Epic Games partners with Fortumo to launch carrier billing
Tuesday, June 9, 2020 by Brittany Hainzinger
The video game and software developer and publisher Epic Games and the mobile technology company Fortumo are announcing the launch of a carrier billing partnership. Epic Games has integrated Fortumo’s carrier billing platform to collect payments for Fortnite Battle Passes, game purchases in the Epic Games Store and other Epic Games content.
The first country wh...
The true potential of blockchain as seen from Ethan Beard
Wednesday, May 13, 2020 by Richard Harris
Ripple offers the most advanced blockchain technology for global payments that reaches a trusted, growing network of 300+ financial institutions across 40+ countries and
six continents. Ripple’s open-source developer platform for money, Xpring, allows both crypto and non-crypto developers to integrate payments into any mobile application—with a wallet, new ...
Informa Tech announces GDC Summer
Monday, March 23, 2020 by Brittany Hainzinger
Informa Tech has announced GDC Summer, a three-day celebration of the art, craft, and business of game development, to be held from August 4-6 at the Moscone Center in San Francisco. GDC Summer will be a unique Game Developers Conference experience but will retain the same high level of expert-led talks as the traditional GDC, along with a freestyle two-day expo show fl...
GDC 2020 virtual awards and talk schedule
Thursday, March 12, 2020 by Brittany Hainzinger
The organizers of the Game Developers Conference (GDC) announced plans to stream talks during the week GDC 2020 would have taken place, March 16-20.
Thanks to submissions from many of the original speakers who had talks accepted for GDC 2020, organizers will be streaming speaker-recorded versions of the talks they would have given in person, for free all week (from 9...
Coronavirus takes down GDC and is impacting SXSW, is E3 next
Thursday, March 5, 2020 by Stuart Parkerson
San Francisco and the tech industry felt trembles and it wasn’t an earthquake or Godzilla, it was Coronavirus flexing its muscle as the leadership at GDC announced at the end of last week that they were postponing the weeklong Game Developers Conference indefinitely, which was scheduled to kick off March 16. That means that over 30,000 people won’t be attend...
In game advertising extends beyond casual games
Tuesday, December 31, 2019 by Freeman Lightner
The fifth annual In-Game Advertising Study by deep-data analytics and player management company, deltaDNA, finds that 94% of Free-to-Play (F2P) games now feature some form of in-game advertising (up from 87% in 2018). While the number of developers making between 40-100% of their revenue from ads has increased by 21% year on year.
The study, which is based...
Ad monetization app launches from ironSource
Wednesday, December 4, 2019 by Freeman Lightner
Mobile monetization and marketing company ironSource announced the global launch of its comprehensive, mobile app for developers. The app allows developers using ironSource’s growth solutions to get an instant and granular view of revenue and campaign performance in the palm of their hands. In the first stage of its release, the revolutionary app provides rea...
MEGAFANS new advertising strategy
Monday, October 14, 2019 by Freeman Lightner
MEGAFANS Inc. (Mobile eSports Games Fanatics) has launched a new self-sustaining advertising strategy, unlike anything eSports companies have done so far they say. The new strategy involves utilizing the freemium model employed by gaming studios in order to monetize consumers who aren’t converting to eSports. Operating in a $68 billion market, this self-susta...
Unity buys deltaDNA but it will operate as a separate entity
Wednesday, September 25, 2019 by Christian Hargrave
Unity Technologies announced the acquisition of deltaDNA. Under the terms of the acquisition, deltaDNA will continue to operate as a separate entity, providing its engine agnostic player lifetime management tools to developers worldwide.
“Today’s acquisition of deltaDNA builds on Unity’s commitment to enabling developer success at all stages of the ...
InterSystems launches QuickML with machine learning capabilities
Tuesday, September 24, 2019 by Christian Hargrave
InterSystems, a provider of information technology platforms for health, business, and government applications, has launched QuickML, available to users of the InterSystems IRIS Data Platform and the InterSystems IRIS for Health Data Platform. The announcement was made at InterSystems Global Summit 2019, the company's annual conference,...
How game developers can drive more revenue
Monday, September 23, 2019 by Offer Yehudai
Game developers tend to follow standard templates for monetizing their apps. Mid-core publishers focus on IAP and time-gated ads to be shown at a later date, usually based on their studios' recommendation. Meanwhile, hyper-casual ones go all-in on advertising, while casual games fall somewhere in between. These default strategies leave money on the table b...
Mobile gaming industry benchmarks offer fresh look on industry
Wednesday, September 18, 2019 by Christian Hargrave
Mobile game industry benchmarks report has been released by GameAnalytics, offering a fresh look at how gamers play and pay on their smartphones. The report highlights performance benchmarks for key metrics across the top 16 genres, including retention, session length, stickiness, conversion rate, ARPPU, and ARPDAU. In this report, GameAnalytics has also partnered with ...
