Puzzle & Dragons has a birthday – the game is two years old, Sailfish was officially released, AppLift held a webinar on mobile games, and Kabam opened an office in Korea. This and much more is in the news release for Friday, February 21.
Market
Yesterday Puzzle & Dragons celebrated the two-year anniversary of Puzzle & Dragons, and at the same time announced the appearance of eponymous slot machines in Japan soon.
http://www.indienavi.com/2014/02/20/additional-details-from-the-pd-press-conference
AppLift held the first webinar of a series dedicated to the mobile games market in 2014. The webinar was attended by Newzoo, Wooga and Distimo. You can view it at the link below:
http://www.applift.com/blog/mobile-games-market-outlook.html
The IPO of King is evidence that the mobile games market is not only surprisingly large, but has also become “adult”.
http://techcrunch.com/2014/02/20/king-ipo/
Kabam opens an office in Seoul. According to the company’s executive director Kevin Chou, Korea is the main center of global expansion for Kabam.
Chasing the world’s hottest game market, Kabam opens office in South Korea
Pocket Gems has launched the Episode platform. With her help, she will distribute interactive stories. This is something like comics, where the user influences the development of the plot.
http://www.insidemobileapps.com/2014/02/20/pocket-gems-launches-interactive-mobile-story-platform-episode-interview/
Industry
Amazon is looking for developers for AAA games. According to rumors, she makes her own Android-based game console. Only for a successful start, she needs powerful titles. And she deals with them on her own.
http://recode.net/2014/02/20/amazon-job-listings-call-for-game-veterans-with-big-budget-experience/
Revenue from digital versions of games will overtake revenues from projects distributed in boxes in two years, said Peter Moore, COO at Electronic Arts.
http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2014-02-20-ea-digital-revenues-to-overtake-physical-in-two-years
Marketing
An article appeared on the pages of Pocket Gamer about what to do to succeed in South Korea. It is written from the words of the director of Kakao Games Toby Ban (Toby Ban).
http://www.pocketgamer.biz/r/PG.Biz/KakaoTalk/feature.asp?c=57579&territory=asia
Games
Autumn Dynasty Warlord will be available on the App Store in a week.
http://www.pockettactics.com/news/ios-news/autumn-dynasty-warlords-arrives-next-week-original-goes-free/
Messengers
Dean Takahashi is sure that the purchase of WhatsApp by Zuckerberg’s company was largely due to the growth of Kakao and Line.
The DeanBeat: What Facebook’s $16B acquisition of WhatsApp says about the rise of Asian games
Five reasons why WhatsApp is not number one in Indonesia (and at the same time, why it will never become popular in Japan and South Korea).
http://www.techinasia.com/5-reasons-whatsapp-number-indonesia/
Platforms
Jolla has announced the release of Sailfish OS 1.0. However, who needs this operating platform today is a big question.
http://jolla.com/media/documents/MWC_Jolla_announcement_FINAL.pdf