Narrative Design
Devcom 2019: Why mobile game narrative design is more than text and plot
King Berlin studio narrative designer Valentina Tamer offers her advice
Ultimate Game Changers
Lion Studios launches $300k indie mobile games contest
Games new and old welcome; Submissions close on August 15th
Hyper-casual
4 videos analysing China's lucrative hyper-casual games market and how to get user attention
Mintegral presents The Bridge Between East & West covering all things China
Casual Expansion
WeQ: Investment in ad tech, development and publishing sets us apart from hyper-casual competition
Ad tech company has acquired Booster Studios to develop and publish in-house and third-party hyper-casual games
New Mindset
Playtika opens London studio
New office is part of the newly unveiled Games Lab focused on casual development
Expansion
Playtika eyes rapid development with new casual games division
The Casual games Lab will be based in Tel Aviv, Israel
Sweet Release
Sweet Escapes is the first independent release from Supercell-backed Redemption Games
Puzzle game available in countries such as Finland, Australia, Canada, New Zealand and the Philippines
Going Public
Scientific Games subsidiary SciPlay files for IPO
Readies itself for potential acquisition spee; has entered into $150 million revolving credit facility
Opportunity Knocks
Century Game: A new opportunity for casual gaming in China and in the West
Publisher looking to collaborate with developers
Super Acquisition
Playtika continues M&A activity with purchase of casual card game dev Supertreat
Comes a month after Wooga deal
Killer Apps
Hyper-casual specialist Voodoo taps GameAnalytics to identify hit games
How the mobile publisher utilises data to stay on top
Check
Mobile acquisition and management firm Maple Media snaps up Banana & Co’s mobile games portfolio
Games include Checkers, Hearts, Mahjong Match! and Sudoku
Big Deal
Social casino giant Playtika acquires Pearl’s Peril dev Wooga
German studio finds a buyer after self-proclaimed 'tough two years'
Cool
Atari focusing on casual and sim games following Rollercoaster Tycoon success
"We’re clearly doing well with simulation games like Rollercoaster Tycoon," says CEO Chesnais
Finding A Sweet Spot
Etermax on balancing the fresh with the familiar in Trivia Crack 2
Back for another spin
Fore
Playdemic's Golf Clash drives past $225m in revenue
The sports game landed $25m in revenue last month
Speeding
Crossy Road speeds past in-app purchase revenues of $10 million
Multi-million milestone doesn’t even account for sales made through advertising in-game
On Tap
Huuuge Games launches hyper-casual publishing label Tap Tap Games
Social casino company makes a move into publishing one-finger casual titles
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
Making A Splash
MAG Interactive’s Paint Hit breaks five million downloads
Real-time word game Word Domination brought in one million downloads
Casual Games
After 370 million downloads casual dev Ilyon looks to drive more revenue from its broad portfolio
CMO Ilya Molodetsky discusses how the studio has grown over the last two years
Beyond Games
5 things we learned about influencers, hyper-casual and esports at the Beyond Games Mini-Summit
Leading industry experts deal out their knowledge and advice
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"
Hitting The Mark
MAG Interactive’s Paint Hit makes a splash with one million downloads in one day
The paint shooter is sitting in the number one spot on the Google Play casual games chart in the US
Weekly Charts
Weekly UK App Store charts: Is Super Tapx the next Voodoo?
Rankings from May 28th to June 3rd 2018
Cash Royale
Supercell invests $5 million in US mobile developer Redemption Games
Deal marks first M&A activity outside of Europe
Having A Blast
Following its $500m takeover Plarium expands into the casual games space with Lost Island: Blast Adventure
Director of game design Dima Karger discusses the studio's adventure into a new genre
Exclusive Reveals
Watch: Guns of Boom developer Game Insight reveals casual and hardcore games line-up for 2018
Four new casual games and new 'Boom' titles
The Magic Number
Frank Gibeau on why Zynga’s $250 million acquisition of Gram Games adds up
Riding Merge Dragons! to success
Investment Magic
Casual mobile games publisher Voodoo raises $200 million
Publisher has more than 150 million monthly active users; plots further growth
Another Direction
The slow, casual transformation of Gameloft
Supertanker turning
Magnifying Glass
Are hidden object games still finding success?
Old formula, renewed interest?
Island Blast
Rovio soft-launches casual puzzle sequel Angry Birds Blast Island
Available on Android, but we're not sure exactly where
Serving Up A Storm
Are casual games maturing part two: Lessons from Playrix
Om Tandon breaks down what makes Playrix's portfolio of mobile titles such huge successes
Mini-games For China
Ubisoft and Ketchapp eye China mobile market with Tencent deal
Partnership gives publishers access to 980 million monthly active users of Weixin app
The Charticle
Charting the rise of hyper-casual mobile games
Examining the performances of Ketchapp, Voodoo and Gram Games
Stick Sports Scores
Casual mobile games developer Stick Sports crosses 70 million downloads
Currently hiring at both London and Sydney studios
Decoding Design
Exploring the links between game genres and mobile monetisation part one: Examining match-3 games
Tappx's Ignasi Prat unpacks the hugely popular casual game archetype
Animoca Game Sale
Animoca Brands sells entire portfolio of 318 casual games to iCandy Interactive for $3.8 million
Performance-based incentives and potential profit shares also thrown in
Straight Fire
Amazon's Champions of Fire casual eSports tournament returns on December 2nd
Sonic Forces: Speed Battle, Beach Buggy Racing, Minion Rush and more will be represented
Diamond In The Rough
King soft-launches Royal Boulevard Saga again under new name Diamond Diaries Saga
Still not out of soft launch
Hidden Success?
Hidden object renaissance? The teams behind Hidden Folks and Under Leaves aren't quite so sure
The indies talk about shaking up the genre
Hyper-casual
From Commodore 64 to hyper-casual: David Darling on the resurgence of simple games based on elegant ideas
The Codemasters Co-founder and Kwalee CEO on how design and development in the mobile space brings back memories and lessons from his days coding in the 80s
Wooga's New Focus
Live ops and long soft-launches: Wooga's CEO Jens Begemann on its renewed focus for 2017
From casual to midcore and back again
Casual Sale
Animoca Brands sells 13 of its casual games to Maple Media for up to $2.9 million
TicBits gets its non-core components sold on
Charging Ahead
Rodeo Stampede smashes 80 million downloads 13 months after launch
Still gets one million DAUs
Royal Rumble
Glu Mobile signs multi-year partnership with WWE to develop new licensed game
Tap Sports Baseball team taking over development duties
Mtg Acquires Kongregate
Modern Times Group to acquire casual games publisher Kongregate for $55 million
Kongregate pushing further into developing its own games by acquiring other studios
Telling Tales
TabTale CEO: "We believe in portfolio diversity and not relying just on one main game"
CEO Sagi Schliesser discusses the publisher's philosophy of releasing one app a week
Hyper-casual
The ascendance of hyper-casual part three: The opportunity
AppLovin's Johannes Heinze continues his detailed analysis of a new genre