Financials
Mobile now accounts for 53% of Take-Two’s revenue
One year on from its acquisition of Zynga mobile dominates Take-Two’s Q! 2023-2024 financial report
Financials
Playtika latest results show decreases in revenue & paying users
The company previously halted all further development on new titles in favour of concentrating on their existing portfolio
Job News
Sandsoft appoints Ahmed Sharif as CTO
Sharif previously held the role of head of VR, AR, metaverse automation and platform engineering at Meta
On The Right Track
Honkai: Star Rail races to $500 million in worldwide sales
The game has pushed miHoYo to second place in global game publisher sales rankings
Financial Fuel
Konami’s profits back on track with 22% rise in quarter one
Video games account for the most profit, but not the biggest proportional rise
Interview
Fein Games Lea Schönfelder: “We firmly believe that if you want to change something you have to do it from the ground up”
Lea Schönfelder shares how Fein Games is handling workplace culture differently
Interview
Global Champions founder and CEO Gokhan Celiker on achieving a milestone four million downloads
We spoke to Celiker about the company’s success and their work with Supersonic on Plane Evolution
Collaborations
Subway Surfers to mobilise players in conservation efforts
Sybo has also donated a fixed amount of $25,000 to various efforts
Mindful Of Mental Health
79% of devs are increasingly pressured to release unfinished games
New data from Sauce Labs reveals the state of play from the game dev frontlines with staff exposed to bullying and threats online
Q&a
Gameloft’s Andrey Marinov on bringing the iconic character of John Rambo to War Planet Online
War Planet Online aims to keep players engaged with new content and the freedom of cross platform
Its Heart Of Vegas Baby!
Heart of Vegas - celebrating 10 years at the top of its game
PG.biz speaks to Product Madness' Bryan Hurwitz and Joraynee Sarno about the 10 year anniversary of the studios' social casino game Heart Of Vegas
Pokemon Presents
Pokémon Presents provides updates on five Pokémon mobile games
Whether you’re in bed or on the go, there’s a mobile game for everyone
Investment Opportunities
Discover your next great investment opportunity at PG Connects Helsinki this September 12-13
Book your ticket to PG Connects Helsinki today to find your dream investment partner and save with our fantastic Mid-term offer!
Scopely X Flexion
Scopely is bringing more of its titles to alternative app stores with Flexion
Monopoly GO! is available on alternative app stores already, with Stumble Guys coming soon
Investment
Japanese mobile entertainment company Mixi to invest $50m in Indian market
The money will be issues as part of their corporate venture capital
Major Milestone
Nekki celebrates 20 years of mobile gaming innovation after surpassing one billion installs
95 percent of installs are organic
Nintendo Numbers
Nintendo's mobile future unclear despite “tripled” revenue
The latest financial report muddies the waters by including LEGO and The Super Mario Bros. Movie in the same financial category…
Mega Mobile
Mobile is gaming’s strongest platform in a market set generate $187.7 billion this year
Newzoo's 2023 Global Games Market Report expects mobile games to generate $92.6 billion
Investment
Studio Billion receives undisclosed investment in pre-series A bridge round
WePlay Ventures, Aura B4YO Fund and Lima Ventures make another major investment in the Turkish market
Releases
My.Games to launch Little Big Robots in every region but China
The new mobile shooter is the third title in the successful War Robots franchise
Major Milestone
InnoGames' Forge of Empires surpasses $1 billion in lifetime revenue
Forge of Empires is responsible for half of all revenues
Jobs News
August's Mobile Movers and Shakers: Damian Burns leaves Twitch plus new hires for Epic Games, FunPlus, Newzoo and more
August has already seen some significant moves by some of the industry's biggest company's - here's the highlights from the last week
Pokemon Go
Pokemon Go is the USA’s fourth most downloaded mobile game of all time
Seven years on the game remains a smash hit worldwide with 168 million downloads
Hexacore’s Mikita Khazau on pivoting from hypercasual to web3
While others are looking to hybridcasual as the successor to the crowded hypercasual market, Hexacore's co-founder and CEO is eyeing web3
Financials
Square Enix’ new titles fail to offset weak performance from existing catalogue
New financials show that the launch of Dragon Quest Champions failed to boost their mobile performance any higher than in the previous year
Q&a
Waffle game creator James Robinson on Daily Waffle and future ambitions
Puzzle game Waffle garners the interest of Amazon Prime
Collaboration
Drest announces new collaboration with Copenhagen Fashion Week
The collaboration will highlight the designers taking part in the event
Brand Attraction
How can the mobile games industry attract more brands?
