Posts Tagged ‘iphone’

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DeNA via ngmoco acquires Euro Mobile studio Rough Cookie

Thursday, May 19th, 2011

Ngmoco has recently announced their successful acquisition of Dutch mobile game studio Rough Cookie. The acquisition further expands ngmoco’s global presence, as well as falling right in line with DeNA’s previously mentioned European expansion plans. Through the acquisition, Rough Cookie firmly plants an ngmoco/DeNA flag on EU soil, as the company prepares for the global launch of their games focused social network, Mobage.

“Rough Cookie’s values and creative capability are a perfect match for ngmoco,” Neil Young, CEO, ngmoco, said in a statement. “We are delighted to formally bring Rough Cookie into our family of companies. At ngmoco, it’s important for us to anchor the Mobage service with great first-party games and Rough Cookie will be a key studio in achieving that goal.”

And while ngmoco has previously favored iOS devices, the acquisition of Rough Cookie will now bring a number of successful Android based titles into the fold. Rough Cookie, founded in 2008 has produced Star Defense for iOS, as well as We Farm and We City, both for Android. You’ll remember that after presenting Star Defense at the WWDC keynote, the title rocketed to success, making it the top-selling App Store game in the summer of 2009. Likewise, the title brought home a Dutch Game Award, as well as making Pocker Gamers’ Top 50 iPhone Developers of the Year for iOS devices.

Likewise, Rough Cookie is a win for DeNA/ngmoco, as the games house has further expanded it’s development focus to include not only iOS and Android devices, but they’re also working on dark horse Windows Phone 7 based titles.

The Rough Cookie acquisition shouldn’t come as much of a surprise, as Young mentions above, as ngmoco and Rough Cookie have a long established track record of collaboration. Rough Cookie was on board for ngmoco’s successful Touch Pets, as well as the music title, Pulse: the Game, and as previously mentioned, We Farm and We City for Android.

“We are very excited to be joining the ngmoco and DeNA family,” says Rouch Cookie co-founder Danny Hoffmann in a statement. “We had great experiences and results on the projects that we have worked on with ngmoco, and we are truly proud to join the leader of mobile entertainment.”

Moving forward, Rough Cookie and ngmoco have stated that the Dutch firm is already hard at work developing an unnamed ngmoco flagship title for the upcoming Mobage global launch. Powered by ngmoco’s ngCore, the upcoming title is slated for both iOS and Android devices at it’s release.

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Gameloft takes international charts by storm – a sign of things to come?

Monday, December 13th, 2010

Paris based Gameloft recently reported some hard numbers surrounding their most recent offerings Eternal Legacy and Dungeon Hunter 2. It’s a fair statement to make that Gameloft has obviously struck a chord with mobile gamers, as both titles have broken the top 10 of Top Grossing Games worldwide. The anticipated hack-n-slash Dungeon Hunter 2 has reached the #2 slot in the U.S., France, Canada, China and Germany, which Eternal Legacy has hit #5 in the U.S. Japan, Germany, France, Italy, Spain, and China.

Eternal Legacy is Gameloft’s first entry into the JRPG market. If you’re not quite sure what an J RPG is, you’re not alone. The J in this case stands for Japanese, thus a Japanese role playing game. And as you’d expect, Eternal Legacy has every and all Japanese fantasy component you’d expect: Characters with swords as big as themselves, intense and involving storylines, and turn-based combat. If any of this is sounding remotely similar to Final Fantasy, well…let’s just say you’re not far off. And if JRPG’s are your thing, as Gameloft has discovered, you’re not alone.

Dungeon Hunter 2, on the other hand needs no introduction. Gameloft’s highly successful Dungeon Hunter took the apps world by storm, and v2 packs even more rich graphics, character classes, and a darker, more “mature” storyline. Noteably, Dungeon Hunter 2 is Gameloft’s first title that fully integrates with Apple’s Game Center, meaning, if solo dungeoning isn’t your cup of tea, Game Center will allow you to multiplayer with up to 4 people online. Naturally, with Game Center integration, players of Dungeon Hunter 2 will be able to earn (and show off share) achievements and compare rankings with friends.

