Samsung Galaxy S Phones Sell Over 100 Million

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Samsung has announced that the Galaxy S series has sold over 100 million units since launching in May 2010. The current model, the Galaxy S III is selling at the rate of 30 million in 5 months and 40 million over 7 months, becoming a million seller in only 50 days after its release last May.

“Currently, [the Galaxy S III’s] average daily sales are 190,000 units,” said Samsung. “The driving force behind Samsung Electronics’ rise to the top on the global smartphone market is Galaxy S II which is gaining ground as a steady seller hitting the sales of over 40 million in only 20 months.”

Sega Partners With Gogogic On Godsrule

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Sega has announced that it will work with Gogogic to develop Godsrule: War of Mortals. The browser/tablet game is free-to-play and is set to launch in early 2013.

“We choose our partners carefully and Gogogic has a demonstrated ability in creating top-flight games that resonate with their players,” said Sega of America vice president of Digital Business Chris Olson. “We look forward to building new worlds with them.”

Read more about Gogogic in this two part interview exclusive to [a]list.

Hungry Shark Hits 50 Million Downloads

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Future Games of London has announced that Hungry Shark has passed 50 million downloads of its games on iOS, Google Play and the Amazon App Store, with 40 million more planned in 2013. The developer has also released Pool Bar, Snooker Club and Grabatron with plans for two new titles this year as it moves to PC and Mac.

“We’re looking to achieve 50 per cent to 100 per cent unit growth in direct-to-consumer downloads on smart phones and tablets, so 30 — 40 million in 2013,” said Ian Harper, managing director. “This will be driven by two new AAA free-to-play games in the second half of the year, and in the first half by our recently launched iOS game Hungry Shark Evolution coming to Android. We’re also beginning to take our games to desktop PC through the Mac App Store and Steam, starting with Hungry Shark Evolution in Q1.”

“We expect iPhone and iPad to continue to lead the market in design quality and also App revenue. We also expect continuing exceptional growth from Android smart phones,” he added. “In fact, we expect over 500 million Android smart phones to ship worldwide in 2013, which is an extraordinary number to contemplate. Amazon is looking well placed in the tablet market, and of course own a fantastic store and credit card database.”

Source: GamesIndustry International

Social Game Investment Fell Off Cliff In 2012

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Digi-Capital believes that social game investment fell 94 percent in 2012 from its peak in 2011 to $853 million, a decline of over $1 billion. With the figure closer to the total in 2010, it seems that the social market has indeed collapsed on itself to a degree.

Middleware/Gamification was the most popular sector for investors, accounting for 35 percent of the $853 million and 29 percent of all investment transactions. Mobile was also popular, seeing 31 percent of the value and 39 percent of the volume.

Despite the declines in investments, M&A activity rose 18 percent to $4 billion, with 83 M&A transactions in 2012. MMOs saw 38 percent of that investment, with mobile seeing 27 percent of the value and 28 percent of the volume.

The investments show the emergence of Asian companies on the scene as seven of the 10 most valuable M&A deals were made by companies from China, South Korea or Japan. Asian markets will be increasingly important as part of mobile and online markets as China, South Korea and Japan are predicted to generate more than half of all revenue by the end of fiscal year 2015.

Digi-Capital expects mobile and online to push growth in the industry overall. By the end of fiscal year 2016, they believe online and mobile will account for more than 55 percent of the market’s total value of $83 billion, while the free-to-play business model will comprise 55 percent of all mobile/tablet app revenue and 93 percent of app downloads.

Source: Digi-Capital.com

Exclusive: December Top Players In Mobile

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Games market research firm Newzoo and app analytics provider Distimo have released their monthly charts for top grossing mobile publishers and games worldwide, covering both iOS and Android. Their data for December shows revenues for mobile games jumped 35 percent month over month, based on sales of the top 200 games on Apple iTunes and Google Play. Google’s store saw the biggest growth followed by iPad games on iTunes. The peak holiday period seems to have helped paid games, with revenues of pay-to-download titles nearly doubling last month compared to November.

This period’s charts for top publishers and games cover 44 territories for Apple iTunes and 17 for Google Play. Newzoo CEO Peter Warman provided insight into his firm’s findings for [a]list daily.

