Investors and publishers want pragmatism, flexibility – and games that AI can’t copy
Executives from Agora, Krafton, GSC, Bossa and more dug into the State of Things at last week’s Madeira Games Summit.
Data digest: Sensor Tower, InMobi and Smartly’s big buys, Grand lands $70m, huge AppLovin numbers, more
There's also action and strategy genre analysis and more in this week's round-up.
Rovio set for rebuild after Sega acquisition disappoints
UPDATE: A Rovio spokesperson says there was a JP-EN mistranslation in Sega's investor materials, and the word 'restructuring' was used in error. The correct word is 'rebuilding', and we understand the restructure has already taken place.
Playtika leaves social casino behind to focus on casual hits like Disney Solitaire
CEO Robert Antokol suggests Playtika’s social casino portfolio is effectively in managed decline with casual representing 76% of its business.
The soft launch games you need to know about
Take a peek at the games in testing from Supercell, Playrix, Rovio, Miniclip, Moon Active, Zynga and more.
New game digest: new soft launches from Century, Take-Two and Ten Square plus Digimon, Racing Master and more
There's also May's new Apple Arcade games and some new indie games in this week's round-up.
Supersonic sale still incoming as Unity posts revenue growth, hypes AI and Vector opportunity
“Our research is telling us that 90% of game developers are already using AI in their workflows,” says Unity boss Bromberg as his firm posts a 17% year-on-year revenue rise.
April’s top grossing mobile games: Honor of Kings, LastWar, Whiteout Survival, Royal Match, more
Appmagic's estimates show a steady month for the established giants, but plenty of movement for titles like Delta Force, Honkai: Star Rail and eFootball.
April’s top mobile game downloads: Minecraft, Block Blast, Free Fire, Arrows and more
Update: it turns out there was a quirk in the Google Play Minecraft data - read on for a full explanation.
Supercell to fully acquire Merge Mansion maker Metacore amid restructure, with 160 jobs at risk
Merge Mansion will be brought into Supercell’s live portfolio as part of the changes, after Metacore failed to launch new, sustainable games.
Layoffs at Marvel Snap maker Second Dinner, but work on new game continues
Edit: We're told 16 staff are affected, and work continues on its second game, we’re told. “This is us making hard decisions to make sure we can keep going, not a sign that we're winding down,” added boss Ben Brode.
Jobs digest: big moves at Jam City, Scopely, Niantic, Netflix, Activision, Supercell and more
There are also new appointments and promotions at Socialpoint, Moon Active, CrazyLabs, Loom, Gamehouse and more in our latest recruitment round-up.
Scopely and Niantic on getting that seismic $3.5bn megadeal over the line
Scopely chief revenue officer Tim O’Brien and Niantic president Ed Wu chronicle the late nights and knotty technical problems they encountered on the road to that blockbuster $3.5bn acquisition.
Emulation arrived on the App Store two years ago – 60m downloads later, what’s changed?
The developer behind new emulator Provenance is managing to cover his costs with IAPs through the App Store – but, like many others, they would love to see Apple offer more help to the developer community.
That rumoured Subway Surfers movie is still in the pipeline, sort of – and so are more spin-off games
CEO Mathias Gredal Nørvig says Sybo is still trying to find the right format for a big screen adaptation of ‘the most downloaded game of all time’, Subway Surfers. In the meantime, Subway Surfers City is off to a solid start and there’s another spin-off that’s quietly entered soft launch.
Xbox wants to ‘restore the core’ and grow daily active players – so is mobile part of the plan or not?
If Xbox’s new ‘North Star’ is daily active players, mobile must surely be central to what’s next. So why is it barely mentioned in new boss Asha Sharma’s manifesto?
