In the first quarter of 2013, the number of total downloads of the four leading stores crossed the mark of 13.4 billion, the analytical company Canalys reported. 

In four days of sales, Russian retailers managed to sell only 300 Surface devices.

The Israeli Golden Fingers team, with the help of the Indiegogo crowdfunding service, has started raising funds necessary for marketing and advertising its WriteOn mobile game!

Sony Corporation allowed to connect the DUALSHOCK 3 from the PlayStation 3 to its own Android smartphones of the Xperia series. 

In his interview, Ville Heijari, senior vice president of brand marketing at Rovio, told us about the merger of franchises. The conversation was held in English as part of the Winter Nights conference.

The mobile social gaming platform Heyzap has announced that it has added an option to its payment system that allows accepting payments and making payments in the virtual currency Bitcoins. 

Kabam has created a $50 million fund designed to help Japanese developers enter the Western market. Why is it an American company and Japanese developers, the editors of App2Top understood.

The revenue of the mobile gaming industry in China by the end of 2013 will be about $ 1.3 billion, according to CocoaChina. However, this will not make it easier for Western companies to work on it. 

The Finnish company Jolla, which develops the mobile OC Sailfish, the heiress of MeeGo, has announced the release of its SDK installers for Windows, OS X and Linux.

Richard Firminger, Managing Director of Flurry, Europe, told the editorial board of App2Top about marketing in the mobile gaming industry. The interview was conducted in English as part of the Winter Nights conference.

Rovio talked about how much she earns per year; Facebook presented its own firmware and smartphone; DeNA shared the secrets of competent PvP; and we interviewed Marmalade and Herocraft.

Apple has withdrawn the AppGratis app from the App Store, which informs about free programs and iTunes sales. 

 

comScore reported that about 133.7 million Americans have smartphones, of which 38.9% prefer the iPhone.

The average annual salary of an American game developer at the end of 2012 was $84 thousand, Game Developer reports in the April issue based on the results of its own survey. This is almost $3 thousand more than in 2011.

London-based startup Brainbow Games has received investments worth $ 1.2 million, which will be directed to the development of mobile educational games of the new generation.

Mikhail Katkoff analyzed in detail the mechanics of Puzzle & Dragons, the highest-grossing game in the world, earning up to $86 million per month in the Japanese market alone. 

Sebastian Kriese, Wooga’s Strategic Partnership manager, told us how to port the game from Facebook to the mobile platform and which monetization scheme to choose. The interview was conducted in English as part of the Winter Nights conference.