Rumors

 

Please take this section of the website with the right attitude. The rumors or news I post here are sometimes very speculative. Also, I pissed off some people by posting some rumors because of the sensitive nature of the posts so I deleted those posts and will self censor myself much more moving forward. Hence, this section may not be as active as I had originally imagined.

Further, I will never post a rumor where I have been asked not to so that limits a lot of potential information I can post.

July 3, 2013:

Apple to significantly start pushing paid apps vs. all of the “free to play crap” on the F2P side. Could Limbo and Kingdom Rush be a taste of more to come?

Currently Limbo is #26 on top grossing. Could be time to shift focus back (at least to some degree) to paid apps…

 

July 2, 2013:

Storm 8 on the verge of being acquired for big $.

 

June 26, 2013:

Industry Slowdown, Layoffs Coming:

Our industry has really started to slow down over the past few months. We’re seeing a lot less activity from publishers and game projects. I’ve been told it’s “not cool” to call out specific companies who are about to do layoffs but there are a few fairly sizable ones coming from  at least 3 of the major mobile games companies here in SV so people be careful.

We’ve been in a fairly sizable bubble in mobile gaming for a while now but the rationalization phase has already started.

Charting Coming to an End on iOS:

This has already slowed down a lot. GREE stopped sometime around Feb and we’re seeing a lot less of this recently. DeNA still seems to be spending a fair bit but has also slowed down. These two bellwethers  should inform us of the larger trend in the overall industry today.

 

June 5, 2013:

Apple Favoring Media Companies with Television Content:

Why do companies with television programming content get massive double/triple tier features when they launch their mobile games?

I’m sure AppleTV has nothing to do with it…

WB Made Back It’s Investment in Injustice Within 1 Week:

Warner Bros rumored to have paid developer NetherRealm $350K for Injustice mobile (developed in 3 months) and to have made back their investment within the first week. The brand, other platform marketing, and the rumor above about Apple Love certainly help.

NetherRealm also certainly aided by having written the game in Unreal Engine for console and able to re-use many of the assets for the mobile game.

 

June 3, 2013:

Facebook Distribution Program Coming:

Facebook rumored to be launching a new social distribution program taking cues from Kakao and LINE.

Facebook also reportedly targeting all of the key, successful Kakao Talk and Line companies with this program as well as select group of other mobile game partners.