Bidstack’s Chris Vincelli & Antoine Jullemier analyse what deters brands from entering the $118 billion mobile games ads market and what developers can do to entice them
Genre Report
Arena and adventure games are set to exceed $4.7 billion in revenue in 2023
The post-apocalyptic genre saw a significant surge in downloads
Subscription Success
Paid subscriptions redeem Apple’s Q3 after hardware sales fall
Apple’s Q3 2023 sees 1% revenue fall but surpasses 1 billion paid subscriptions
Week That Was
Week in Views - What caught our eyes in the last seven days
The Pocketgamer.biz team take their pick of this weeks big news including anniversary celebrations, the rising popularity of subscriptions and when a game gets everything right…
Party Central
The Gamescom 2023 Party Guide
Because when the show's doors close, you'll need to know where the party's at…
Web3 Goes Mobile
Inside Animoca Brands and Yuga Lab's Wreck League web3 strategy
Developer nWay hopes to make waves with web3 and web2 releases of the same game
Funding
Zibra AI raises $500,000 from a16z Speedrun
The funding brings the company's total investment so far to $2.5 million
Q&a
Bringing Second Life to mobile: "There’s a lot of excitement and anticipation in the community"
Second Life’s VP of product, Grumpity Linden tells us how the legendary PC pre-metaverse experience is making the leap to mobile
Job News
FunPlus appoints industry veteran Alexandre Amancio to leadership role
Amancio joins the team as SVP and head of world building and IP Strategy
Generative Ai
Homa’s CTO Michael Le Bail explains why they're all in on AI
Homa’s recent hackathon event has cemented the company's commitment to the use of artificial intelligence
Financials
Unity celebrates a record quarter with $533 million in revenue
The company’s revenue increased 80% year-on-year
Gaming In China
China’s gaming market climbed by 20% in July
July offered strong evidence for a rebound in the country’s gaming market
Gem Games
Gem Capital’s new $50M fund will invest in fledglings of F2P, midcore and more
Investments to be made in pre-seed, seed, and Series A rounds
Job News
WAGMI appoints EA veterans to leadership roles
Esteban Gil and Brent Pease will assist the company in its web3 goals
Generative Ai
Three ways to spot where AI can add value to your business
LifeStreet’s Levi Matkins discusses how digital advertisers and ad tech companies can get the best out of generative AI
Moving To Mobile
Mobile exclusive Assassin’s Creed Codename Jade launches first closed beta
The open-world game is available on iOS and Android until 11 August 2023
Google Goes Blockchain
Inside Google’s blockchain content policy
The tech giant has recently revealed its policy on in-app blockchain and NFT and commentators are digging deep as to what it all means
Q&a
FanDuel’s Aaron Champagne on creating a skill based gaming platform for mobile
FanDuel FaceOff features competitive play on games such as Boggle and Breakout Blitz
Artificial Intelligence
AI startup Inworld raises another $50 million for a $500 million valuation
The new investment follows the company’s work on AI-driven non-player character experiences
Monetisation
Can Amazon Anywhere open up a new monetisation channel for mobile games?
Layer co-founder Rachit Moti explores Amazon Anywhere's moves to monetise your game with physical purchases
New Release
Anything World launches its 3D models on the Unity Asset Store
Unity users can now access their library of rigged 3D animated models and more
Subscription Success
Mobile games using a subscription model almost triple in a year
Liftoff and Appsflyer report that mobile games represent almost 30% of subscription-based apps
Anniversary
Fireproof Games prepares for the tenth anniversary of The Room
The cross-platform hit will be on sale across platforms in September