Category Archives: Games
Tapjoy partners with Kakao to offer its advertising platform in Kakao Games
Tapjoy becomes the first global advertising platform to help Kakao Games developers monetise their apps
Press release
May 15th 2013. Tapjoy, a leading mobile advertising and publishing platform, has announced an agreement with Kakao, the largest mobile social platform in Korea, to allow developers on the Kakao Games platform to monetise their apps through Tapjoy’s market-leading advertising and monetization tools. Kakao is the provider of the popular mobile messenger app KakaoTalk, which currently has more than 90 million users around the globe, with more than 30 million users visiting the platform every day. Continue reading
Report looks at pay-per-download & in-app purchases mobile game strategies
Rating: Juniper’s forecasts include revenue from mobile games advertising
An area which frequently gets overlooked – game monetisation strategies, which form a major part of a new report from Juniper Research. The report is entitled ‘Mobile & Tablet Games: Discovery, In-App Purchases & Advertising’ and those wanting more details should go here. This report provides an in-depth analysis of revenues gleaned from both pay-per-download and in-app purchases and the size of the market for advertising in mobile games. One curious figure is that by 2017, across smartphones and tablets only seven per cent of games will be paid for at the point of purchase. Continue reading
In-app fleecing threatens m-commerce
Rating: Stop fleecing youngsters with in-app purchases says OFT
The practice of raising money from games old ‘free’ through in-app purchasing has come under close scrutiny from the UK Office of Fair Trading (OFT). Whilst consumers pay nothing to download and install the app, the makers generate funds by charging for extras through in-app purchasing. This practice of ‘in-app fleecing’ is particularly deplored when incorporated into games aimed at the young - especially for the Apple iPad tablet. The OFT found that Single purchases of virtual currency typically range from a few pence to £70 or more.As part of its investigation, the OFT is asking for information from key players in the sector, including games developers and games hosting services, as well as consumer and parenting groups. Continue reading
UK watchdog cracks down on pay-to-play apps
Makers exhorting kids to buy costly downloads risk big fines, even prison
Concerns that youngsters are being aggressively targeted by makers of mobile games apps are to be investigated by Britain’s watchdog, the Office of Fair Trading (OFT). It’s claimed that children are lured into downloading the free games onto their phones or tablets, but it’s the parents who pick up the tab when the youngsters also download expensive add-ons. The OFT argues there is a fine line between advertising the apps to children and exhorting them to add new features under pay-to-play, a concept that has risen in popularity in recent years. The OFT believes exhortation, even if the children have their parents’ permission to use their credit car password for the downloads, could still break consumer credit laws. Continue reading
Guest Post: Top ways to make the BlackBerry fun
by Muhammad Azam, a professional writer and gadget enthusiastic
A BlackBerry phone is all work and no fun. Or it was at least when the company launched its series of handsets quite some years back onto the market. Now that there so many apps and the games available on the market, isn’t it time that you converted your smartphone into something fun as well? Using the right BlackBerry apps and games will make it fun for you even when in the office. The device which was originally targeted as a workaholic tool is no longer the same. The Black Berry market has extended beyond just email terminals and RIM has targeted the BlackBerry towards teenagers and the people who have not started work yet. They can still make use of BlackBerry phones to connect to the world over Wi-Fi and a 3G network, of course. Continue reading
Guest Post: Use of apps trumps mobile web around London 2012 Games
by Jenna Berger, research manager for global digital analytics, Nielsen
We learned recently that 28 per cent of mobile users around the globe admitted to watching video on their mobile device daily, so when the Olympics came about we wanted to take a look how UK residents were engaging with their mobile phones during London 2012 events. In preparation for the events, London 2012 launched two official mobile apps and one mobile game here, all available in the iTunes App Store and the Android Marketplace. The first app, called Join In, was promoted as a planning tool and the “essential companion” as a viewer’s go-to for information on the games. Continue reading
ZTE’s low cost Grand X Android now on Virgin UK
Rating: Cost competitive access to the Tegra Zone app store
When GoMobile News first saw the ZTE Grand X in action last month [July 2012], we were massively impressed. It runs the very latest version of the Android OS – Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich (ICS). Unfortunately, the whole ethos behind this particular handset is that it offers powerful performance at a very cost competitive price. So we had to wait until it was genuinely commercially available before we could actually write about it. Luckily for us here in the UK, Virgin Media is now offering its customers the ZTE Grand X on prepay (PAYG) for a mere £199.99. You can check out this offer here. Continue reading
Monetise mobile games in the desktop arena with Marmalade
