Demo versions from Google Play, data on revenues from games for 2014, consolidation of market leaders from Japan - and other news of the week for a mobile developer

Update cross-platform tools in Google Play Game Services

Good news for developers using Google Play Game Services. News with a list of updates:

1. The ability to simultaneously play over the network was added to the cross-platform C ++ SDK. Thereby, the C ++ SDK caught up with the functionality of the Android SDK and the iOS SDK.
2. New-fashioned Material Design got to Game Services. New design will work in games automatically, if you have integrated Game Services.
3. Changed the work of quests. The integration of “task accepted”, “task completed” events has been simplified.
4. Multiplayer statistics. Now there is a separate tab in the developer console with statistics for multiplayer games.
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Demo versions may appear on Google Play.

It is not news that the number of downloads of an application depends on its size and that this dependence is the opposite. In Google Play, as in the App Store, there are restrictions on the size of applications that can be downloaded via 3G networks. This means that even if a player is interested in an application that exceeds these limitations, he will not be able to download it without wi-fi. These restrictions are still relevant, as in many countries, including Russia, mobile operators provide access to the Internet at a fairly high cost. At the same time, the connection is often not different and stable.

Google is trying to solve this problem by developing a technology through which users can download a small introductory distribution kit. After seeing it, they will decide whether to spend money on additional traffic to download the full version of the program or not. Already, we see a lot of examples of how the developer puts the version of the application with minimal content and offers to download the rest after familiarizing the player with the starting content of the game. All this is implemented by different mechanisms and is done individually for each project. Google Play will provide a tool that everyone can use, and will probably provide their servers for storing additional content. Let's see what will be the rules of use, we should not exclude the possibility that these changes will affect only paid applications.

Mobile games account for 43% of the Latin American gaming market.

Superdata prepared a report on the digital gaming market in Latin America. According to him, the market will grow to 4.5 billion USD in 2014. According to calculations, 43% of this amount will constitute the mobile market, in 2015 they forecast an increase to 5.3 billion USD.

Among all the countries of Latin America, Brazil accounts for the largest weight in the digital games market, it accounts for 35% of the total, followed by Mexico with 22% and Argentina with 15%.



Separately, the report focuses on Brazil. According to forecasts of Superdata, the mobile gaming market from 2013 to 2014 will grow by 25% and remain in the lead, although the social gaming market should show the greatest dynamics - 35%. If the growth of the mobile market is associated with the advent of cheap smartphones, then the rapid growth of social games is provided by a large share of Brazilian accounts on Facebook - the third place among all accounts. An increase in the number of localized projects also played its role. The rapid growth of social games will slow down in 2015 to 15%. However, the market has great potential.

If you are interested in learning more about Latin America, we recommend that you click on the link and download the full report.

LINE and Gree launch a joint venture

What to do if competition is constantly growing in the mobile gaming market and in order to launch a successful product, you need to have competencies and capabilities in all aspects of game creation? There are two options: either do everything yourself (which is expensive, time consuming and risky), or combine efforts.



A recent example of the second option was the news that 2 successful Japanese companies are creating a joint company Epic Voyage, Inc., which will develop new games for the Line mobile platform.

The new company will make the most of all the opportunities and developments of Gree in the field of game development and game distribution channels that Line has. It is expected that the new company will become one of the key players in the mobile gaming market not only in Japan, but also in other countries.

Reportedly, the company will be officially founded in late October.

Top100 countries in revenue from games

NewZoo company presented its report of the Top 100 countries in terms of revenue from games. The markets of Western Europe (only Italy is knocked out) and North America are already close to saturation, and no further growth is expected from them. But to the markets of South America and Asia continue to grow.

They have great potential both in terms of coverage of the population, and in terms of growth of payments.

China lags behind America in terms of income from one user more than twofold, and almost four times behind Japan. And there is still a large margin on an uncovered audience. The situation is similar for other emerging markets, such as Brazil and Mexico.