Kids under 13 spend an average of 2 hours a day playing mobile games
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If you consider yourself an average mobile gamer, you’re likely spending up to 120 minutes a day tapping on a screen to…
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If you consider yourself an average mobile gamer, you’re likely spending up to 120 minutes a day tapping on a screen to…
Mobile game video platform Kamcord just raised another $15 million in funding: Kamcord’s Series B is led by Japanese game publisher GungHo, with Tencent…
Mobile gamers have shared eleven million videos of crazy-looking animated cats with high-pitched voices on Kamcord. Why are they doing this?
Kamcord, a startup that helps developers to integrate video capturing and sharing technology into their games, has raised a $7.1M Series A round.
Mobile games have become so popular that phone makers are offering coveted marketing spots in the app store to game makers that release early on their platforms.
It looks like Razer is planning to get in on the iPhone gaming action, according to a leak of its purported game controller.
iOS has long been the leader in mobile games by downloads and monetization. But Facebook’s effort comes at a time when some smaller developers are starting to rethink how they market and drive revenue to their apps on Apple’s increasingly crowded platform.
Everyplay instantly records your iPhone gameplay, and makes replay clips available for sharing online. The service promises developers new ways to find an audience for their games.
Fingerprint is moving forward in building a strong platform for educational kids games on mobile, launching a new multiplayer game that will allow kids and parents to play together on mobile, just as the parents might already do in Words with Friends or Letterpress.
Sony is taking games beyond its own hardware with the Sony PlayStation Mobile platform. The game store opens today for Sony and Sony Xperia Android phones and tablets, with three HTC models to have access soon. Purchased games also run on Sony’s PS Vita.
Chartboost has released some comparative data on cost-per-installs and cost-per-clicks in 18 markets around the world. It’s helpful in seeing where developers might want to look to expand as they go global.
At GigaOM’s Mobilize conference in San Francisco on Thursday, Jack Buser, Sony’s senior director of PlayStation digital platforms, talked about why Sony developed the PlayStation Mobile platform for PlayStation games that can, for the first time, be played on devices not made by the Japanese company.
China’s online games market is huge. Now some of its biggest publishers want to replicate that success in the west. Where does that leave Zynga and Playfish?
Verizon continued its push into carrier apps on Friday, announcing it will distribute Extent’s GameTanium subscription mobile gaming service. For $6 a month, Android smartphone and tablet users can play more than 100 games such as Fruit Ninja and World of Goo on an unlimited basis.
Amazon is getting more serious about gaming on the Kindle Fire with the introduction of GameCircle, a social engagement layer for developers who want to add achievements, leaderboards and cloud syncing to their games. The service is Amazon’s answer to Apple’s Game Center.
I hate on-screen game controls; there I said it. As gaming goes mobile, there has to be a better solution than covering up screen to move and play. Nyko has the right idea, debuting its PlayPad products for phones and tablets running Android 3.0 or better.
Mobile gaming conjures up images of people playing on subways, waiting in line and walking down the street. But you’re much more likely to find mobile gaming happening at home and in bed, according to two new surveys.
What Zynga acquired from OMGPOP isn’t just a hit game or the team that built it. It’s not buying ad or sales revenue from Draw Something users. What Zynga’s really buying is a huge engaged audience that it can funnel into its other social gaming properties.
Zynga has acquired OMGPOP, adding Draw Something to its list of popular social and mobile gaming titles. Zynga reportedly paid OMGPOP for some $180 million, plus another $30 million in employee retention.
Zynga is reportely looking at picking off its newest rival in OMGPOP, maker of the new hit mobile app Draw Something. According to TechCrunch, Zynga is looking at acquiring the New York-based OMGPOP, which just hit 30 million downloads of Draw Something on Friday.
About two weeks ago, I sat down with Zygna founder and CEO Mark Pincus to discuss the importance of mobile gaming to his company and evolution from Mark the entrepreneur to Pincus the CEO of a company that is valued at billions by Wall Street.
Draw Something, the No. 1 paid and free app right now on iOS and Android, is listed as a game but it’s not really a game at all. OMGPOP CEO Dan Porter, who designed the app, explains how it succeeds using cooperation, rather than competition.
Zynga has been trying its very best to diversify its business away from Facebook and it doesn’t have much of a choice. Ben Schachter, Internet analyst with Macquarie Securities went through the Facebook S-1. His take: Zynga’s fourth quarter 2011 isn’t going to be pretty.
G-cluster plans to enter the U.S. market with an on-demand gaming service. The company has secured an unnamed amount of funding from Intel and French mobile carrier SFR to expand its reach beyond home casual gaming and movie streaming into high-end gaming for tablets and smartphones.
One thing iOS and Mac developers need to take more advantage of is the halo effect of Apple’s devices. Real Racing 2 for the Mac, is a perfect example of how to capitalize on that with value-added features.
iOS and Android have tripled their mobile gaming market share since 2009. But it’s not just number of individual game sales on iOS and Android devices that’s growing: the two platforms’ game sales are affecting the bottom lines of the biggest names in gaming.
