Funding News
Riot Games amongst investors in new mobile esports-focused studio Gamelynx
Studio raises $1.2 million
Boom
Game Insight and ESL put up $200,000 for Guns of Boom’s inaugural esports season
Online qualifiers begin June 9th with international events planned for Poland and LA
Up Up Up
Over 25% of iOS 11 game downloads now come from browsing the App Store
A boost in downloads has been helped the launch of iOS 11
Smashed It
Pocket Gamer Connects welcomes 850 games industry professionals for biggest San Francisco event yet
Top talks, lots of networking, more partying
New Job Klaxon
NCSoft appoints chief development officer for Western operations
Chris Corry will be responsible for overseeing all development in the West
Rip
Sony to cease production of physical PlayStation Vita Games, except in Japan
Creation of games cards to finish by the end of March 2019
On The Move
Farming Simulator dev Giants Software opens new studio in the Czech Republic
Swiss company also set to move offices as part of the shakeup
Take Profit
WWE Supercard and Dragon City help launch Take-Two's yearly profits to $173.5 million
The usual suspects at play again
One V One Me Bro
Street Fighter characters touch down in Power Rangers: Legacy Wars
Cammy, M. Bison, Ryu, Chun-Li, Guile and Akuma set to join the fray
Switching It Up
LA-based start-up Wonder working on Android Nintendo Switch-like hybrid device
Wonder is hoping to release the device next year
Dau Royale
PUBG Mobile amasses 10 million daily active users
Most downloaded game in over 100 countries and areas
Zoom
PacketZoom launches new mobile networking tools for real-time multiplayer games
Mobile Connect aims to eliminate a game developer’s need to deploy resources in-house
Uninstall Rates
Three out of 10 apps uninstalled after 30 days
But games one of the least likely to be deleted, according to Appsflyer report
Free-to-manage
Project management tool Hansoft goes free for small indies
Available for teams of up to five
Struck A Chord
Discord triples userbase to 130 million in just a year
Chat app has added 85m users in the last twelve months
Going Global
Ex-Apple GM leads Roblox international expansion
Popular game gets Spanish localisation, other languages coming soon
Indie Mavens
Is ad revenue a good revenue generator for indies in 2018?
Our Indie Mavens weigh in
Blimey Guv
Zynga celebrates Royal Wedding with Words With Friends 2 Royal Social Dictionary
Blimey I'm gobsmacked
East To West
Chinese livestreaming platform Huya raises $180 million in US IPO
15 million shares sold at $12 each
Weekly Charts
Weekly UK App Store charts: Harry Potter Hogwarts Mystery surges up iPad and iPhone top grossing charts
Rankings from April 30th to May 6th
Backend-as-a-service
Nakama 2.0 - Power games for millions of concurrent players
Heroic Labs details the latest big update
Rising Confidence
CEO Nick Earl on how Design Home’s success has kickstarted Glu’s wider revival
Mobile game publisher now on the up
Hot Five
What makes the Finland games scene special, Space Ape Games on making hits and Idle Factory Tycoon hits 4m downloads
The weeks hottest articles
Pocket Gamer Connects
17 reasons why you need to be at Pocket Gamer Connects San Francisco next week
From the 10 conference tracks by 100 world-class speakers to networking, pitching and the Global Connects Party
Juicy News
YouTuber Guava Juice partners with developer PopReach on Tub Tapper
Partners with developer PopReach on title
Going Global
Pokemon Go developer Niantic to call upon players to help build AR maps
Efforts would involve supplementing Pokemon Go data with new information gathered through smartphones cameras
International Expansion
Kongregate gets first international expansion with Montreal office
“Expanding our resources and time zones allows us as a company to be closer to our Canadian and European partners," says CEO Emily Greer
Downloads Assemble
Avengers Infinity War boosts related mobile game downloads by 120%
IAP revenue was also boosted by 50% along with a 16% increase in DAU
Not Bad
Top 25 public games companies captured 77% of global games revenues in 2017
Tencent, Sony, Apple, Microsoft and Activision Blizzard took the top five spots
Playtime
Bidalgo launches support for playable ads on Facebook
San Francisco-based company also offering free ad production for its fully managed clients
Speaker Spotlight
PGC San Francisco speaker spotlight: Zorka.Mobi's Dmitry Liapin on dealing with influencers
Dmitry Liapin offers advice on influencer marketing campaigns and tells us what to expect from his talk
Linked In
Steam Link app lets you play your PC games on your mobile
Launches week of May 21st
Augmented Reality
Google’s ARCore 1.2 gets social
User can collaborate in the virtual space
That’s A Lot Of Money
Fortnite Mobile hits $50 million in revenue on iOS
Player spending increased 293 per cent following the launch of season four
Winning
Empires and Puzzles takes home Best Breakthrough Hit from Google Play Awards
Broken Rules also won the Standout Indie Award while Pocket Gem snagged the Community Award
Avenger Royale
Thanos brings the Infinity War to Fortnite
Two giants collide in a limited-time mode for Epic's smash shooter
Google Io
AI shines at Google keynote event
The first day of the Mountain View showcase introduced us to a range of AI enhancements
This Report Is Quite Operational
Sims Mobile and Star Wars Galaxy of Heroes help propel EA Mobile bookings to $659m in FY18
The games giant has two new mobile titles set for release in the next year
Flip The Switch
Virtual Console unlikely to be coming to Nintendo Switch Online
The games giant also revealed data cloud backup and pricing for Nintendo Switch Online
Its Time To Play The Game
Google Play Instant opens to all Android developers
The internet giant revealed the update at its I/O 2018 developer conference
Mena Expansion
PocketGamer.biz expands with new Arabic-language sister-site PocketGamer.me
Steel Media partners with leading Jordan games publisher Maysalward
Epic
Epic Games set to host series of workshops and panels at Pocket Gamer Connects San Francisco
The talks will centre on the latest Unreal Engine mobile advancements
Pokemon Goes On Tour
Pokemon Go Summer Tour heads to the US, Germany and Japan
Events will feature a host of interactive adventures and special challenges
Indie Spotlight
Indie Spotlight: Laser Dog's Simon Renshaw on Ava Airborne and the passion of indie games
"Personally, I’m a big believer in doing what you really want to do. I draw the things I love for a living and I couldn’t imagine a better job"
Hot Five
Fastlane's rapid success, Facebook Instant Games adds in-app purchases and PUBG’s first week revenues
The weeks' hottest articles
Pocket Gamer Connects
Meet Niantic, Netmarble, EA, King, Super Evil Megacorp, Ubisoft, Zynga and more next week at PG Connects San Francisco
Join the cream of the mobile games industry in West Coast America for an amazing two-day conference
Q1 Financials
Glu Mobile cuts losses as it hits record $86 million in bookings
Design Home, Covet Fashion and Kim Kardashian: Hollywood the key performers
Pocket Gamer Connects
Sign up for one-on-one mentoring at Pocket Gamer Connects San Francisco
Learn from the best at the IGDA Mentor Cafe, Monday May 14th
Why Not
Activision Blizzard has eyes on battle royale's mobile success
King has been working on a Call of Duty title for mobile
Installed
CrossInstall launches new playable mobile ads service for Facebook, Snapchat and Google
New service offers design, development and quality assurance for playable ads