Pokemon Company Warns Against Knockoffs

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A recent app on the App Store labeled Pokemon Yellow was downloaded thousands of times before it was pulled. The Pokemon Company, shepherd of the seminal brand, was not amused with what happened.

“We continue to combat the unauthorized release of games, applications and merchandise that trick our fans into purchasing something that does not meet our quality standards,” said a Pokemon Company representative in a statement. “Fans who encounter questionable products should report to us immediately so we can keep other fans from falling victim to these scams.”

Source: Develop

Credit Cards See Reduced Usage For Online Game Transactions

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According to NewZoo, only 20 percent gamers made online payments using credit cards in 2011, decreasing from 26 percent in 2010. Pre-payment specialist Ukash indicates that nine out of ten of its customers prefer to use a cash alternative to credit and debit cards.

“It’s far from game over for cash,” said Ukash CEO David Hunter. “We’re seeing demand from publishers and gamers for alternative payment.”

Pre-paid specialists InComm, Microsoft, PaySafeCard and Ukash, have all seen sales rise year-on-year.

Peak Games Pushes For Arabic-Language Social Gamers

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Peak Games has acquired the Saudi company Kammelna Games and its popular online card game Baloot. They’re looking to expand in the Turkey and Middle East North Africa (MENA) region, which is expected to have 400 million players by 2015.

“We have added Kammelna to the Peak Games family because of their profound understanding of MENA players and their focus on creating culturally relevant, multiplayer social games — where Peak already has an expertise with millions of users,” said Sidar Sahin, chief executive officer and founder of Peak Games.

In Saudi Arabia, more than two-thirds of Internet users play games online and the country has one of the highest average revenue per user (ARPU) in social gaming worldwide.

Sony Patents Camera With Kinect-Like Motion Sensing

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According to a patent filed in late 2011, Sony is working on a camera that would plug into a PlayStation and recognize a player’s movements and their positioning in a 3D space. The patent was filed by Richard Marks, the main development talent behind Sony’s PlayStation Move.

The new devise appears to be an evolution off of the PS2’s EyeToy, and the PS3’s PlayStation Eye and Move peripherals, along with Microsoft’s Kinect. While this is an intriguing, even likely, addition to the PS4, the patent is not an announcement or verification that such a device will ever release.

Source: Kotaku

Jagex Says Mobile, Social Bubble Will Burst This Year

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It is a belief among many that the App Store is the next great frontier for game development. However, Jagex CEO Mark Gerhard says that his company had four top titles on the platform that never made more than $4,740 – $6,320 a month in profit.

“Everything’s moving online,” Gerhard said. “This is controversial, but the mobile bubble will burst this year and the social bubble will burst, too. There just isn’t the money there. The only people that are winning right now are Apple and consumers. Everyone’s rushing to make games for the new iPhone, and in that Apple makes a lot of money, but it’s a race to zero.”

“I think any closed platform, be it Microsoft, be it PlayStation Vita, XBLA, PSN, the App Store, ultimately are taking such a big chunk that people just aren’t making money. Facebook, too,” said Gerhard. “I think that fundamentally, bar a handful of winners that Apple is keeping, nobody makes money on their platform. It’s great for consumers, not good for developers, and that’s going to be the death of it.”

Source: GamesIndustry.biz

PS Vita Gets Netflix, Twitter And Flickr Support

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The U.S. PlayStation Vita store recently got its first major update to celebrate the system’s full launch in the region. Included in the update is a Netflix app alongside the Twitter and Flickr apps.

While Europe has received Facebook and Foursquare apps for the Vita, U.S. users will have to wait a little while longer. Also included in the update are a variety of launch titles that can be downloaded, and the free the augmented reality title Fireworks.

Hutch Games Says Indie Development Exciting And Liberating

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Five developers recently started up Hutch Games after leaving Sony’s London studio. While they were keen to emphasize that the decision to leave was amicable, the appeal of iOS development was the deciding factor.

“We had had a project cancellation,” art director Whill Whitaker. “It was an inciting incident. It was just very exciting for us to realize we could do something on Unity. The App Store allowing you to self-publish is a very democratizing situation. We were all motivated to take accountability for our own destiny. It was a very exciting thing to try out.”

“It didn’t happen at a fast enough pace for us,” said technical director Sean Turner. “We would get behind an idea and you didn’t have the control to continue or thrust ideas forwards as much as we’d like. So possibly that lack of control was the impeding thing, not lack of creativity.”

Hutch recently released its first game, an iOS racing title called Smash Cops, and is working in a production capacity with Microsoft Soho Productions on Sesame Street Kinect.

“Console games, which cost upwards of 10 million bucks to make, these companies, like Sony and Microsoft, they can’t take quite so many risks with them because there’s so much money involved,” added Whitaker. “One of the things that attracted me was, let’s just do something that’s innovative and quick to make and we can just get on and do it and there’s a lot less bureaucracy and money men behind it. It’s liberating.”

Source: Eurogamer

Thumbstar Hires Executives For Move Towards Development

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Thumbstar Games has announced the appointment of two new executives, reflecting their shift from being a publisher of over 2,000 games to a developer of its own IP. Tony Fitzgerald (veteran of Psygnosis, Rage, Jester Interactive, and Telcogames) has been made sales manager while Phil Brannelly (manager at Game and Ubisoft) will take the role of marketing manager.

“The pace of growth at Thumbstar continues and both Tony and Phil bring many years of experience into the fold,” said CEO Gareth Edmondson. “That sort of experience is priceless for any company, such as ours, with big ambitions. They are a welcome addition to the team.”

“Thumbstar are already well established as a distributor of third party mobile games content but the creation of our own IP, and taking that to a highly competitive market, is very exciting,” said Brannelly. “Everyone involved with Thumbstar has one goal and that’s to be the best. I’m thrilled to be given the chance to be a part of it.”