Levelling Up
Off the back of aggressive UA spending for Summoners War, Com2uS' sales rise 16% to $97 million
RPGs are the way ahead
Staff
Jon Jordan
Job Title
Contributing Editor
Contact jon@pocketgamer.co.uk
About A Pocket Gamer co-founder, Jon is Contributing Editor at PG.biz which means he acts like a slightly confused uncle who's forgotten where he's left his glasses. As well as letters and cameras, he likes imaginary numbers and legumes.
Articles by Jon Jordan
Watch This Space
Facebook adds autoplay native videos ads into its UA channel, advertising Game of War in the process
UA goldmine
New Game In Town
DeNA West CEO Shintaro Asako on why Nintendo's 'free-to-start' games will be successful in Japan, China and the west
PCG San Francisco's Superstar Sessions
Volte-face
F2P developer Kobojo changes tack and goes paid for western release of Zodiac: Orcanon Odyssey
Rethinking your approach
Tactical Move
Nordeus works with Chelsea star Nemanja Matic for Top Eleven's animated live match feature
Filling the holes
Concentrated Data
#PGCHelsinki speaker Allison Bilas on the secret sauce for F2P game success
What to expect at PG Connects Helsinki 2015
Audience-building Pivot
Is a free-first monetisation-second strategy as practised by Agar.io and Vainglory the next UA trick?
Reactions to cost of UA
Getting Bigger
Remote Control Productions links with Cursor to open Finland office
Joint Venture opens later in 2015
Always On
#PGCHelsinki Finnovator speaker Aki Järvilehto on the wearables opportunity
What to expect at PG Connects Helsinki 2015
Nadir Continues
Still loss-making and losing players, but Zynga sees FY15 Q2 sales up 9% to $200 million
Trying times
Fan Powered
Crowdfunding isn't going away, says Double Fine's community manager James Spafford
It's taken us up and down
Global Strategy
Youzu appoints former Sony CEO Nobuyuki Idei as its 'one-man think tank'
Added brains
Rival Move
Zynga hires ex-EA Mobile EVP Frank Gibeau
Joins Bing Gordon on the board
Kardashian Decline
Glu slips back into loss as FY15 Q2 sales slide 19% to $56 million
Cash in hand higher thanks to Tencent
Console Quality
Concept Art House CEO James Zhang on helping Supercell make its Super Bowl ad
Game art is getting better and more expensive
Fanbase
Top Eleven dev Nordeus sponsors the best football team you've never heard of
Bottom up
Another Node
N3TWORK hires Kaito Royale creator Takeshi Otsuka
Gets a 10x-er
Another Woman
Glu builds more social muscle adding Nicki Minaj to its Kim Kardashian, Katy Perry and Britney Spears deck
Bring the fanbase
Big Promotion
Seriously partners with Premier League club Norwich City to better market its mobile games
Gaining a global reach
Match-$$$
Best Fiends developer Seriously raises $18 million
Brings total to $28 million
Value Proposition
How Compass Point West generates $0.06 a day per player from incent video ads
Mitchell Smallman love rewards
Ideas Factory
Bossa's Henrique Olifiers on building a fearless environment for creativity, failure and success
Jam, validate, repeat
Watch & Learn
Rovio, Wooga, Next Games and PikPok on trends in video advertising monetisation
New revenue stream
Double Six
How Scopely delivered Yahtzee's mobile success with the help from outsourcing
Justin Stofle on scaling up
Razor Sharp
Deconstructing the $120,000 IAP economy of Game of War
Dimitar Draganov looks under the skin
Intelligence
How CIA research into the social life of terrorists will help you improve your game's LTV
Ninja Metrics’ Dmitri Williams on better data
Within Limits
There's a big opportunity for F2P kids games as long as they have a spending cap, says Animal Jam CEO Clark Stacey
Makes his argument at GDC Europe 2015
All-in
iQU buys discovery outfit Tinyloot, rolls it into new integrated mobile game launch platform Mobilize
Oliver Kern takes new role
Eagle For A Buck
Flashback Friday: Rovio leverages 18 million Angry Birds downloads with Mighty Eagle IAP
Don't get stuck on a level. Buy through it
Rocket Fuel
HyprMX parent Jun Group raises $28 million
Throwing petrol on the branded ad opportunity
Legacy Glide
Despite no new launches, EA Mobile sees Q1 FY16 sales rise 7% to $145 million
Squeezing the margins
Opium For The People
Godus heads to China thanks to LongTu publishing deal
God games go east
Seven Months High
Marvel Contest of Champions is Kabam's fastest game to $100 million revenue
Superhero performance
Sheer Weight Of Numbers
The Simpsons: Tapped Out CEO Stuart Duncan launches Icejam, his new big data-focused studio
Canadian reboot
Slip Sliding
FY15 Q2 sales drop 5% to $69 million as Gameloft hit by a 17% decline in DAUs
Sales don't match downloads
Ambitious Tactics
Why Gumi's new Berlin studio is embracing risk to reinvent F2P mobile strategy gaming
Are Mack Growen on building something new
Something New
Gumi chooses Berlin for its new European-focused mobile game development team
Central location is best
Rebounds
Following hard reset in SF, GREE expands with new offices in Berlin and Melbourne
Cheaper, fresher locations
Puzzle Unlocked
Puzzle & Dragons does 37 million downloads
Big downloads, bigger revenue
Brand Intro
HyprMX's Dan Laughlin on bringing big brand advertising to mobile games
Into the mainstream
Bigger Cake
N3TWORK's Neil Young on learning from Japan to drive 10-fold growth in western mobile game markets
The only way is up
From The Top
You can't be lazy about monetisation, says Unity Ads' Mickey Maher
Not an add-in extra
Axe Falls
GREE lays off 30% of its key San Francisco office
Times are hard
Ad Attack
Appodeal's Pavel Golubev on the future of mobile advertising
A deal just for you
Wide Appeal
Zynga's Empires & Allies is off to a solid start, especially in US, Japan and China
Global beachhead established
Create Your Own
Fabzat's Florent Pitoun on the opportunity for game devs in the $10 billion 'phygital' merchandising market
New streams
Looking Ahead
Flashback Friday: Neil Young on how ngmoco and Freeverse will dominate the iPhone free2play market
40 titles planned for release over the next 12 months
Relative Failure
Did Fallout Shelter really only make $5.1 million during its peak weeks?
Superdata reckons so
Sunny View
Marmalade opens a game development office in Lisbon, Portugal
London overflow
Good Better Best
Goodgame continues new look, appoints Ubisoft vet Simon Andrews to run new studio
Expansion apace