Week that was

A new direction for Unity as Riccitiello replaces Helgason, 12 top funding tips, and whatever happened to tablet gaming?

The past 7 days in bite-sized portions

A new direction for Unity as Riccitiello replaces Helgason, 12 top funding tips, and whatever happened to tablet gaming?

It doesn't take a genius to realise what the biggest story of this week was, with former EA man John Riccitiello replacing David Helgason as the CEO of Unity whipping the industry into a frenzy.

Some people believe the firm is preparing to sell, PocketGamer.biz contributing editor Keith Andrew has suggested it's more likely the company will float, althought the official line from Helgason is that Unity is looking to better service developers.

If you can manage to tear yourself away from the Riccitiello riddle for more than a second, you'll see there's been plenty going on outside of the Unity bubble.

Japanese outfit LINE Corporation, for example, revealed that its LINE messaging app now has over 30 million registered users in India

In the world of user acquisition and monetisation, our Chart of the Week took a closer look at the gender gap, revealing that women are more receptive to mobile ads, while our Charticle found out if Rovio's newest recruit, Plunder Pirates, found fame and fortune on the App Store in France, China and Korea. 

By now you should know the drill, so take a seat, whip out your spork, and chow down on our surprisingly spicy Week That Was.

Industry voices

User acquisition, retention, and discovery

  • LINE announced that its increasingly popular messaging app has over 30 million registered users in India.
  • Our Chart of the Week looked at the gender gap, revealing that women click, convert and spend more on mobile ads.

Monetisation

Tools & Platforms

  • Market research firm Newzoo's latest Quarterly Global Games Market Update predicted global mobile game revenue will reach $25 billion in 2014.
  • Juniper Research predicted that over 100 million smartwatches will have been sold by 2019, before going on to suggest that a 'killer app' may never materialise.
  • Lenovo revealed its China-only Google Glass rival alongside its new wearables company.
  • Cloud gaming outfit OnLive partnered with Samsung to give Galaxy Note 4 users three months worth of unlimited OnLive gaming for free.
  • Gameloft brought Twitch streaming to iOS versions of Heroes of Order & Chaos.

Funding, acquisitions, personnel and shuttering


What do you call someone who has an unhealthy obsession with video games and Sean Bean? That'd be a 'Chris Kerr'. Chris is one of those deluded souls who actually believes that one day Sean Bean will survive a movie. Poor guy.