Finland's one bright spark, Kamcord's $15M and CCGs in China.

hello and welcome to pocketgamer.biz Weekly News Digest this is for the week ending the 12th of December 2014 I'm John Jordan um so so we're getting close to uh to the end of the year even in uh in normally rainy Manchester it's getting getting uh colder us so we're all in all onesie as you can see my lovely onesie here so but yeah so the kind of the news I guess the news kind of cycle is is is dying down a little bit people start to go on holidays as I will be doing next week in fact um there's still kind of a few things bubbling under I mean there's a kind of interesting as a journalist kind of covering this this this period of of of the year because there's not a lot going on we obviously kind of kind of switch focus a little bit so we're not really waiting for news to come in we're kind of doing our roundups of the year and and um kind of getting people to look back on the year and talk about what was interesting from their

company's point of view and and the games they liked and that kind of stuff so that's kind of that's always interesting and that kind of content will be going live on pocket gaming. Biz next week or starting next week um for for the next couple of weeks really um few interesting things to come up I guess to the degree no surprise in in the kind of the favorite games of the year I mean Hearthstone pretty pretty much up there um as as the I guess the free-to-play game not necessarily people's favorite game but Kim Kardashian Hollywood um is one that everyone's kind of noting has been massively successful um I'm still playing that even even um didn't don't know didn't know at the start who the Kardashians were to be perfectly honest and now I find myself writing new stories about Chloe and Courtney I don't even know who they are so there we go I'll find out when the game's updated in a couple of weeks time I suppose um kind of interesting how many people kind of I guess maybe they they don't think they know Flappy Bird wasn't released in 2014 but 2013 but anyway a lot of people still saying Flappy Bird is the kind of the the the interesting news of the year um other games people are obviously highlighting um Monument Valley

um 80 Days um those kind of kind of paid games kind of finding their way into people's kind of end of year kind of best ofs um but before we got get on that there kind of has been kind of trickles the news this week it's kind of interesting kind of times for people to announce funding news really um you don't really think you would announce new kind of funding news coming up to um kind of mid December but um I guess it kind of shows um with funding news it's always interesting um to see kind of who's getting funded particularly if it's kind of um what kind of sectors of the industry so there's one ing one a company called play Raven which is a Finn developer I guess to degree Finnish developers raising money is not a big surprise so 2014 has been a year when pretty much any finish developer who's making a free-to-play game can ra has raised millions of pounds that millions of dollars or Euros whatever um it's quite kind an interesting time because it's we're actually now the on the fth year anniversary of um Angry Birds coming out it doesn't I guess it depends whether you think 5 years is a long time or not obviously in the 5 years since angry birs came out became a phenomenon

999 cent game things have changed rapidly and and roio is going now through its own kind of restructuring and laying certain amount of people off and and and kind of for them 2014 has been about doing free-to-play games um I guess what's interesting from the point of view of play Raven is I would say of all the finished developers who have raised money this year and as I say there's been quite a lot they're the one who have actually proven that that they've doing something a bit different so a lot finish developers have been technically very good art s very good and they were quick to free to play um probably quicker than anyone else in Western Europe and the states um but some of those games have started coming out and and not really been successful so I guess the big one of the year was was um super NS which is a beautiful looking game you know amazing really interesting kind of Minecraft habo hotel kind of mix up typ thing um and just fell flat you know just people didn't get the concept all for whatever reason but um and and there's been some other games so there's kind of um some some some other kind of developers in in

Finland who have kind of come up with raised a lot of money to come up with free-to-play games that are going to revolutionary stuff so kind of Boom Lagoon came up with monster which is a very nice kind of side scrolling game but doesn't really do anything different we haven't seen before and hasn't really done anything in terms of chart chart wise similar seriously with with best fiends kind of a match three game really quite nice um evolution of match three gameplay but hasn't really done anything kind of um in terms of top roing nature so you're kind of seeing this kind of interesting where I think for Finland it's been Prov itself very good on the business sense hasn't necessarily proven itself that it can it's going to generate the returns that the investors suggest ex the exception I think at the moment being play Raven who had a game out this year called um spy Master which is um kind of a just a very nice kind of World War II themed Espionage game very different the game play is very different the way it monetizes it kind of monetizes because the game play is very different in a very kind of kind of light way so um but just just has got kind of really good critical claim and and and their their uh CEO Lassa um has

kind of got on record a lot about saying how freeo play needs to reinvent itself in 2015 and how you know there needs to be much more um kind of creative mixing of game play and monetization and and and they've they actually play Raven actually raised 2 million euros 2 million say 2.3 million dollars at the start of the year and they raised another 4 million 4.125 if I'm correct million dollars at the end of the year so they've raised about 7 million uh pretty much during the year um so that' be interesting to see I think they definitely want to look forward to in 2015 the other thing I guess we do is the end of the year comes to an end we look forward to what's going to happen next year um few other few other things quickly to rush through um so other other big funding rounds actually a big funding round for um camcord which is um one of the I guess one or two big video replay uh networks so the other one is every play which was bought by unity during the year in the summer um camcord is is kind of I guess the US kind of kind of rival to uh to every play and

they've raised $15 million um in their round interestingly um most of that round was was funded by gungho so gungho obviously made whatever it is one1 billion doar this year off of the back of um puzzle and dragons to one of the kind of top three franch mobile franchises of the year um and that company made a lot of money and it's kind of but $15 million is still quite a lot of money to to to invest into into a into a technology startup and the whole point of of uh Camp cord as with every play is um the kind of idea is that um players can can can re can kind of record their gameplay moments kind of things they're proud of skill-wise and then share them so people can kind go how I got stuck on this bit level how do you get through it all or what's the best strategy for for winning this kind of level in in depending on what a card kind of battle or whether it's like a skill game or this kind of stuff so you know that's kind of interesting for Community which is obviously people something people care about a lot and also um kind of virality and Discovery

so that's kind of why those kind of companies are getting so much VC money talking of Puzzle and Dragons as well so gungho massive success in Japan it's where the most majority of its Revenue comes done pretty well in the US and Western Europe I think they've done four million downloads there they finally announced it coming to China it's kind of interesting China obviously massive Market probably other commentators suggest 2015 China will be the biggest mobile games Market in the world potentially $6 billion um Revenue probably about 4 billion this year um and card collection games um apparently about 35% of the market at least about a third of the market so um it' be interesting to see whether the puzzles Puzzle and Dragons will do well in China it's obviously taken them a couple of years to get it out in China and in that meantime there've been some pretty um kind of I mean they're not clones but people who have looked to see that there's no big card kind of Collection Games in China and made some so so immt being the classic one from from uh Loco joy and that was a number one game in China for pretty much all 2013 made them a lot of money um so maybe the market for for for those card games has has already been um kind of filled by local

product maybe um 10cent being the massive Behemoth that it is they have the muscle in terms of marketing and distribution to get puzzle and dragons to be a big a big hit there as well um so I guess that's kind of a wrap up of of kind of funding news this week um uh and yes I guess uh I may see you before Christmas but if I don't have have a have a nice Christmas and uh and I guess we'll see you on the uh the next next year next Year yes so uh see you then