“The continued success of our games in the Top Grossing Games chart tells us, that more than ever, gamers welcome high quality titles in the App Store,” said Gonzague de Vallois, senior vice president, publishing, Gameloft. “The immediate success of Eternal Legacy and Dungeon Hunter 2 is on par with our expectation and we look forward to the evolution of these strong brands.”

Overall, this global success is, what I believe, a harbinger of things to come. We’ve already seen the explosion of casual and mobile gaming in North America, and more and more developers are now looking to spread their wings globally. We’ve seen Zynga buying up studios across the world, and subsequently localizing versions of their hits. DeNA CEO Tomoko Namba has hinted at a European acquisition, only months after a strong North American showing with the purchase of ngmoco.

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ComScore: Android closing in on iPhone

Tuesday, December 7th, 2010

Leading metrics firm ComScore has recently published it’s MobileLens report, with Google’s Android OS making a strong showing across the board. The report, which covers August – the end of October found that Google, read:Android based devices now account for 23.5 percent of the U.S. smartphone marketshare.

Looking at the numbers in terms of OS, it appears as though RIM’s BlackBerry is still leading the pack, commanding a 35.8 percent marketshare, with Apple and Google now fighting tooth and nail for the number two spot. At the end of October, 2010, Apple held 24.6 percent of the market, while Google, 23.5 percent.

What’s also important to keep in mind with these numbers is, not only are they now 2 months old, but the growth rate. As referenced above, in July Google held a 17 percent marketshare, while 3 months later that share had jumped to 23.5 percent, a 6.5 percent gain. At the same time, Apple had only increased it’s share by 0.8 percent. If this trend remains on track, it’s very likely that Google might already have a lead on Apple at the time of this publication. Also noteworthy; during the same time, RIM’s marketshare dropped a significant 3.5 percent. Doing a bit of cocktail napkin math, it’s entirely possible that Google may now be nipping at the heals of RIM’s once commanding lead.

While this seems happy happy joy joy for Google, it’s not the best news for games and apps developers. A lack of a single, unified hardware specification means that each and every device has it’s own unique set of “can do’s” and “can’t do’s”. Why would this matter? Other than the obvious set of unique challenges various forms of hardware present, according to ComScore, gaming is also becoming increasingly important to smartphone owners. While up only 1.4 percent, 22.3 in July to 23.7 percent in October, gaming on smartphones has overtaken music listening usage, and is closing in on the social networking category, with less than a percentage point between the two.

It’s also important to keep in mind, as pointed out by Kyle Orland of Gamasutra, the ComScore survey did not take into account iPod Touch devices, which, while not mobile phones, will do just about everything else an iPhone will do (and iPad for that matter – although it’s size format does significantly disqualify it from this survey).

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Apple backpedals, lifts Flash Ban on Apps

Friday, September 10th, 2010

In what’s sure to be one of the biggest backpedaling events of the year, Apple is quietly reversing it’s previous position on allowing Flash in the creation of iOS apps. And surely, this is great, and long awaited, news for iOS developers. Apple is lifting the ban, but not without a few stern warnings. They’ve stated that “as long as the resulting apps do not download any code,” they’re permitted to play in the same sandbox with all other apps.

ios4In the official statement from Apple, they state, “We are continually trying to make the App Store even better. We have listened to our developers and taken much of their feedback to heart. Based on their input, today we are making some important changes to our iOS Developer Program license in sections 3.3.1, 3.3.2 and 3.3.9 to relax some restrictions we put in place earlier this year.”

However…if you think you’ve just opened the magic box of all Flashiness across your iPhone/Pad/Pod, etc., not so much. The struggle with third party development tools in iOS development has been a long time running, and Mr. Jobs even made a fairly decent case of why Flash wasn’t welcome on an iDevice. But with a number of small filesized games relying on either Flash or Unity, it looks like Apple has realized the merits of allowing third party development tools into the crowd, as a number of developers have been clamoring to develop for iDevices, but were limited by Apple’s effective tying of the hands to their own development kit. Notably, developers who are using third party tools will not see these tools used in the final product. Applications developed using these tools will be converted to an iDevice friendly format once they’re done.

According to Apple, “…as long as the resulting apps do not download any code. This should give developers the flexibility they want, while preserving the security we need.”

