Game Development reports and market data
Documents
The Finnish Games Industry: 2008
The Finnish games industry emerged by 2008 as a primary cultural export sector, generating a total turnover of €87 million.
- The Finnish games industry generated €87 million in total turnover in 2008, with 87 percent of revenue derived from international markets.
- Public funding was critical to innovation, with Tekes subsidies covering nearly 30 percent of the €22 million invested in research and development during 2007.
- The sector employed over 1,100 people across 32 active development firms, including established entities such as Remedy Entertainment and Sulake Corporation.
Press Start CEO Luis Ernesto Parra on its YetiZen learnings
Press Start Studios, a mobile game developer with operations in both Colombia and San Francisco, focuses on bridging the gap between hardcore gaming experiences and the accessibility of free-to-play mobile titles.
- Press Start Studios utilizes a dual-location model, combining Colombian talent and government support with a San Francisco presence to maintain 24-hour development cycles.
- The studio’s 2013 participation in the three-month YetiZen incubator program served as a primary catalyst for refining their investment strategies, corporate scalability, and product design.
- The company’s core business strategy focuses on bridging the gap between hardcore action-adventure gaming and the high-retention, free-to-play mobile market.
Casual casino outfit Playnomi talk about their future plans
Playnomi, a San Francisco-based startup participating in the YetiZen business acceleration program, is positioning itself to capture market share in the social casino sector by emphasizing community-driven, team-based gameplay.
- Playnomi is building a network of interconnected social casino games that allow players to maintain consistent virtual currency balances and social circles across multiple titles.
- The company is prioritizing community-driven, team-based gameplay over high-stakes, real-money gambling models to differentiate itself in the mobile market.
- The startup plans to launch three distinct casino titles, including virtual scratch cards, video poker, and team-based blackjack, within a two-month window.
Applicasa's Tzvi Kopetz discusses mobile monetisation
Applicasa functions as a specialized platform designed to enhance mobile game monetization by enabling developers to perform real-time user segmentation and deploy targeted in-game promotions.
- Applicasa’s platform optimizes mobile game monetization by enabling real-time user segmentation and targeted in-game promotions based on geographic location and individual spending habits.
- The core business strategy focuses on increasing conversion rates and player lifetime value by tailoring value propositions to heterogeneous user profiles.
- Founded in July 2011, the company transitioned from a backend-as-a-service provider to a dedicated monetization platform in late 2012.
Nikhil Soman talks Playblazer, a cloud-based game services outfit
Playblazer functions as a backend-as-a-service provider designed to accelerate the development of multiplayer mobile games.
- Playblazer provides a backend-as-a-service platform that reduces multiplayer mobile game development time and costs by at least 50 percent.
- The platform enables studios to bypass complex server management, allowing developers to focus exclusively on game design and player engagement.
- Jump Games successfully transitioned the Real Steel franchise from a single-player game to a multiplayer experience in a ten-week development cycle using Playblazer's infrastructure.
Sana Choudary talks about the Yetizen accelerator
YetiZen operates as a specialized accelerator and innovation hub based in San Francisco, designed to scale mobile gaming companies and platforms.
- YetiZen is a San Francisco-based accelerator that focuses on scaling post-product, post-traction mobile gaming companies rather than early-stage startups.
- The program is highly selective, accepting a maximum of 10 companies per cohort twice a year out of approximately 1,500 annual applicants.
- YetiZen operates a dual-purpose model that combines a collaborative co-working space with an industry hub that hosted over 150 events for 7,000 participants last year.
NARR8's Darya Trushkina talks nextgen storytelling
NARR8 operates as a multimedia entertainment application designed to modernize the reading experience through interactive, next-generation eBooks.
- NARR8 achieved 800,000 users within its first six months of operation using a freemium business model across iOS and Android platforms.
- The company prioritizes the internal development of original intellectual property over expensive third-party licensing to reduce operational costs and reinvest in content.
- The platform is launching a curated editorial tool that allows external creators to produce interactive stories, with a meritocratic system that rewards high-engagement content with increased visibility.
Raising the Dead - How Telltale's Walking Dead Revived Adventure Games - Extra Credits
Telltale Games’ The Walking Dead serves as a primary case study for the revitalization of the adventure game genre, demonstrating that the format remains viable when developers prioritize narrative depth over outdated mechanical tropes.
- Telltale Games’ The Walking Dead successfully revitalized the adventure genre by prioritizing narrative depth and character development over outdated mechanical tropes.
- The game achieved its success by removing traditional barriers such as inventory management, pixel hunting, and convoluted puzzle-solving.
- By stripping away legacy mechanics, the developers modernized the adventure format to focus on the core appeal of immersive storytelling rather than mechanical constraints.
Differences in Scale vs Differences in Kind - Keeping Players Interested - Extra Credits
Effective game design requires a balance between differences in scale and differences in kind to maintain player engagement.
- Sustaining long-term player engagement requires a balance between differences in scale, such as adjusting health or difficulty, and differences in kind, which involve fundamental shifts in mechanics and pacing.
- Relying exclusively on differences in scale creates a predictable interest curve that inevitably leads to player fatigue.
- Successful design integrates varied experiences—such as stealth, tactical movement, and cinematic sequences—directly into the core gameplay loop to prevent repetition.
The Chevrolet update for Real Racing 3 is revealed
The upcoming Chevrolet content update for Real Racing 3 introduces two iconic American vehicles to the mobile racing title: the Chevrolet Camaro and the Cobalt SS.
- Real Racing 3 is adding the Chevrolet Camaro and Cobalt SS in a mid-April update to address high player demand for the manufacturer.
- The update introduces 100 new gameplay events to increase player engagement and retention.
- Cross-platform cloud save functionality is being implemented across iOS, Android, and Amazon devices to allow seamless transitions between hardware ecosystems.
CEO David Helgason explains how Unity has democratised game making
Unity has established itself as a dominant force in game development by democratizing access to high-quality tools, currently supporting a community of 400,000 active developers and a total user base of 1.5 million.
- Unity currently supports 400,000 active developers and a total user base of 1.5 million, positioning itself as the industry-standard engine for cross-platform development.
- The company’s core strategy focuses on lowering barriers to entry for small teams of one to ten people to foster creative and financial independence.
- Unity has secured a strategic partnership with Sony to provide engine support for all of the hardware manufacturer's future platforms.
Halfbrick designer Luke Muscat talks about new game Fish Out Of Water
Fish Out Of Water represents a departure from the established design philosophy at Halfbrick Studios, moving away from traditional endless-runner mechanics toward a physics-based stone-skipping concept.
- Halfbrick Studios is shifting its design focus from endless-runner mechanics to a physics-based stone-skipping concept in its new title, Fish Out Of Water.
- The core gameplay requires players to select three fish from a roster of six to perform throws, which are then evaluated by a panel of five judges with unique scoring priorities.
- A dynamic weather system updates every hour, altering water physics and environmental conditions to ensure that no two gameplay sessions are identical.