult day”
Everyone Is Here
A record 29,000 people attended GDC 2019, organisers say
Convention will return on March 20th, 2020
Jobs
Stillfront Group name eRepublik Labs co-founder Alexis Bonte new Group COO
Bonte will still act as CEO of eRepublik Labs until a successor is appointed
Stay And We Pay
Apple to fund exclusive games for Apple Arcade
Sims and Final Fantasy creators onboard
Moving On Up
Kabam snaps up Riposte Games & Co
Studio joining line-up of developers currently based in Vancouver, San Francisco and Austin
That’s Walmart Price
Report: Walmart interested in games streaming service
Firm has been speaking with developers at GDC
Dead-ication
NetEase’s LifeAfter passes $125 million in revenue
97 per cent of revenue originated from China
Hole In One
GDC 2019: FoxNext Games picks up Big Indie Pitch winner What The Golf?
For people that hate golf
Slang And All
GDC 2019: Clinc unveils voice AI that is designed to understand natural language in games
Will it recognise Yorkshire though?
Rolling Out
GDC 2019: Facebook updates mobile app to include dedicated games tab
Social application looking to take games more seriously
For England
Bidalgo expands into UK with new London office
Former managing director of mobile ad tech company YOC Oliver Gold heads up branch
Netflix For Games
GDC 2019: Cloud games subscriptions will be worth $1.5 billion by 2023
Data provided by IHS Markit
New Tech
GDC 2019: Denuvo launches anti-cheat solution for games and esports
"It’s time to level the playing field"
You Spin Me Round
GDC 2019: Mobile performance platform HeadSpin partners with NetEase
Zynga, Jam City and Bandai Namco all signup to the platform
Hot Stuff
GDC 2019: Firelight Technologies releases FMOD Studio 2.0
“The release of 2.0 is a major milestone in our journey of innovation as we strive to create the definitive solution for adaptive audio“
Awards Season
GDC 2019: Florence takes Best Mobile Game at GDC Awards
Storytelling title took home Best Debut too