Rewarding Creativity
IMGA founder on rewarding creativity and its ambitious plans for 2018
Maarten Noyons discusses hot industry trends and brand new events
Lumos
Jam City slashes Harry Potter: Hogwarts Mystery IAPs following player backlash
Only some players are receiving the discounted prices
New Studio
Google spins up mobile social games start-up Arcade
Developing a new kind of social network
Crushed It
Candy Crush Saga revival propels King revenues to record $534m
King’s monthly active users jumped up to 285 million
Decent
Apple posts best second quarter ever with revenues of $61 billion
International sales accounted for 65 per cent of Q2 revenue
United
Unity introduces scriptable render pipelines and C# Job System in 2018.1 update
Latest version includes 330 new features and improvements
On The App
Annual consumer app store spend to increase to $157 billion by 2022
Mobile app downloads will also increase to 258 billion by 2022, according to App Annie
Four In A Row
CSR Racing 2 and Words With Friends 2’s strong performance extends Zynga’s profit streak
Plus Willy Wonka’s Sweet Adventure in testing
One Share, One Vote
Mark Pincus’ decision to relinquish Zynga majority voting rights reflects “my confidence in the company”
Founding CEO is stepping back
Less Mario, More Rpg
How Nintendo plans to create an annual $1 billion mobile games business
Starting over with a clean slate
Formulated
Gumi’s The Alchemist Code racks up five million downloads worldwide
The Japanese mobile games developer is celebrating with special in-game events
Chicken Little
PUBG Mobile’s first week revenues on iOS only a fifth of Fortnite’s
Players outside of China spent $700,000 in its first week of monetisation
Indie View
The Big Indie Pitch interviews: From tiny bubbles come big things
We speak to Pine Street Codeworks about their multi-awarding winning game Tiny Bubbles
Instant Hit?
In-app purchases come to Facebook Instant Games
But monetisation through Google Play will smaller less returns for developers
Into The Wild
Facebook wants to make virtual reality more accessible with $199 Oculus Go launch
F8 Developer Conference attendees get free headset each
Marvellous
Marvel Future Fight breaks the 70 million players mark
Netmarble celebrates the milestone by extending its in-game event campaign
Competitive Gaming
Amazon’s $100,000 Mobile Masters esports tournament returns in June
Games include Power Rangers: Legacy Wars, Survival Arena, World of Tanks Blitz and Critical Ops
On The App
Mobile games revenues to hit $70 billion in 2018
Revenues will account for more than half of the $137.9 billion made across all platforms
Key Release
$1 billion mobile title Disney Tsum Tsum comes to Facebook Instant Games
'Introductory version' launches globally
Face Games
Snapchat gets ‘Snappables’ augmented reality games
Weekly games launch on the platform
On The App
Games featured on iOS 11’s Games Tab see 450% more installs
Largest increase in percentage was seen in the Medium List which resulted in a 451 per cent increase
Time Is Money
How does Harry Potter: Hogwarts Mystery monetise?
Casting a consumerius spell?
Lost And Found
Nintendo taps up Cygames for new RPG game Dragalia Lost
New RPG will be released this summer
Not Bad
Fortnite made $223 million across all platforms in March
Revenue was up 73 per cent from February according to SuperData
Switching It Up
Nintendo’s mobile games brought in $359.5 million in the last year
Overall revenue increased 116 per cent to $9.66 billion
Events
Blockchain Gamer Connects San Francisco speakers: The third wave
The talent behind CryptoKitties and CryptoWars, plus Super Game Chain, PlayTable and more
Spellbinding
Harry Potter: Hogwarts Mystery tops App Store download charts in first 24 hours
Tops rankings in UK, US, France, Germany and Spain
Ir Guide
Mobile games industry financials calendar
Keep up to date with financial releases with this handy guide
Content-tastic
Pocket Gamer Connects San Francisco 2018 schedule is live
Niantic, King, Super Evil, EA, Zynga lead best line-up to date for May 14th to 15th conference
Updated
Bidalgo launches self-serve tool for optimising Google universal app campaigns
The mobile app user acquisition platform aims to help marketers grow apps
Not Bad
Osmo surpasses one million educational AR game sales on iPad
Developer wants to scale up its operations
You Make My Heart Sing
Jam City unveils new story-driven match-three IP Wild Things: Animal Adventure
Takes inspiration from Gardenscapes
Co-op
Vungle brings its video ads platform to Samsung Galaxy Apps Store
The initial rollout will be in the US and South Korea
China Gathering
Tencent to publish new Magic: The Gathering games in China
Deal also includes Southeast Asia territories
They Nominated Who
45 Android apps and games up for 2018 Google Play Awards
Well-being, accessibility and social impact make their debut as categories
Smashing
Latest Apple, Google and Samsung mobiles smash game monetisation record
DeltaDNA study delves into which devices’ players spend more money
Indie Mavens
Is there an opportunity for indie developers on chat app platforms like Facebook Instant Games?
We caught up with Strange Flavour CEO Aaron Fothergill and Perchang’s co-founder Ben Murch to find out
Big Deal
New mobile ad tech firm WeQ secures $50 million to challenge Facebook and Google ‘duopoly’
Claims exclusive global publishing network and machine learning can support UA campaigns
Business News
Eden Games majority owner Millennial Esports enters $10m credit facility
Publisher withdraws initial $1.1 million
Not Too Shabby
Featured iOS apps can see up to 800% more downloads
A report by Sensor Tower delves into the download rates of featured iOS games
Jobs News
Ex-Sega Networks CPO Joseph Kim heads to Universal’s games publishing arm as senior VP
Will oversee slate and product management, marketing, user acquisition and revenue optimisation of all apps and games
Final Fight
Capcom Vancouver shuts down Puzzle Fighter
Goes offline for good on July 1st
Flying Into Cinemas
Rovio confirms Angry Birds Movie 2 for September 20th 2019
Ghostbusters actress Leslie Jones joins cast as film's main villain
I'm Out
Hearthstone director Ben Brode leaves Blizzard
Plans to start his own studio
Hot Five
Something's wrong in Finland, Rovio's post-IPO blues, and former Scopely and EA execs head up new studio
The hottest articles from the past week
Event News
Super Game Chain to co-host Blockchain Gamer Connects San Francisco
Palo Alto software company heads up the May 14th to 15th industry event
Replay Value
Facebook tests playable ads on news feed
Audience Network release planned for later this year
Fold On A Minute
Nintendo Labo lands in the US, Australia and Japan
New arts and crafts style accessory will find its way to Europe on April 27th
Artistic Flair
Services Spotlight: Art outsourcer 5518 Studios
CEO Michael Casalino on working on Snoopy Pop and outside of games
Giving Loot The Boot
Top games ruled to be breaking Dutch gambling laws with loot boxes
The authoritative body investigated 10 unnamed titles after concerns were raised by players, parents and addiction care workers