Last December, a record average number of daily downloads for 2013 was recorded in the United States. At the same time, there was a slight drop in the cost of a loyal user. 

Is the situation on the market of mobile and social games as cloudless as the representatives of the platforms claim, Igor Klyukin, the leading analyst of Pixonic, analyzes in his article “The Departing Train”.  

At a press conference dedicated to the Zynga development strategy for 2014 (about it in a separate article), it became known: Zynga buys the British publisher and developer of mobile games NaturalMotion for $ 527 million.

The Office for the Organization of Fair Trade in the UK has issued standards for projects with in-game payments. Will free-to-play survive after their introduction? 

From 15 to 20 million mobile games built on the Unity cross-platform engine are installed on iOS devices every day.

China’s application market is characterized not only by extensive, but also by intensive growth. Chukong (formerly CocoaChina) and Wandoujia told about how much games earn in China.

The low visibility of apps on the App Store and Google Play has long been no secret to anyone. What to do when there is no money for traffic, but I want to promote the application? Go to smaller stores – say analysts mobyaffiliates.

The developers of the device demonstrated what it will be possible to play with virtual reality glasses. 

Amazon came up with an interesting strategy to expand the library of games in its own app store: the company began making “cold calls” to successful developers of projects for Google Play. 

The annual revenue of the French publishing house increased by 12% compared to 2012. Most of the sales – 33% – came from EMEA (Europe, the Middle East and Africa).

This is 13% more than the company earned in the same quarter a year ago. The main sales driver was The Simpsons: Tapped Out.

Supercell and King have captured the free and cash tops of Google Play, and in the paid one you can find far more than one game two years (or more) ago – this and much more in the weekly review of the American Google Play games market.

Flappy Bird is the leader of the US free chart, Joe Danger Infinity knocked out a place in the paid top with a discount, King has three games in the box office top ten – this and much more in the weekly review of the American App Store games market.

If in January 2012 the average cost of an installation in the States was $1.30, then in December 2013 it reached $4.36, Superdata said.

The main revenue of one of the largest casual game development companies came from completely non-criminal titles – Big Fish Casino and Fairway Solitaire.

The executive director of King responded in detail to all the claims made last week to the British company.

While some studios are trying to launch an IPO, others are attracting private capital. Shanda Games (whose shares are listed on NASDAQ) has announced an offer to transform into a closed company.

About the imminent consumer crisis in Russia, the conflict between the “big” and “small” industries, the Indian mobile games market and the results of the latest Distimo study – in our traditional digest for last week. 

At the end of last year, two general managers who founded the company in 2005 left Chillingo. The company’s chief operating officer, Ed Rumley, assures that their departure will not affect the business in any way.