With justifiable security concerns, Apple has chosen to go with open standards such as HTML5, Java, and CSS. Flash maker Adobe contested that Apple was effectively creating a “closed system” that was edging in on a monopoly. The Federal Trade Commission was reportedly investigating the issue as late as May of this year, and Apple declined comment on whether this “relaxing of restrictions” had anything to do with the Commissions’ findings.

Oh…and as an added bonus? Apple is, for the first time, publishing its App Store Review guidelines. Say goodbye to guess work.

“We hope it will make us more transparent and help our developers create even more successful apps for the App Store,” reads the Apple Statement.

My only question in this entire saga: Why has it taken this long? Thank you Apple! And Google for being competitive. And RIM for very much the same. Now let’s all play nice, and may the best devi

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Q3 sees record results for Apple

Thursday, July 22nd, 2010

Announced earlier this week, Apple reported their financial results for Q3 2010. In total, the company saw a record $15.7 billion in revenue, resulting in a net quarterly profit of $3.25 billion. When viewed from a YoY perspective, these numbers compare to $9.72 billion, with a net quarterly profit of $1.83 billion.

apple_moneyBreaking it down by products sold, Apple’s numbers look like so:

  • 3.47 million Macs were sold in Q3 2010 – this is a new quarterly record for Apple, and a 33 percent YoY increase
  • 8.4 million iPhones moved out the door in Q3 – a massive 61 percent increase in Year over Year growth.
  • 9.4 million iPods also found new homes – an 8 percent decline, however, remember that each iPhone sold includes iPod functionality inside.
  • 3.27 million iPads left the Apple warehouses – while the company only began offering the device to selected markets late in Q3.

Apple also notes that over half of corporate revenues arriving from international sales, clearly indicating that it’s not just The United States inhabitants that love Apple.

“It was a phenomenal quarter that exceeded our expectations all around, including the most successful product launch in Apple’s history with iPhone 4,” said Steve Jobs, Apple’s CEO. “iPad is off to a terrific start, more people are buying Macs than ever before, and we have amazing new products still to come this year.”

“We’re really pleased to have generated over $4 billion of cash during the quarter,” said Peter Oppenheimer, Apple’s CFO. “Looking ahead to the fourth fiscal quarter of 2010, we expect revenue of about $18 billion and we expect diluted earnings per share of about $3.44″

The Apple Q3 financial results call can be listened to here, and will remain online for the next two weeks.

If there was any question about Apple’s dominance in today’s computing world, these Q3 results should quell any ney-sayers. And while Apple’s news alone is quite outstanding, I personally would love to know what percentage of these record breaking results arrived via Apple’s cut of all app, and their associated downloadable content, sales. With 21.07 million devices capable of app installations (assuming the iPods are all of the Touch variety), not only is that in itself a massive chunk of cash, but thanks to the longevity of the potential revenue streams derived from all app store purchases, these Q3 numbers are, in fact, much larger than they appear.

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SGN builds bridge between iPhone and Android gamers with Skies of Glory

Monday, July 19th, 2010

SGN, aka Social Gaming Network, has recently announced their connecting bridge between iPhone and Android handheld gamers. The “bridge” comes via the first multi-platform mobile game that allows iPhone and Android users the ability to compete against each other, although playing on two very different platforms.

SGN’s “Skies of Glory” was first launched in December of 2009 for iPhone, and is now available to eager Android owned gamers, provided they have an Android phone above v2.0. These models include the EVO, Nexus, and Droid.

SOG

As a clever touch, in multi-player mode, Android users (and presumably vice-versa) can spot iPhone based players for a quick and dirty dogfight 30,000 ft. in the air. Set in World War II, “Skies of Glory,” pits players in authentic replications of planes from the era in multiplayer battles over graphically rich terrains.

SGN’s entry to the Android market is assisted by Revo Solutions Games, the same development partner they worked with on the iPhone version of said game. The decision to enter the Android gaming front follows current industry trends that have seen a rapid rise in adoption and overall usage of the “other” smartphone out there. In Q1 of 2010 alone, Android has garnered 26.6 percent of all North American smartphone sales, a YoY increase of over 500 percent.

To this end, SGN and Revo Solutions Games developed an Open Platform Multiplayer Framework to work with a variety of platforms including today’s industry leading smartphones, as well as those down the road. The platform is also engineered to take advantage of all that today’s smartphone has to offer including EDGE, 3G, and WiFi technologies, thereby providing the end user with the maximum ability to connect.