“December saw seven new entries to the iOS top 20 games list,” said Warman. “This is a record number of entries since we began publishing the lists in August. The trend is most likely due to the increase in games available around the Christmas period, and also in the time that people can dedicate to gaming.”

Source: Newzoo and Distimo rankings based on top grossing games in 44 countries: Argentina, Australia, Austria, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, Chile, China, Colombia, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Japan, Korea, Malaysia, Mexico, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Peru, Phillipines, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Taiwan, Thailand, Turkey, United Arab Emirates, United Kingdom, United States, Uruguay, Venezuela, Vietnam

Warman pointed out that the top 20 publishers are dominating game sales beyond these charts.

“For iOS downloads, [they] have 89 games in the top 200, and for Google Play [they] have 84,” he said.

Source: Newzoo and Distimo rankings based on top grossing games in 17 countries: Australia, Canada, Denmark, Finland, France,

Germany, Israel, Italy, Japan, Korea, Netherlands, Norway, Russia, Spain, Sweden, United Kingdom, United States

Looking at top publishers on iOS versus Android, Warman said the two platformrs are “different planets.”

“The Top 20 Publisher list is completely different when comparing iOS and Google Play, with only seven publishers present in both lists. The [Google] Play store list includes a larger number of Asian publishers, with the top five coming exclusively from there.”

He added that Google’s store showed much better balance between Western and Asian markets with a 60-to-40 percent split.

Source: Newzoo and Distimo rankings based on top grossing publishers in 44 countries

Source: Newzoo and Distimo rankings based on top grossing publishers in 17 countries

Warman also pointed out how Kabam made the charts helped by hit titles for both iOS and Android based on The Hobbit.

“[They] appear to have benefited hugely from the success of the hit movie, with The Hobbit: Kingdoms of Middle-Earth reaching 15 on iOS and 11 on Google Play. Perhaps 2013 will see an increase in games that are linked to blockbuster movies,” said Warman.

The top monthly players in mobile will continue next month.

Sources:

 

Coca-Cola – Let’s Go Crazy

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Coke is looking to inspire people to commit their own random acts of happiness in a pro-social campaign that invites you to “Go crazy and do good for others.” Some great stealth acts of kindness set to the campaign’s theme song Supertramp’s Give a Little Bit.

 

Dead Space 3 Dev-Team Edition Announced

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Visceral Games and Treehouse Brand Stores have announced Dead Space 3 Dev-Team Edition. This special edition of the game features a 8″ Black Marker Statue, an Aluminum Data Pad, a Med Pack Water Bottle, a Bound SCAF Jotter, SCAF Posters, Peng Postcards, a 96 Page Mini Art Book.

The Dead Space 3 Dev-Team Edition with game will cost $160 with a copy of the game, or $100 without a copy of the game. Order one of the 5,000 limited copies yourself at DeadSpace3DevTeamEdition.com.

Pathfinder Online Raises Over $1 Million On Kickstarter

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Goblinworks announced that its Pathfinder Online Kickstarter was funded. 8,732 backers supported the game, raising $1,091,194 in total, including over $100,000 in the final 24 hours to easily clear the Kickstarter goal.

“Awed, humbled, utterly blown away by your love and support. Words fail us,” reads the announcement by Goblinworks. “Having reached our funding goal is such an amazing achievement. We’ll be the 10th most funded videogame project in Kickstarter history. We are showing the videogame industry that there’s a place for a fantasy sandbox MMO, FUNDED BY ITS PLAYERS. This is history-making stuff here, people. And you are a part of it.”

The company also confirmed that Gnomes will be added to the game as a player race because the game hit its first stretch goal.

Source: Kickstarter.com

Kabam Picks Up Exploding Barrel Games

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Kabam has acquired Exploding Barrel Games; terms of the deal were not disclosed. Exploding Barrel, developers of the acclaimed Margaritaville Online, will become part of the free-to-play publisher.

“We blew away our targets for 2012,” said Kabam CEO Kevin Chou. “We did much better than we publicly talked about. It was a phenomenal growth year for us. That’s why we felt it was the right time to acquire EBG.”

“Kabam is at the top of their game in the free-to-play space,” said Exploding Barrel president Scott Blackwood. “We learned a lot working with them.”

Source: GamesBeat