CrowdMob, an Andreessen Horowitz-backed startup, is taking the wraps off its business: creating a next-generation deal network that combines Tapjoy with Groupon. CrowdMob will distribute local deals via mobile gaming apps, incentivizing gamers to purchase offers using virtual currency.
6waves Lolapps, the newly-merged company that develops and publishes games for Facebook and other social networks, has launched a $10 million fund to invest in independent game developers. The 6L Fund is part of 6waves Lolapps’ play to become the”clear number two” to Zynga.
Mobile developer Gameview Studios said average revenue per user for its casual game Tap Fish is comparable between iOS and Android, and on some days Android is 30 percent higher than iOS. It shows that Android is closing the revenue gap on iOS.
Most of the money people spend within mobile games is on “consumable” items that have no lasting value once used. The most popular form of that is “premium” currency, which allows users to buy their way into advancing faster in a game, according to Flurry.
Zynga is expanding its mobile ambitions by apparently picking up New York City-based developer Astro Ape Studios. The gaming powerhouse, which is preparing to go public, has been increasingly looking to shore up its mobile efforts, which has not be as successful as its Facebook business.
Electronic Arts announced it is buying casual and mobile game developer PopCap Games for $750 million as it looks to speed up its evolution toward being a digital purveyor of games. EA is moving quickly away to embrace the opportunity in social and mobile gaming.
Zynga is ramping up its mobile efforts as it prepares for its IPO. Here are a few key strategies the social gaming company should pursue as it prepares to take on established developers in the fast-moving world of mobile gaming.
While iOS game developer Pocket Gems faces increasing competition from Facebook developers Zynga and Crowdstar, the company, with two titles in the top five grossing apps list, believes it can hold its own by being a purely mobile-focused player with an eye quality and user retention.
ISwifter, which launched originally as an iPad browser for Flash-based games and Flash video, is doubling down on social gaming by repositioning itself as a subscription service for gamers. ISwifter 3.0 has made a host of changes to improve the performance of Flash-based games.
Tap Me, a mobile advertising startup, is getting underway with its ad tool, which allows brands to sponsor power-ups in games. It’s a good example of how mobile ads are making the necessary evolution from something pushed on to users to something valuable they interact with.
Less than a week after OpenFeint was bought for $104 million, and six months after DeNA picked up Ngmoco for $403 million, social game platform operator PapayaMobile announced it has raised $18 million, further highlighting the momentum in the social mobile gaming space.
Outfit7, the company behind the fast-selling Talking Friends apps, is looking to build what may be a next-generation Disney-like digital entertainment company. And with 100 million downloads in ten months, the company is on its way to achieving its goal.
Apple is said to be in the process of bringing on Rob Saunders and Nick Grange, two top gaming industry PR execs, according to reports. If true, this could signal a move by Apple to play to its strengths in the ongoing mobile wars.
The trend to add Foursquare-like features has turned into a bandwagon. But is HeyZap’s new Android app, which lets you check in to mobile games, one idea that’s more than just a copycat? The company thinks the app discovery system is shifting, just like gaming.
If your image of a video gamer is a 30-something chugging Red Bull and playing first-person shooters all night, think again. Mobile social gaming — which includes everything from Electronic Arts’ Pogo lineup to Zynga’s FarmVille — is changing the video game space in a very big way.
Zynga announced it’s snapping up Words with Friends game developer Newtoy to help expand its gaming empire into mobile. The pick-up gives Zynga a hot mobile studio and a key partner in bringing its existing Facebook titles to mobile devices.
Papaya Mobile, already one of Android’s staunchest gaming supporters, is taking its support one step further by releasing a game engine designed to make it easy for developers to build Android games that can easily hook into Papaya’s mobile social platform.
Many signs suggest Sony will soon launch a Playstation Portable Phone. It’s a move that invites comparison to Microsoft’s plan of integrating Xbox Live with Windows Phone 7, a far more software-centric method of attack than Sony’s hardware-focused strategy. Which has a better shot at success?
Offerpal Media this morning said it has acquired Tapjoy, a small startup aimed at helping developers monetize their mobile applications. The move is a clear signal that the online phenomenon of offer-based ads is about to move into mobile in a big way.
Nokia is now zero for three when it comes to mobile gaming; the company said it will shut down down its N-Gage…
Kai-Fu Lee, who resigned as head of Google’s (s goog) operations in China last month, is looking to tap into burgeoning areas…
[show=luminaseries size=large]The premise “A young woman meets the man in the mirror” might be more likely to get a Michael Jackson song…
Few people understand the video game space the way Robin Boyar does. She boasts 15 years of research experience including online, console…
Here’s a fun new Facebook game app that just went live: The Mplayit Mobile Arcade, where you can play dozens of free…
Ever since Apple put out its Software Developer Kit in March, game developers have been racing to create titles for the presumed…