Rating: Port mobile apps to PC and Mac in days
How things have changed. With thousands of downloads under your belt, how do you make even more money out of your existing mobile app/game? Simples. You produce a Windows and Mac OS X version of it. Hence Marmalade – which provides a cross-platform tool that enables app developers to produce software which runs on multiple mobile OS has introduced a beta release of its latest package (6.1) which enables developers to further monetise their content across. This will work over popular desktop channels such as Steam, Gamersgate and the Mac Store. As part of the 6.1 Beta program, Marmalade is now working closely with leading game studios – HotGen and Nomad Games to showcase the new support. Continue reading
Interactive 3D specialist EON chooses Marmalade to take 3D to mobile
Rating: Win-win situation for both parties
Focussing on your core strengths really is the name of the game. That’s why EON Reality -which provides the software tools for creating interactive, 3D rich media (especially games) has decided to hook up with mobile specialist, Marmalade. Mobile games developers need to bring 3D to their mobile apps and 3D specialists, EON, has found a simple and comprehensive way of breaking into the mobile app market. As EON Reality says, by co-operating with Marmalade, it can focus on creating rich 3D mobile applications for their clients, without worrying about cross-platform complexities and future device compatibility. Continue reading
Vungle comes clean on $1m incentive scheme
Rating: Just stick an in-app video trailer into your mobile app or game
Around six weeks ago, the mobile video ad-network, Vungle came out of stealth with the announcement of its $2 million seed capital from investors. The good news is that the company has announced that half of the funds raised ($1 million) is going towards a fund designed to attract mobile app developers to its platform. To date, the Vungle mobile app video trailer network was in closed beta but from today [June 12th 2012], the network will be going self-serve. Since Vungle has come up with an entirely new ad-unit for mobile, the company needs to sign up as many publishers as they can to meet their advertising demand. Hence the S1 million incentive programme. Continue reading
Vungle comes out of stealth too quick
Rating: Watch this space
We thought that Vungle came out of stealth mode today [June 12th 2012]. Actually, it didn’t happen. We’ll let you know when it really happens.
UPDATE: It was today [June 19th 2012].
GREE helps take Moshi Monsters brand mobile
Rating: Combined user base of almost 300 million
Mobile social gaming specialist, GREE, is bringing the power of mobile to famed online brand – Moshi Monsters, created by Mind Candy. This move will bring together 60 million globally registered Moshi Monsters users and GREE’s 230 million worldwide users. The partnership will kick off with the launch of two new Moshi Monsters mobile games on the GREE Platform, set for release in Q4 2012. The pair will deliver fully localised mobile games in multiple languages, including English, French, Italian, German, Spanish, Portuguese, Japanese, Korean, and Mandarin. Continue reading
MocoSpace proves power of HTML5 based games
Rating: It’s not just young girls who are suckers for vampire games
MocoSpace claims to be the largest HTML5 mobile gaming community in North America. It recently introduced a new game called True Night which was developed for it by New Game Town. Although you’d think the game was old hat because it features vampires, in fact True Night has rocketed into the fourth most-played game on MocoSpace in just two weeks. “We developed True Night with MocoSpace’s young audience in mind and thought that the theme would bring in all kinds of players,” Jeremy Wang, CTO of New Game Town. commented. “We had no idea it would grow such a large fan base so quickly,” he added. Significantly, half of all True Night players are male, and the vast majority of all players are over 17 years old. This contradicts the general impression that vampire games are just a teenage girl phenomena. Continue reading
UK mortgage comparison site targets Apple F1 petrol heads
Rating: Hurry to win £100 worth of iTunes vouchers
In what we suspect is a desperate bid to promote the fact its MortgagesUK iPhone app is nearly ready, Mortgage Brain has launched its Fantasy F1 competition. Competitors are offered the chance to win iTunes vouchers worth up to £100. It’s actually quite feasible to play this game on your mobile phone as we discovered with our Nokia Lumia 800 W7 Mango phone. GoMobile News would recommend that initially you register using a desktop computer or tablet, though. With the Nokia we also found it handy to register with a Hotmail email address. You’d better get cracking, though, because the deadline to create your own Formula One Fantasy team seems to be today [March 16th 2012] at 5pm GMT. Continue reading
Young Brit apper turns hacker
Rating: Spud Run author gets expelled from Devon school
A young British lad, Aaron Bond, who already has four iOS applications under his belt has just managed to get himself chucked out of school for hacking. Bond is the programming genius behind an iOS game – Spud Run which costs a mere 59 pence on the iTunes App Store here. If you check (like we did), there are four not six apps and they are attributed to Gail McNeil who is the mother of Sebastian McNeil – the other founder of SeRiiOn which produces the apps. Anyway, Bond – who is still only 14 years old – has been expelled from King Edward VI College in Totnes, Devon. Continue reading