Playable gaming ads lands from Luna Labs
Friday, August 2, 2019 by Richard Harris
Luna Labs has officially launched the Luna toolkit, which allows developers building in Unity to streamline the development process, and easily create lightweight experiences for HTML5 game platforms and the next generation of playable ad creation.
“Luna was born in a gaming studio, where we saw first hand that there was an increasing need for HTML5 conte...
Independent Games Festival 2020 now accepting submissions
Wednesday, July 31, 2019 by Richard Harris
Informa Tech, the organizers of the Game Developers Conference (GDC) 2020, are now accepting submissions to present lectures, roundtables, and panels for the Core Concepts part of the event, taking place from Wednesday through Friday of the GDC week.
Proposals will be open from now until Thursday, August 15th at 11:59 PM PT. GDC 2020 marks the 34th edition of the con...
Apple Arcade game development and Stadia set to shift gaming industry
Wednesday, May 1, 2019 by Richard Harris
In the last few months, the gaming industry has witnessed major shifts as new emerging services begin to take shape across various platforms. Drilling down into mobile gaming, the recent launches of Google Stadia and Apple Arcade have presented gamers with two new mediums to flex their gaming skills. However, these emerging platforms have presented new implications, cha...
Unity 2019.1 gets over 300 improvements
Thursday, April 18, 2019 by Richard Harris
Fresh off the heels of a successful and exciting (as always) Game Developers Conference (GDC 2019), Unity Technologies launch Unity 2019.1. Unity 2019.1 includes almost 300 new features and improvements, including powerful, production-ready versions of the Lightweight Render Pipeline, the Burst Compiler, and the Shader Graph, which is helping creators and teams of all s...
Making mini games for WeChat's platform now possible
Tuesday, March 26, 2019 by Richard Harris
WeChat is now opening up its newest and powerful Mini Games platform, enabling game developers around the world to create hit games on WeChat’s unique ecosystem.
Here are the proof points:
The Mini Games platform has grown to more than 400 million monthly active users.
The 7-day user retention rate of some the most popular Mini Games has already rockete...
The Game of the Year winner is God of War announced at GDC 19
Friday, March 22, 2019 by Brittany Hainzinger
Sony Santa Monica & Sony Interactive Entertainment’s epic reimagining of the intense action/adventure series, God of War, was honored with the prize for Game of the Year at the 19th annual Game Developers Choice Awards (GDCA) ceremony during the 2019 Game Developers Conference (GDC) at the Moscone Convention Center in San Francisco. Sony’s God of War tel...
What's happening at GDC 2019
Wednesday, March 20, 2019 by Richard Harris
The 2019 Game Developers Conference (GDC) kicks off with its 33rd edition at the Moscone Convention Center in San Francisco. This year, the GDC will again feature a roster of more than a thousand esteemed speakers across a week of lectures, tutorials, roundtable discussions, and networking events.
This year adds a new showcase presentation in the form of th...
Ahead of GDC 2019, Google drops new app advertising solutions
Monday, March 18, 2019 by Richard Harris
Google has announced new mobile app advertising solutions ahead of the Game Developers Conference 2019.
The new tools aim to help developers carve out better revenue and build a better app business, especially those developers making games. There are new tools in most sections of the software lifecycle, including pre-launch, launch, and even post-launch.
...
New mobile ads SDK lands from Verizon Media to replace Flurry Ads
Tuesday, February 26, 2019 by Brittany Hainzinger
Verizon Media launched Verizon Ads recently, a new mobile SDK that is a single and modular SDK for app developers that aims to bring together the best monetization assets of AOL and Yahoo, and can provide access to complete mobile demand across Oath Ad Platforms. The SDK integrated with the IAB Tech Lab Open Measurement SDK. It will replace the Flurry Monetization ...
Gaming on mobile data says you are probably a gamer but don't admit it
Tuesday, February 26, 2019 by Richard Harris
Who’s a gamer? Chances are, it’s you. Most smartphone owners in the U.S. need look no further than their own mobile phone home screen for evidence that new categories of games are changing the face of modern video game players. From the early days of arcade games to the rise of Fortnite, mobile gaming - and the rise of casual games - has democratized gaming ...
Unity's Adaptive Performance gaming feature set for the Galaxy S10
Thursday, February 21, 2019 by Richard Harris
The Samsung Galaxy S10 will have many mobile "super-powers". From extended battery life to Instagram mode pictures - they have packed enough tech inside to make any propeller spin.
But something mentioned during the announcement caught my attention relating specifically to game development, did you hear it?
Unity is soon to launch what they call, "A...