“Mobile phones are unquestionably the gaming platform of the future. Smartphones are becoming accessible to all, and we are really excited to offer a true multi-platform, multiplayer social mobile gaming experience through ‘Skies of Glory,’” said SGN CEO Randy Breen. “As more and more people connect with family and friends through gaming, we continue to facilitate that connection regardless of users’ device or platform preferences.”

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iPhone 4 just shy of 2 million sales in 3 days

Tuesday, June 29th, 2010

In it’s first three days alone, Apple’s new ‘must have’ iPhone 4 sold 1.7 million units. Doing the math, that’s 394 iPhones sold per minute, or 6.5 iPhone sold per second, if you like. This can only be seen as yet another ‘WIN!’ for Apple, and the armies of iPhone app developers that stand behind the new device.

iphone_4.0“This is the most successful product launch in Apple’s history,” said Steve Jobs, Apple’s CEO.

Looking at Apple’s previous iPhone history, in 2008 the first iPhone 3G moved approximately 1 million units in it’s first weekend of sales. Not too shabby. One year later, with their iPhone 3GS, Apple did it again, repeating the previous years’ sales numbers. Apple’s much larger sibling that doesn’t make phone calls, aka the iPad, which launched in April of this year sold 3 million units in it’s first three months.

Featuring a number of “Ooo! Do Want!” features including the new Retina display, a 5 megapixel camers with LED flash, the A4 processor, a 3 axis gyro, 40 percent longer talk time, oh – and just for good measure, a 720p HD video recorder built in, the iPhone 4 is the hot ticket this summer. All of these features, and lest we forget the FaceTime video phone calling feature is packaged inside a revolutionary glass and steel case (that according to Steve Jobs, we’re all holding incorrectly).

And while all these new features are great, what do they mean to the games development industry? Surely, someone’s got to be working on some fanciness in regards to the FaceTime uses, but for now, popular iPhone games maker ngmoco is focusing on the 3 axis gyro. They recently released Eliminate: GunRange specifically designed for the iPhone 4 and taking advantage of pitch, roll, and yaw. Let’s be clear, the new 3 axis gyro is in addition to the accelerometer and previous left right axis previous generations of iPhone have had, thus making the new handheld gaming phone, a 6 axis controller.

With over 40,000 games available in the Apple Store, making it the largest category, just slightly ahead of books, developers of said titles will probably be resting just a little bit better at night now.

Not available in Europe until a projected end of July date, the iPhone 4 retails in the US for $199 for the 16GB model and $299 for the 32 GB.

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FarmVille: coming to an iPhone near you soon

Tuesday, June 8th, 2010

If for no other reason, you’ve certainly got to hand it to Apple CEO Steve Jobs. Introducing the new iPhone yesterday with an opening line, “You may have already seen this.” True to form, Zynga prez Mark Pincus wasted no time, and struck while the proverbial iron was hot. White hot in fact.

Announced in conjunction with the new iPhone presentation, Pincus announced that everyone’s (depending on how you look at it) favorite Facebook casual game, FarmVille is headed to an iPhone near you soon. According to Zynga, the FarmVille app will sync your iPhone farm with your Facebook farm via Facebook Connect, effectively eliminating withered crops. In Pincus’ own words, “Say goodbye to withering crops, we now have push notifications.”

The iPhone version of FarmVille comes with all the usual suspects; push notifications, and in-app transactions for virtual goods. The app is slated for an end-June release, which will coincide with FarmVille’s one year anniversary. To commemorate the iPhone app launch, Zynga will be offering exclusive iPhone items, including a Snow Leopard, a tip of the hat to Apple’s current OS.

Interestingly, this time one year prior, Pincus had described iPhone’s monetization opportunities as, “below expectations.” However, and to his credit, he was speaking to revenue opportunities prior to OS3, which brought microtransactions to applications.

I can not say that I’m surprised by the announcement. Sources close to Zynga, as well as some eagle-eyed domain registrants have been fueling the iPhone rumor since late April of this year. The only surprising thing about the Zynga/FarmVille/iPhone announcement is the timing. As in, Zynga is one of the most powerful and lucrative players in the social gaming scene – what took them so long to get the product to market? These guys are clearly not a two man show developing games in their garage; they’re a money making powerhouse based in one of the most tech friendly/huge talent pool areas in the world. A year to dev an iPhone app? Kinda fail guys.

