Billion Puzzle & Dragons, claims to Flurry, Gameloft office in Russia - the main thing for a week for a mobile developer

One billion dollars

GungHo Online has officially published its financial results for 2013. According to these data, their Puzzle & Dragons game became the first game that earned more than $ 1 billion. Of the gross revenues of $ 650 million, the Apple App Store brought them, and another $ 775 million came from Google Play.

The end of alternative payment systems

Applications that use alternative payment systems are quietly removed from Google Play. Recall that in the AppStore, third-party payment instruments have been banned for a long time. Experts believe that, sooner or later, Google had to make such a decision - the period of "loyalty" to new developers came to an end. Next - only business. Most of the “news” suffered by developers from those countries where there is still no way to accept payments through Google Play. Ukraine, Belarus and even some European states are on the “black list”. In fact, companies from these countries have been given a choice: either to make only free applications, or to open companies in those countries where Google payments work.
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2014 Chinese trends

Ley Zhang, US General Manager of one of the largest Chinese publishers Chukong, spoke about the trends of the mobile gaming industry, which will be dominant in China in 2014. The company believes that Sanut:

• consolidation of shops and platforms
• HTML5 becoming a powerful platform
• development of game engines
• building up the influence of WeChat as a gaming platform.

Recall that the Chinese mobile gaming industry last year earned more than $ 2 billion.

Gameloft Office in Russia

A well-known publisher of mobile games, Gameloft, opens an office in Russia and begins recruiting employees. But do not rush them to send your resume. For example, for Moscow, they have only one vacancy open ... to an SMM manager . Now you know what the opening of the office begins with and what you need to do first.

How accurate is the Flurry data ?!

The validity of the Rentershen flurry metrics (user returns) is called into question . In fact, very often, developers complain that there is a big discrepancy between the data Flurry provides and the data from their own statistical systems. Sometimes it comes to the fact that the error is 50 percent! Therefore, if you do not want to work with your own statistics, we recommend checking several third-party services at once. And no less important - to approve the terminology, because in part of the metrics of definition, different systems differ. The most “discussion” formula, in our opinion, is in such a concept as virality.

Amazon will develop the game itself.

To this end, the company acquired the game studio Double Helix Games. Under the terms of the deal, all 75 employees of the studio are transferred to Amazon, as well as all intellectual property. TechCrunch believes that this purchase may be related to the desire of Amazon to release its own game console on Android.

About Amazon's ambitious plans have been rumored for a long time. According to some reports, they ring top Google Play developers and lure them away (which is quite logical in the light of the news published above). Amazon also has plans to create its own online TV and is now in talks with the creators of video content. From our dialogue with Amazon management at WNCONF, we can conclude that the company is interested in new sources of high-quality content - including gaming - and is actively looking at new developer markets.

Flappy Bird: came, saw, won ... and left

This game has been bothering anyone for almost a month now. After the overwhelming success, Flappy Bird was removed from the site by the Vietnamese developer, which generated even more rumors about it. Some consider how much money the creator of the game earned. Others are interested in the fact that success was the validation of the Asian instant messengers business model. The tantrum around the addictive game has reached the point that users have already started selling devices with an installed game on ebay .

Experts are still trying to figure out the secrets of the game’s success (although the version of the trivial “hack” of the story is being actively discussed. Here’s one of the 10-point versions why the Flappy Bird application has become so popular:

• Too hard
• Too easy
• Sense of permanent loss
• No internal purchases
• There are only 3 buttons
• Rely on gravity
• It's all about skills
• The simpler the gameplay, the more users
• Fill out the appstore
• Don't do what Candy Crush, Angry Birds and Clash Of Clans do.

Draw your own conclusions, and let everyone manage to make their own “bird of happiness”.