Gaming industry trends released ahead of GDC 2019
Wednesday, January 30, 2019 by Richard Harris
The 2019 Game Developers Conference (GDC) has released the results of the seventh annual State of the Industry Survey, revealing trends in the game industry ahead of GDC 2019 in March.
The survey compiles responses from nearly 4,000 game developers and reflects that nearly half of game developers support game industry unionization, as well as uncertainty around Steam...
Hothead games wants to make your mobile game a hit too
Thursday, January 24, 2019 by Richard Harris
Hothead Games announced that it has launched a new publishing division to help third-party game developers turn their mobile games into hits. The company is currently accepting submissions and offering financial assistance for games in various stages of development that will benefit from Hothead’s expertise in analytics, marketing, monetization, and gameplay mecha...
Game developer tips and insight for 2019
Thursday, January 24, 2019 by Richard Harris
2019 offers promising new opportunities for game developers to reach new markets. But how can developers best capture diverse users’ attention and loyalty? Webpals Mobile, a performance-driven mobile-app user acquisition company, recently conducted a study comparing advertising driving gaming app downloads in the United States and Asia. Drawing on insights from th...
Developing video games that work for everyone
Monday, January 14, 2019 by Matias Nicolas Rodriguez
Video games are interactive experiences – as the player, you can live many different lives racing fast cars, fighting great creatures and going on exciting, magical adventures. For as long as video games companies have existed, the focus has been largely on games that are fun to play.
Of course, though, we’ve all had to sit out a round and wait for a free...
This DDoS report could help you avoid a security disaster
Thursday, January 10, 2019 by Christian Hargrave
MazeBolt Technologies, the company offering DDoS threat assessment, has released ”The State of DDoS Protection Report,” the first global independent report about DDoS mitigation effectiveness.
”Since DDoS mitigation started in the late 1990s, enterprises have had little to no visibility on how effective their DDoS mitigation actually is,” said...
5 rules of monetizing like a mobile game developer
Wednesday, January 9, 2019 by Sean Webster
Mobile game developers are some of the most successful monetizers and marketers in recent history. Need proof? Mobile gaming revenue accounted for nearly 82% of all app revenue in 2017 and will surpass $100 billion by 2021.
The formula for success for mobile game developers is simple: easy payments, a finely-tuned monetization strategy, and great customer support. Bu...
Unity releases gameplay frequency report
Saturday, January 5, 2019 by Richard Harris
Unity Technologies powers more than 50% of all new mobile games today. They have just released new data revealing how much time was spent playing on mobile devices in the United States in 2018 - and the numbers are a bit shocking.
US residents spent 6.926 billion hours playing mobile games in 2018. That’s an average of 21 hours and 6 minutes for every single pe...
Independent Games Festival finalists and ceremony at GDC 2019
Friday, January 4, 2019 by Richard Harris
The Independent Games Festival (IGF) has revealed the finalists for its 21st annual awards ceremony. The IGF Awards will take place March 20th, 2019 at 6.30pm PT during the Game Developers Conference 2019, and will be hosted by Meg Jayanth, the award-winning writer of 80 Days, the acclaimed globetrotting interactive storytelling game and former IGF Award winner for Exce...
What game developers can learn from Fortnite's rise
Friday, December 28, 2018 by Richard Harris
Fortnite took over the video game world in 2018 and reached over $1 billion in sales, reaching every gaming fan with experiences on all the major consoles, mobile operating systems and even streaming platforms like Twitch. However, Fortnite seems to have reached a plateau with a recent study by StreamElements revealing viewership of the game has steadily declined since ...
WordPress MarfeelPress plugin gives power to the publisher
Thursday, November 29, 2018 by Christian Hargrave
Marfeel announced that it has launched MarfeelPress, their first all-in-one plugin that enables publishers of all sizes using the WordPress content management system (CMS) to enhance the mobile version of their content while boosting engagement and ad revenue. In the first stage of its official launch, Marfeel will be releasing the plugin to select publishers by invitat...
Top ranking mobile games earn 10X what other games do
Monday, October 29, 2018 by Richard Harris
A report from Mobvista-owned GameAnalytics has shown yet again just how competitive the mobile games industry is, with a minority of top-performing titles capturing a disproportionate slice of the $70 billion forecast to be spent on mobile games in 2018.
The report, titled "Mobile Gaming Benchmarks", is GameAnalytics’ second global anal...
Unity Ads SDK 3.0 come to game developers
Wednesday, October 24, 2018 by Richard Harris
Unity has just launched the latest version of their Ads SDK, and it’s a doozy. The new Unity Ads SDK 3.0 introduces personalized placements, as well as two new ad formats: Augmented reality and Banner ads.
Personalized placements are particularly noteworthy. Now in open beta, personalized placements tie ads and in-app purchases into the same auction, serving th...
