You know what isn't making the kind of money that it used to? Angry Birds. As hard as it might be to believe, the Mario of mobile gaming isn't quite pulling in the number that it once did. According to the latest financials released by the company this morning, Rovio's net earnings fell by €28.6 million; a more than 50% drop from 2012.Before you sound the panic alarms, it's important to stress that despite poor earnings, the company's overall revenue actually went up a few million euros - from €152.2 million to €156 million. So while earnings might be down, Rovio's financial security is not.Still - it's hard to not look at the situation and ask what went wrong. There was a time when seeing Angry Birds on the top 10 paid apps list was as certain as the rising sun. Today it sits at #61. And it's free-to-play kart racer that hoped to make a big splash back in December? It's not even in the top 200 free apps (though, yes, it manages to crack in at #73 for free games).
War is hell? Sure - but it can also be downright adorable. A teaser trailer for Ankama's upcoming Tactile Wars hit the web over the weekend, and while they're don't seem to be a ton of details quite yet, what's been teased has us eager to learn more."In Tactile Wars, you are… THE HAND, the supreme commander of an army of pigments," reads the game's official press release. "Take control of your troops via innovative and intuitive touch gameplay and dynamic gestures to create your squad formation."So it's… Advance Wars meets Paint-by-Numbers? Risk and the Magic Marker? We have no idea, but we're damned curious to find out. And since Ankama is the team responsible for DOFUS, a fairly respectable strategy RPG series in France, it seems safe to assume they have that side of the equation mastered. Still, with so little info on the gameplay, we're left scratching our heads on this one a bit - and it looks like we might have to for a while longer for answers. Tactile Wars currently has a very broad release window of "later this year" for mobile devices.
Did that headline get your attention? Of course it did. Everybody wants to know how much money everybody else is making. And Chinese game makers, it seems, don't make much.The exact answer to that question is below, but if you really want some perspective, be sure to see what the cost of living in China is too.As always, our thanks go out to the Chinese gaming site Laohu.com for providing this round-up for Gamezebo readers. For daily news out of Beijing and more, be sure to give them a visit.
One For Eleven, branded 'a new brand of football management game' by its publisher Actoz Soft (that's soccer to us North American folks), has been released for iOS and Android devices.Boasting a breadth of tactical options, you can also sign real life players across 25 positions, 30 different abilities, and 50 unique skills.You control how your team is set-up, the tactics they employ during matches, and making sure players work together perfectly.
In a twist that should surprise absolutely no one, one of the biggest iOS games of last year is making its way to Android in the (probably very) near future.Tweets from the official @XCOM account yesterday announced not only that XCOM: Enemy Unknown was coming to Google Play, but that it would be released on April 24th. That tweet was later deleted, with a new one indicating that it was "an error" - though they don't make it clear if the error was the release date or announcing the release date.We're assuming the former, but… we also won't be surprised if we wake up tomorrow morning to find XCOM at the top of the paid games list on Google Play.
When he's right, he's right. Back in January, Gamezebo founder Joel Brodie made a bold prediction: Apple and Google would start pushing companies for exclusives on mobile games, in the same way that Microsoft and Sony do in the console space. This weekend, the Wall Street Journal released a feature that suggests Joel's assumption is now well underway."The two Silicon Valley giants have been wooing game developers to ensure that top-tier game titles arrive first on devices powered by their respective operating system," WSJ reports, citing sources close to the situation.When you have only two big players, though, I suppose a situation like this is an inevitability. Especially when both seem equally matched in appeal for developers. Apple might be less effected by piracy, and developers may see more success with paid games as a result, but the install base of Android dwarfs what Apple is doing on a global scale. If you're not sure who to develop for first, being courted by either Google or Apple for an exclusive might make that decision a whole lot easier."When people love a game, and it's not available on an alternate platform, they'll change platforms," Kogregate's Emily Greer told WSJ. "The level of attachment a person has to a game can exceed almost anything."
Back in October I had a chance to visit King's studio in Stockholm. I was mainly there to check out an upcoming game and absorb the culture, but as is often the case when talking with mobile-minded developers, the conversation eventually moved to Asia: the great white whale of gaming markets. How do you break into it? And how do you get to be #1?This week King answered that question, at least as far as China is concerned - and based on my chats with the team, the move they've made isn't the least bit surprising (and really, it's the one any developer looking for success in the Asian market should consider). But what was it? Read on to find out!As always, thanks to our pals at Laohu.com for providing Gamezebo readers with a roundup of the biggest gaming news to hit China each week.
Here's some good news for all the up and coming game designers out there: in case being part of an indie studio isn't enough creative freedom for you, there's always the option of being an indie within an indie.That unique set-up was what Jason Cirillo explained to me as people played his upcoming game Woah Dave! on two stations at the Gaijin Games booth at PAX East. Though he modestly deflects talk of being a solo act, Cirillo is for all intents and purposes the lone member of Robotube Games, a company he started in 2006 that now operates as a sub-label of Gaijin."I develop games myself inside of Gaijin as sort of a skunk works or experimental lab," Cirillo said. "Gaijin is working on bigger projects now which are unannounced, so these are smaller games to kind of fill in the gaps."Woah Dave! looks every bit the kind of game that reflects the individual tastes of its creator. It's a platformer with simple but frantic action that has players chasing high scores by trying to stay alive as long as possible, avoiding aliens and attempting to "pick stuff up and throw it."