Hot Five
Facebook pulls Instant Games from Messenger, Zynga taps classic major IP and whatever happened to Wizards Unite?
The hottest stories from the mobile games industry over the last week
Seed Funding
Strafe gets $3 million in seed funding for esports companion app
The app currently covers eight games
Magic Number
Harry Potter: Wizards Unite generates $12 million in revenue in its first month
Pokemon Go was downloaded 182m times in its launch month
New Investments
Unity Technologies makes a tender offer of up to $525m to shareholders
The company recently signed agreement investments
I'll Be Back
Three month Facebook Instant Games review pause coming to an end
Social network giant implements new application process
Chat App Gaming Blow
Facebook pulls Instant Games from Messenger
Move comes as the company claims it wants to make the chat app "faster, lighter and simpler"
To Boldly Go
Scopely’s Star Trek Fleet Command beams up $100m in eight months
Publisher's fastest-growing game to date
Meow
Tilting Point invests $30m in UA for Cat Game
The title has launched globally following successful Canada and New Zealand soft launch
The Other One
Whatever happened to Harry Potter: Wizards Unite?
Monetizer Mavens opine
Licensing Deal
Animoca Brands’ Pixowl is making an Addams Family mobile game
Mystery Mansion will be based on the upcoming animated film
Blending In
Ubisoft joins Blender Development Fund as corporate gold member
French publishing giant will assign developers to contribute to the foundations open source projects
Flying High
Thatgamecompany’s Sky soars past one million downloads
Title estimated to have generated $175,000
New Studio
NetEase opens Montreal studio
CEO says city offers “clear advantages and favourable conditions” for international games companies
Charts
Weekly global mobile games charts: Dragon Ball Z Dokkan Battle strikes up US top grossing spot
Rankings from July 8th to 14th
Jobs News
Rogue Games swoops for trio of marketing, UA and design hires
Publisher appoints new UA marketing manager, game designer and marketing art manager
Deja Moo
Zynga taps classic major IP for newly soft-launched FarmVille 3 - Animals
Farming simulator has made its way to Android in the Philippines and Thailand
Job News
Blizzard co-founder Frank Pearce stepping down
"Words cannot express the gratitude I feel to have been involved with Blizzard, our games, our employees, and most importantly our community"
Roundup
Games industry roundup: Id Software vet Tim Willits to depart, Google Stadia's Reddit AMA, and Facebook slapped with $5bn fine
The hottest stories of the last week from the PC, mobile and blockchain spaces
Hot Five
One dev's journey from police constable to level designer, PlayStation vet heads to Disney, and the Yogscast CEO steps down
The hottest stories from the mobile games industry over the last week
All Time High
Increase in subscription revenue offsets Fortnite decline for Microsoft as Xbox Live hits 65 million MAUs
Games cash drops 10 per cent year-on-year
Streaming Service
Ubisoft: Cost of porting games to Stadia not that high
Uplay+ subscription service will launch on Stadia in 2020
Stadia Hurdles
Google Stadia mobile support “a hard technical challenge”
"I really want to have Stadia gameplay on every mobile device, across Android and iOS at some point"
Npd Numbers
Nintendo Switch US sales top PlayStation and Xbox in June
“Nintendo Switch is the only platform showing year-on-year growth”
Business Deal
Kongregate acquires mobile and web RPG Bit Heroes
Juppiomenz-developed title has made generated $10 million in net revenue on mobile
New Competition
Skillz reveals $25,000 Global Game Development Challenge
First competition was won by the CodeCube Brothers
Douyu Ipo
Chinese live-streaming platform DouYu launches $775 million IPO
The IPO was announced back in April but was halted a week later
Kyoto Drift
Nintendo Switch owners are suffering Joy-Con drift issues
This follows Joy-Con desyncing fault near consoles launch
Live And Kicking
Four years on: Bethesda on the mutation of surprise hit Fallout Shelter
"Many decisions we made with The Elder Scrolls: Blades were based on our learnings from Fallout Shelter"
New Horizons
Horizon Blockchain Games raises $3.75 million seed investment
Horizon is currently working on its debut release, an Ethereum-based trading-card game called SkyWeaver
Studio Closure
Terraforming Mars developer LuckyHammers closes down
70 staff lose their jobs
$$$
Detective Pikachu becomes highest grossing video game film
Warcraft drops from top spot after the Pokemon movie generates $436m at the box office
New York New York
New York’s biggest two-day game convention Play NYC returns for third annual event
Play NYC will take place between August 10th to August 11th, 2019
Site Opening
Pole To Win opens Montreal office
New location will offer QA, customer service, engineering and translation services
Funding News
Esports outfit 100 Thieves raises $35m
Organisation plans to develop a new 15,000 square ft HQ in LA
Business Deal
Private equity firm Blackstone to acquire Vungle
Deal reported to be worth $750 million-plus
Job News
PlayStation vet John Drake heads to Disney to lead games biz dev and licensing
Follows five years at Sony
Global Advertising
The top global game advertisers in the US, Japan and South Korea for June 2019
SocialPeta data shows which games are generating the highest number of ad impressions
Strategic Investment
NetEase acquires minority stake Fallout Shelter dev Behaviour
Influence of Chinese companies increases at Canadian firm following last year's deal with GAEA
App Shutdown
Niantic is shutting down its first app Field Trip
Field Trip has already been removed from app stores
Charts
Weekly global mobile games charts: Honor of Kings is only the third top grosser in China as it faces a new challenger
Rankings from July 1st to July 7th
Dev Fund
ROKiT launches $50 million development fund for indie games
Developers are being encouraged to contact ROKiT games for a chance to secure upto $500,000 for their game.
Roundup
Games industry roundup: EA and Riot vets set up Vela Games, Gods Unchained open beta, and how the top 5,000 dominate Twitch
15 articles from PocketGamer.biz, InfluencerUpdate.biz and BlockchainGamer.biz
Hot Five
Azerion acquires Woozworld, Million Victories raises $1.4m, and Clash of Clans has its best month in two years
The hottest stories from the mobile games industry over the last week
Charts
Weekly global mobile games charts: Harry Potter remains stationary as Pokemon Go makes a comeback
Rankings from June 24th to June 30th
Hyper-casual Rise
11.2 billion mobile games were downloaded in Q2 2019 reports App Annie
PUBG Mobile claims highest average MAU
Season Pass
Clash of Clans had its best revenue month for two years in June
Player spending up 26 per cent as a result of season pass subscription
Welcome To Jurassic Pop
Universal Games taps Funko brand for new mobile puzzler
Back to the Future, Jurassic World, Shrek, and more
The Doctor Is In
Dr. Mario World tops iOS charts quicker than Harry Potter: Wizards Unite
BTS World beats both however
No Go On Pro
Nintendo’s Doug Bowser says Switch Lite won’t kill off 3DS support
No Switch Pro will be released this year too
Rip 3ds
Nintendo Switch Lite launches this September
Pricing, release date and specs revealed