Still Going Strong
Four years on: The rise, fall and rise again of Kim Kardashian: Hollywood
The tribulations of Glu’s most successful game ever
Acquisition
Pokemon Go developer Niantic acquires London-based machine learning outfit Matrix Mill
AI research outfit join the augmented reality giant
Pgc Sf Video Interviews
18 exclusive fireside chats from Pocket Gamer Connects San Francisco 2018
HyprMX interviews the industry's leading lights at the show
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
Keep It Clean
Nintendo’s Reggie Fils-Aime reinforces his commitment to storefront curation for Switch
“Their games are selling best on Switch because of that environment we're creating”
Oh Snap
Report: Snapchat games platform to land later this year
One games publisher is said to be lined up already
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
Mobile Masters
Amazon names the winners of its $100,000 Mobile Masters Seattle esports event
Participants competed in World of Tanks: Blitz, Power Rangers: Legacy Wars, Critical Ops and Survival Arena
Adjusted
Adjust launches open-source performance benchmarking tool for mobile apps
Free tool should help publishers track app performance
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
On The Go
Pokemon Go racks up $104 million as player base reaches its highest level since 2016
The game has surged 174 per cent year-on-year in time for summer
Grass Is Greener
Why MZ CEO Gabe Leydon has left mobile games for blockchain data outfit Satori
One example of a wider trend
Pay To Play
Mobile is the most popular platform for gaming, but the least for paying customers
Newzoo study finds the platform has a lower player-to-payer ratio than console or PC
Digital Sports
Chinese esports market set to reach 350 million users by 2020
Experts also expect the scene to value at $1.5 billion
Job News
Kabam co-founder Holly Liu joins the Animoca Brands board of directors
Leading games entrepreneur sees potential in Animoca’s AI and blockchain endeavours
Cloned
Indie dev lambasts recently flush publisher Voodoo for ‘clone’ Hole.io
Hole.io is currently sitting at the top of the free-to-play charts on iOS
Blockchain Competition
One week left to enter $150,000 blockchain developer competition
Could you win the Alto Cryptogame Challenge powered by BlockchainGamer.Biz?
Game Changer
Inspiration not just adaptation: Asmodee Digital's new editorial policy
Despite Carcassonne coming to Nintendo Switch, Scythe coming to PC and Ticket to Ride coming to PlayStation, it's not all about old IP
About Time
Report: Telltale Games to ditch its own its own tech for Unity game engine
Follows 15 years of using Telltale Tool
Big Pull
King enters the social casino space with Royal Charm Slots
The title had been in soft-launch since August 2017
Fallout World
Fallout Shelter publisher Bethesda sues Warner Bros over “blatant rip-off” Westworld
Lawsuit claims "highly similar" game design, art style, animations and features
Roundup
Games industry roundup: The hottest stories across the PC, blockchain and influencer sectors
15 articles from PCGamesInsider.biz, InfluencerUpdate.biz and BlockhainGamer.biz
Hot Five
Shadowgun Legends took two days to be Switch ready, Tencent to acquire Bluehole, and Lineage M breaks $1.2bn
The past weeks hottest articles
The Weekly
The Weekly: The Legend of Nintendo, phones within phones, and Twitch's games streaming dominance
Rounding up the week's games industry analysis and news from around the internet
Tweeted
Nintendo the most talked about games company on Twitter during E3 2018
Super Smash Bros also received the most tweets out of the games on show
Chart Check
Top 50 US App Store games take 76% of the revenue
Apptopia research finds iOS games peak quickly, with harsh falloff
Key Takeaways
5 things we learned at Unite Berlin 2018
Google, machine learning, mixed reality and more were the key topics in Germany
Lovestruck
Intel CEO steps down after breaching "non-fraternisation" policy
Brian Krzanich resigned from the tech giant after five years
Playing The End Game
It’s raised another $100 million but where next for Scopely?
Looking for the perfect combination
Building Blocks
Roblox set to raise up to $150 million
PitchBook estimates funding would value the company at $2.4 billion
Arrr
Nintendo bans Switch consoles with pirated games
Reddit post warns against pirating games to the handheld
Beef
Nintendo and Microsoft dunk Sony on Twitter over Minecraft cross-play
Sony’s cross-play policy has been under public scrutiny since Fortnite launched on Switch
Takeover
Americans will soon be spending more time on mobile than their telly
Time spent on mobile may be reaching a peak, however
Charity Dinner
Steel Media on the hunt for chicken dinners in SpecialEffect #ChickenForCharity PUBG tournament
Your favourite b2b journos are entering the fray to raise money for charity
Mr Design Tips
4 mixed reality design considerations from Magic Leap
Aleissia Laidacker and Brian Schwab discuss creating MR experiences
It's Snow Joke
Cuphead developer Studio MDHR signs up former Alto’s Odyssey producer Eli Cymet
The former mobile games journalist served a producer on Alto’s Odyssey
Wallets Away
Tencent trialling a new feature to halt high-spending by underage users
“Underage User Game Spending Reminder” to prevent kids from splashing too much cash
Troubled Times
Ukie opens consultation to see how post-Brexit UK games industry can still flourish
"Last year’s State of Play EU report showed that 61 per cent of games businesses in the UK rely on international talent"
Catch Em All
Pokémon Quest snags 2.5 million downloads on Nintendo Switch
The RPG is also set to launch on mobile on June 27th
Event Report
First Chinese mobile internet global traffic exchange expo welcomes over 1,500 attendees
GTE 2018, hosted by Beluga Global, just launched in Beijing to great success
Big Indie Pitch
Spellfast crowned champion at the Big Indie Pitch in Los Angeles
Check out the champions for our recent Big Indie Pitch, as we arrived in LA for E3 week
Realer Than Real
Unity drives deeper into augmented reality with Project MARS
“Reality is our build target”
Smooth
Unity showcases machine learning powered animation with Kinematika
New pipeline hopes to make high-quality animation easier
Job News
Two Owlchemy Labs bosses are leaving to co-found a new venture
VR studio CEO and studio director depart for projects unknown
Winner Winner Chicken Dinner
Playerunknown's Battlegrounds breaks 400 million players
PUBG also draws a crowd of 87 million players each and every single day
Not Bad
Fortnite bags $100 million in its first 90 days on iOS
And it still has not launched in China or on Android
Android Odyssey
Snowman team up with Noodlecake to bring Alto's Odyssey to Android
The next instalment in the Alto series will launch next month
Funded
Walking Dead: Road to Survival publisher Scopely raise additional $100 million to fund acquisitions and investments
The Los Angeles-based publisher originally raised $60 million last year
Indie Mavens
What do indies think of the streaming model from a creative and business standpoint?
Our Indie Mavens weigh in