Mobile reports and market data
Documents
Biodroid's Ricardo Flores Santos on Billabong Surf Trip 2, MegaRamp and MegaRamp Championship
Biodroid, a Portuguese game developer specializing in action sports titles, is expanding its portfolio through strategic partnerships with major sports brands and athletes.
- Biodroid is launching 'MegaRamp Championship,' a new title that integrates directly with the X Games global tour to synchronize virtual gameplay with real-world professional athletic circuits.
- The studio employs a location-based strategy for the MegaRamp franchise, featuring in-game structures that mirror the specific cities hosting the real-world tour.
- Biodroid maintains a consistent mobile gaming presence by balancing seasonal releases, such as the Billabong Surf Trip series for summer and year-round extreme sports titles.
Best of British Game Hack 2
The Best of British (BOB) game hack serves as a collaborative, high-intensity development event designed to foster creativity and rapid prototyping within the UK game industry.
- The Best of British (BOB) game hack is a 48-hour development event held at Mine Candy headquarters where professional developers create and ship functional mobile games for iOS and Android.
- Participants utilize a standardized, pre-built framework to integrate multiple mini-games into a single, cohesive, and shippable software product.
- The event mandates a design philosophy inspired by the WarioWare series, requiring mini-games to last exactly seven seconds each.
Will Luton talks about the second Best of Brtiish game hack
The Best of British (BoB) game hack serves as a collaborative industry event designed to foster creative competition among mobile game developers.
- The Best of British (BoB) game hack is a collaborative industry event where mobile development teams compete to build rapid-fire, seven-second games.
- Games are linked sequentially in a WarioWare-style format, with gameplay speed increasing progressively as the player advances through the segments.
- Participating companies contribute teams of two to develop these high-intensity, condensed game mechanics within a constrained timeframe.
Spilt Milk's Andrew Smith on Best of British Hack
The Best of British game hack serves as a collaborative platform for professional developers to rapidly prototype and release mobile titles within a compressed 48-hour timeframe.
- The 'Best of British' hackathon challenges professional developers to conceptualize, build, and ship mobile games for iOS and Android within a strict 48-hour timeframe.
- The event utilizes a micro-game structure where individual gameplay segments last approximately 17 seconds, optimized for rapid mobile engagement.
- Participants are encouraged to step outside their traditional professional roles, such as developers taking on artistic responsibilities, to broaden their skill sets.
The UK Games Market: 2012 Summary Report
The 2012 UK Games Market report provides a comprehensive analysis of the gaming landscape in the United Kingdom, focusing on player demographics, platform usage, and evolving business models.
- The UK gaming market reached 33.6 million active gamers in 2012, representing a 9% year-on-year increase.
- 64% of the 33.6 million active UK gamers engage in paid gaming activities.
- UK gamers exhibit fragmented consumption habits, with the average individual utilizing 3.9 different platforms.
Pocket Gamer's Mobile Mixer 2012 - Tanu Matti Tuovinen from Vision +
Vision+ operates as a strategic investment firm focused on supporting game developers by providing capital while allowing creators to retain full ownership of their intellectual property.
- Vision+ utilizes a revenue-sharing investment model that allows game developers to retain full ownership of their intellectual property without diluting their equity.
- The firm provides individual investments ranging from 50,000 to 500,000 euros, typically covering 50% of a project's average one-million-euro production budget.
- Backed by Microsoft and Nokia, the fund is designed to support up to 200 distinct intellectual properties across web, mobile, PC, Mac, and console platforms.
Pocket Gamer's Mobile Mixer 2012 - Ville Tuominen from Symbio
The development landscape for Windows Phone in 2012 presents a strategic opportunity for mobile developers despite the platform’s smaller market share compared to industry leaders.
- Microsoft’s massive annual R&D investment, which exceeds that of major competitors, signals a long-term commitment to the Windows Phone ecosystem.
- Windows Phone is experiencing rapid growth, with adoption curves currently outpacing those of the Android market as of 2012.
- Microsoft provides robust, mature tooling and high-quality documentation that enables rapid application development and high levels of abstraction.
Pocket Gamer's Mobile Mixer 2012 - Oscar Clark from Papaya Mobile
The presentation outlines a strategic framework for mobile game design, emphasizing that successful monetization is inextricably linked to social integration and player psychology.
- Developers should treat free players as a vital pipeline, as 'whales' typically engage with a game for 8 to 12 days before making their first purchase.
- The industry saw a rapid shift toward free-to-play models between 2012 and the preceding period, with premium-style monetization adoption increasing from 37% to 65% in six months.
- Cross-game monetization is a significant revenue driver, evidenced by XCity data showing 42% of paying players spent money in multiple titles with an average revenue per paying user of $12.73.
Pocket Gamer's Mobile Mixer 2012 - Welcome to Tampere
The 2012 Pocket Gamer Mobile Mixer in Tampere, Finland, served as a strategic networking and knowledge-sharing platform for the regional and international mobile gaming industry.
- The 2012 mobile gaming landscape emphasized a shift toward data-driven development, utilizing review aggregation services and developer ranking lists to track market performance and critical reception.
- Global expansion strategies in 2012 necessitated that mobile developers prioritize partnerships within Asian markets, specifically targeting growth opportunities in China and Korea.
- The Finnish gaming sector, supported by organizations like Manse Games and major players such as Rovio and Nokia, served as a primary hub for regional industry scaling and professional networking.
Pocket Gamer Biz interview Gary Liu, COO of Cocoa China
The Chinese mobile gaming market is experiencing rapid expansion, with projections indicating significant growth from current levels to an estimated 5 billion RMB by 2013.
- The Chinese mobile gaming market is projected to grow to 5 billion RMB by 2013.
- Android is currently outpacing iOS in growth and market importance within China, necessitating a strategic shift toward cross-platform development.
- Cocoa China is launching a multi-language game development tool, codenamed A2 SP2, in May 2013 to enable single-codebase deployment across all major platforms.
Pocket Gamer Biz interview Henry Fong, CEO of Yodo1
Yodo1 serves as a specialized gateway for Western mobile game developers seeking to navigate the complex Chinese market.
- Yodo1 provides a service that enables Western mobile game developers to distribute and monetize their titles in the Chinese market in under seven days.
- The Chinese mobile market is experiencing rapid growth, with an estimated 200 million smartphones in use and a penetration rate of less than 20%, signaling significant long-term potential.
- Yodo1 differentiates itself by aggregating and federating access to China's fragmented ecosystem of top ad networks, payment methods, and distribution channels rather than forcing developers into a proprietary network.
Pocket Gamer Biz interview Matt Lee, CEO of Mob Arts
Mob Arts, a Beijing-based mobile entertainment developer, distinguishes itself within the Chinese gaming landscape by prioritizing original intellectual property and innovative design over the common industry practice of cloning existing titles.
- Mob Arts differentiates itself in the Chinese market by prioritizing original IP and 3D-rendered console-style mechanics over the industry-standard practice of cloning existing titles.
- The studio’s flagship title, Space Tank, achieved strong international validation in the Korean market by securing nearly 7,000 five-star reviews within its first week of launch.
- Success for international developers in China requires high-quality game design, effective localization, and a commitment to providing consistent, compelling content updates for user retention.