With similar ‘Farming’ apps already out on the market (I’m looking at you Social City and We Rule), what could Zynga have to offer that’s new? On the other side of the coin, there are 70+ million people around the globe the regularly play FarmVille. The question is, how many of them are iPhone owners, and how many more players can Zynga pull in with the new app? Or…is the FarmVille app simply a ‘get it out the door’ project that could serve as the basis for future Zynga apps? FrontierVille anyone?

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Google acquires Social App. Dev. LabPixies

Thursday, April 29th, 2010

Announced earlier this week, Google has made yet another acquisition, this time Tel Aviv based social apps. Developer LabPixies. According to the Google announcement, the LabPixies team was one of the first developers that worked on iGoogle widgets, all the way back in 2005.

LabPixiesLabPixies provide widgets ranging from games and entertainment to productivity tools like calendars and news feeds. Along the way, they’ve managed to provide a number of global OpenSocial-based gadgets for Mountain View. And while these gadgets are significant in their own right, it’s the ‘other’ things that LabPixies produce that makes this acquisition of note: iPhone and Android smartphone games such as Flood-It!, Flood-It!2, Line-Up and Trio. Flood-It! alone has been downloaded over 2 million times since it’s launch in March of 2009.

As mentioned above, this is just another day, another acquisition for Google. The month alone Google has snatched up mobile visual search startup Plink, web video co. Episodic, and most notably, stealth hardware company Agnilux. The Agnilux acquisition has already started fueling rumors of an Android based tablet device may or may not already be on Google’s radar. Looking back through 2010, Google has purchased Microsoft Office sharing service DocVerse, photo-editing startup Picnik, email solutions co. reMail, and social search firm Aardvark.

While details surrounding the purchase were not disclosed, TechCrunch reports that TheMarker (in Hebrew) is citing the price to be close to $25 million. They also astutely point out – not a bad price for a company that only ever raised $1 million in angel funding in 2008.

As part of the deal, LabPixies will remain based in Tel Aviv, and will work to expand the presence of the iGoogle brand across Europe, the Middle East, and Africa. As well as develop some snazzy Android apps, we’re betting…

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Zynga poised to release iPhone, iPad, and Android versions of FarmVille

Monday, April 26th, 2010

Spotted by the eagle-eyed folks at Superannuation, the URL’s FarmVilleiPad.com, FarmVilleiPhone.com, and FarmVilleAndroid.com have recently been snatched up. Three guesses as to who the registrant it.

FarmVille_iPadFair enough, trick question, as Zynga was not specifically named as the registrants of these domains, Superannuation did confirm that whomever purchased the above mentioned URL’s also registered FarmVille.com. Connecting the dots between the two isn’t that far of a leap. Also of interest, FarmVilleSMS.com was also registered, further implicating Zynga, as one of their few mobile gaming apps, Mafia Wars, also functions and can be played via SMS.

There’ve been no leaks in the way of screenshots or other media (the above image is merely speculation), so at this point it’s up in the air as to what the interface and gameplay will look like. Given the wide and rising popularity of ngmoco’s ‘We Rule’, a free-to-play strategy/farming game for iPhone, again, not a giant leap to guess that Zynga would approach the gameplay in a similar manner.

This mobile version of FarmVille would be Zynga’s entry to the iPad and Android market. While the above mentioned ngmoco, by contrast, has been heavily invested and committed to the iPhone mobile gaming platform, Zynga has has their own reservations. Just shy of one year prior, Zynga head honcho Mark Pincus commented to PocketGamer.biz, “…the jury’s still out on how well the platform is going to monetize.” This was pre-OS 3.0/microtransactions, and it looks like someone is obviously changing their tune.

And although FarmVille has enjoyed massive success on Facebook, it should be interesting if they can light the same fire on mobile gaming devices. 9 month ago, I would have said, “Baby, Light my Fire.” However, given Zynga’s proverbial dragging of the feet to get into the game, they’re already a step behind what other games developers have been working on for quite some time now.

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