Rovio selects children, the European Commission protects them, and Social Casino bypasses - the main mobile news for the week

We bring to your attention the main events of last week, which occurred in the market of mobile applications and games.

Rovio launches "innovative publishing program" for children's applications

Rovio changed the key direction of its publishing activities. The company focused on applications for children from 3 to 12 years. The idea is that new children's games are both entertaining, attractive and educational.
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The company wants to change the approach to education. If your games have educational elements and gameplay, then feel free to write them letters through a special form . Perhaps you are lucky, and Rovio will be able to give you something that no company in the world will give you - your cross-promo and promotion to your target audience. Rovio has 2 billion downloads and more than 50 million DAU, so who, if not they, can change the situation with children's applications. "Entertain. Inspire. Enlighten ”is the company's new motto.

In Social Casino plays 12.6% of all social players in the world.

The research company Superdata has published a new report on the social casino market. Anyone can read them by reference . We have selected some interesting facts, in our opinion:

• By 2015, the market volume of Social Casino will grow to 4.4 billion dollars. In 2013, it amounted to 2.9 billion.
• Over the past year, the share of Social Casino players in relation to the total number of social and mobile game players fell from 17.4% to 12.6%. Two years ago, there were 25%.
• From November to December last year, the top 10 global casinos on social networks on PCs reduced revenue from 45.3 million to 42.5 million dollars, and mobile casinos, on the contrary, increased revenue from 41.7 million to 51.5 million dollars.

We also want to share more interesting data from last year:

• The player’s lifetime in Social Casino games on tablets is 9.1 months, on smartphones - 8.6.
• 83% of Americans who played at Social Casino, play in a physical casino.
• The value of ARPPU of American players in the Social Casino genre: slots - $ 68; poker - $ 32; casino - $ 46.

Social Casino Market continues to grow. Many "experts" who bury this genre year. At the same time, there are such “grave-diggers”, who at the same time try to enter this market themselves. The best proof of this is the screenshot of the US App Store in February. 8 of 24 games at Top Grossing - in the genre of Social Casino. Comments are superfluous.

Warner Bros. ekraniziruet game Minecraft

Warner Bros. decided to purchase the rights to the screen version of the game Minecraft. Work on the film will be one of the creators of “Lego. Film ", produced by Roy Lee. It is difficult to imagine the plot of the film on the game, in the world where the player can do anything, creating his own world with the help of various blocks. But it only stirs interest in the picture. And the director is chosen the right, relevant.

EA changes Chinese strategy, discarding Playfish in favor of PopCap

It is rumored that EA plans to close all or part of the offices of their subsidiary Playfish Beijing and give away all the work on localizing and developing games for the Chinese market to PopCap. Entities at EA do not comment on these statements. But this decision is quite logical. PopCap is one of the few western companies that has been able to replicate its success in China. In addition, PopCap is already working on the localization of other EA games.

The European Commission will determine the status of free-to-play

The European Commission decided to turn its strict eyes on the “free games” market - this is reported in an official press release . Officials intend to understand why games use the free to play advertising slogan, although they are not formally free. It's about in-app purchases.

Fortunately for you and me, the European commissioners do not cut off the shoulder, but attract experts to clarify the situation - representatives of the two largest parties, Apple and Google, have already been invited to consult. But the negative point is that the reason for such a trial was the increasing frequency of complaints from parents about the huge spending of their children in such games. This may entail a number of restrictions - both a marketing plan and a functional one. The worst of the scenarios could, in our opinion, lead to a decrease in the profitability of products with a high percentage of the children's audience among those who pay.

Have a productive week!