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Apple has withdrawn the AppGratis app from the App Store, which informs about free programs and iTunes sales.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

 

Mode 7 studio has announced that in May it will release the popular turn-based tactical game Frozen Synapse on the iPad.

Facebook Home Android firmware is about to be launched, which will allow the Facebook social network to be integrated as deeply as possible into Google’s operating system. Mark Zuckerberg has announced the imminent launch of the Facebook Home Android firmware. 

Gartner has presented its forecast for the development of the mobile device market for 2017. These data go against the figures prepared by IDC specialists.

Rovio has announced its plans to move Angry Birds Friends from Facebook to the iOS and Android mobile platforms.

Tom Hall, one of the creators of Wolfenstein 3D and Doom, joined the PlayFirst team, the authors of Diner Dash.

The Russian developer of casual games Realore today wants to talk about its successful cooperation with Microsoft and the experience of releasing games on Windows 8.

Recently we wrote about the announcement of the mobile version of Injustice and wondered what the iOS game would be for its “console brother”. One of the versions was that it could be an additional tool for monetization of the original game.

Michael Schade, CEO of FishLabs, answered a number of questions at the Winter Nights: Mobile Games Conference about the difficulties of working with the franchise and the differences in monetization schemes for different countries. The interview was conducted in English. 

Yesterday, Futuremark announced the release of a version of the popular 3DMark test package for Android on Google Play.

The creators of Angry Birds have published a detailed financial report for the past year. According to him, the company’s revenue for 2012 amounted to €152.2 million (or about $ 195.2 million).