Insight: you either have it or you don't. And if you don't, it's probably in your best interest to turn to someone that does. Thankfully the mobile gaming world has App Annie for that.The leading analytics firm for mobile apps and games released their latest 'Worldwide Games Index' report today, picking up on the hottest trends and observations from last month. We've combed through it to bring you what we felt were the five big highlights. If you want to see what we've missed, give the full report a read yourself at AppAnnie.com.
This quote from ever colorful CNBC personality Jim Cramer after King Digital stock began trading on the New York Stock Exchange earlier today should give you a hint:"It's a Stephen King horror story," Cramer said. "It might be Misery, it could be even Cujo."While there are plenty more (and better) puns that could be made from comparing the King IPO to the works of the master of horror, it's clearly not been a good first day for the company best known as the developer of Candy Crush Saga. After pricing its stock at $22.50 a share, King Digital has seen its stock price fall to as low as $19.08 in its first morning of public trading. As I write this, it's currently at $20.06 a share, down 10.8 percent on the day.
What happened? In a move that surprised just about everyone, promising startup Oculus VR was bought out by Facebook for $2 billion (well… $400 million + $1.6 billion in stock. You interpret that how you want).Who the @#$% are Oculus VR? If you're not into gaming, that's a pretty good question. If you are into gaming, shame on you. Birthed on the back of a successful 2012 Kickstarter campaign that raised $2.4 million (nearly 10x the project's goal), Oculus VR are the company behind the Oculus Rift: a head-mounted virtual reality device that's expected to seriously shake up the gaming world.Virtual Reality? Is that still a thing? A fair question. In its earlier incarnation, virtual reality was kind of a bust; a fad that came nowhere close to living up to its potential (remember Lawnmower Man? VR in the 90's should have been awesome). The folks at Oculus, however, realized that the combination of 90's VR dreams and 21st century technology could create a pretty powerful future.Come on… Who's going to believe that? John Carmack for one. The co-founder of id Software and lead programmer on DOOM left the company he helped found because he couldn't convince their parent company to take a gamble on bringing Doom 4 and Wolfenstein: The New Order to the Oculus Rift. Two months prior to leaving id, Carmack became Oculus VR's CTO. That's now his full time gig. Guess he'd better get used to calling Zuckerberg "sir."
Earlier today, Facebook CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, announced the acquisition of Oculus VR, Inc. for $400 million in cash payouts and $1.6 billion in Facebook stock shares. The acquisition comes a little over a month after Facebook purchased cross-platform mobile messaging service WhatsApp for $16 billion. The deal is expected to be finalized in Q2 2014."Mobile is the platform of today, and now we're also getting ready for the platforms of tomorrow," Zuckerberg said today in the press release. "Oculus has the chance to create the most social platform ever, and change the way we work, play and communicate."Of course, Oculus VR, Inc. is excited for the opportunity. The $2 billion acquisition follows last December's $75 million investment by venture capitalists and the successful Kickstarter campaign in 2012 which raised $2,437,000. While the $75 million investment was a move towards producing consumer versions, currently, only Oculus Rift development kits are available for purchase, the most recent of which costs $350. Consumer versions are expected to be available by the end of the year, or early 2015.
First spotted by TouchArcade earlier today, it looks as though Supercell's Boom Beach will finally be leaving its Canadian soft launch shores and heading to you this Thursday.The announcement was made via tweet from the official App Store account, confirming that the Clash of Clans follow up was not only coming, but will be an App Store exclusive. (Whether that's a real exclusive or timed exclusive is anybody's guess).We first took a look at this one back in November with a hands-on preview, and were pretty impressed with what we saw. Beyond the cosmetic change (Boom Beach is to modern warfare as Clash of Clans is to medieval fantasy), there were some real twists that should give Clash of Clans veterans a brand new challenge rather than a fresh coat of paint.We'll be diving back in for a full review and guide soon. Be sure to keep an eye out for both just as soon as Boom Beach hits the App Store!
"Gamification" is a dirty word. Most don't mind seeing RPG elements worm their way into every genre of game, but mention doing it with fitness, learning, or your diet and those same people will likely roll their eyes.Europe's first-ever Newsgames Hackathon stands a chance of changing that.A "newsgame" is a gamified method of presenting journalism - be it a feature, opinion piece or a standard new story. The concept was successfully employed by the New York Times' "How Y'all, Youse, and You Guys Talk," an interactive quiz that became the site's most visited "story" of 2013. A hackathon (aka game jam) is when a group of artists, writers and designers gather in one place and build games in a very limited amount of time. It's a popular concept in independent development, and now The Good Evil and the Cologne Game Lab are teaming up to bring the concept to journalism.
Game jams have become an increasingly popular way of helping developers connect, both to one another and back to their passions. It's interesting, then, that the first-ever Train Jam, a 52-hour game jam set entirely on a train from Chicago to San Francisco, their final destination GDC, was themed as "disconnection."Like any jam, the idea is to conceive, conceptualize and create a game in the allotted time based on the preconceived theme. Gamasutra's editor-in-chief, Kris Graft, ran a lovely trio of features on what sounds like just the first of many successful Train Jams and the games that resulted. Zoe Quinn, creator of the game Depression Quest, worked on a project about maintaining social connections while running the indie game convention circuit. Rami Ismail, one half of Vlambeer, the company behind Ridiculous Fishing, Super Crate Box and Luftrausers, was there as well. He made an Android game requiring him to physically fend off players from tapping an onscreen "D" (for Disconnect, the name of the game as well as the theme) on a tablet strapped to his back.
Findingquality games on the App Store is notoriously hard. Historically, Apple doesn't consider games to be a primary pillar of their service, despite the millions of people playing (and spending money on) games on iOS devices every day.The Indie Game Showcase will hardly fix that, but it is a step in the right direction. The new section on the App Store highlights critically acclaimed, independent games and the developers who make them."Often made up of just a few dedicated members, independent studios prove that what really matters is the size of your dream," the showcase reads. "In each Indie Game Showcase, we celebrate a popular game and its creative team, highlighting the developer's titles along with their favorite games from other studios.""