Zynga today revealed its newest core game title, Solstice Arena, a multiplayer online battle arena game for mobile devices from the A Bit Lucky team.

A Bit Lucky is the developer behind games like Lucky Train and Lucky Space, which were shut down on Facebook in September 2012 while the studio continued to work on Solstice Arena. When Zynga acquired the studio, also in September 2012, A Bit Lucky’s employees became a part of Zynga San Francisco and continued to work on Solstice Arena, though little was known about the game at the time.

Today we finally learned that Solstice Arena is a MOBA game, a genre that originated with the popular mod Defense of the Ancients (DotA) for Blizzard’s PC and Mac strategy game Warcraft 3.

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Swedish independent game developer Mojang today announced that Minecraft – Pocket Edition surpassed the 10 million sales mark as of yesterday.

“We are very thankful to all the support that we have gotten and people playing and talking about our game,” says Daniel Kaplan, business developer at Mojang, in a blog post today.

Minecraft – Pocket Edition is the mobile version of the sandbox indie title that first launched in 2009. The premium-priced mobile game app. which is priced at $6.99 and features no in-app purchases, has remained in the top 25 on the top grossing iOS and Android apps charts for months, despite competing against the slew of free-to-play games like Candy Crush Saga and Clash of Clans that take up a majority of the top spots on the charts.

Pocket Edition released in late 2011 and is currently available for iOS and Android, and has remained at the same price point since launch.

At the beginning of 2013, Mojang released download figures for its sandbox building game on PC, Mac, Xbox Live Arcade and mobile. Downloads for Minecraft – Pocket Edition exceeded 280,000 on Christmas Day alone, 700,000 during Christmas week and 5.8 million in all of 2012. Assuming the title sold at $6.99 at all times in 2012, Mojang generated more than $41 million in gross revenue (before the app stores standard 30 percent cut).

According to our traffic tracking service AppData, Minecraft – Pocket Edition for iOS is the No. 4 ranked app on both the iPhone and iPad top paid apps charts, and ranked No. 4 on the top grossing iPad apps chart and No. 18 on the top grossing iPhone apps chart. For Android, Pocket Edition landed at the No. 4 spot on the top paid Android apps chart and the No. 24 position on the top grossing Android apps chart.

Mobile game developer and publisher Glu Mobile today reported total non-GAAP (generally accepted accounting principles) smartphone revenues of $17.1 million for Q1 2013, falling by 7.6 percent from Q4 2012′s $18.5 million, and by 1.7 percent from Q1 2012′s $17.4 million. iOS and Android accounted for 91 percent of Glu’s smartphone revenue, marginally down from 92 percent in Q4 2012.

Glu also cut staff yesterday in an effort to reduce the number of its development studio teams and eliminate certain research and development positions. The reduction in staff was equivalent to circa 12 percent of this year’s starting headcount of 564 employees. Glu also made this decision to enable it to hire additional monetization, live operations, server technology, user experience and product management personnel to support Glu’s transition to becoming a games-as-a-service (GaaS) company. Glu plans to bring headcount up to 580 by year’s end. Restructuring will complete no later than June 30, 2013. Glu did just hire Chris Arkhavan as president of publishing, who is focusing on growing advertising revenues, increasing direct marketing efficiencies and overseeing third-party publishing.

“Our goal is to shift headcount out of raw studio team volume and into our GaaS functions,” says Niccolo de Masi, CEO of Glu Mobile, in today’s earnings call.

The company’s total revenue for the first quarter of 2013 was $19.0 million, down 12 percent from $21.6 million in Q1 2012, and fell 8.7 percent quarter-over-quarter from total revenue of $20.8 million in Q4 2012. Non-GAAP operating loss was $2.2 million in Q1 2013 compared to Q1 2012′s $23,000 and Q4 2012′s $2.5 million. Glu’s non-GAAP net loss was $2.3 million in Q1 2013, resulting in a non-GAAP earnings per share (EPS) loss of $0.03.

“I’m pleased with the moentization progress we made in Q1 and the steps we are taking to maintain this momentum,” de Masi says.

The San Francisco-headquartered game studio released seven freemium games in Q1 — Dragon Storm, Stardom: Hollywood, Gun Bros 2, Small City, Samurai vs. Zombies Defense 2, Heroes of Destiny, and Frontline Commando: D-Day. Titles released in Q1 2013 accounted for 16 percent ($2.66 million) of non-GAAP smartphone revenue this past quarter. Glu now plans to launch 12 first-party titles in 2013, with five already out. In March, Glu, in partnership with mobile gambling service Probability PLC, launched its first real-money game title Samurai vs. Zombies Defense Slots for the web in the U.K. Glu also announced today’s launch of another slots game in partnership with Probability with Contract Killer Slots in the U.K. Lastly, Glu began development on a Glu-IP-branded mobile casino suites game, which is expected to launch in the U.K. by Q3 2013.

Daily active users (DAU) rose from 3.5 million in Q4 2012 to 3.9 million in Q1 2013. Monthly active users (MAU) also increased, moving from 34.8 million in Q4 2012 to 40.1 million in Q1 2013.

In Q1 2013, Glu’s average revenue per daily active user (ARPDAU) was 6.4 cents, down from 6.7 cents in Q4 2012. The average for the percentage of MAU converting to paid users stood still at 0.7 percent. Stardom: The A List once again had the highest ARPDAU at 8.3 cents, although that figure fell from 9.1 cents in Q4 2012. The female-focused game also had the greatest conversation rate, converting 1.2 percent of MAU to paid users. Contract Killer 2 led all Glu titles again as the game with the most DAU, with 292,000 DAU. Heroes of Destiny and Dragon Storm, two Q1 2013 releases, broke Glu’s own ARPDAU records. As for Glu’s third-party publishing efforts, the game house plans to launch six titles globally by December 2013.

Glu’s most lucrative title for Q1 2013 was Eternity Warriors 2, which generated $2.1 million in non-GAAP revenue. Another notable title was Contract Killer 2, which raked in $1.8 million.

For Q2 2013, Glu estimates non-GAAP smartphone revenue between $15.2 million and $16.2 million. Glu now predicts between $80 million and $84 million in smartphone revenue for the 2013 fiscal year, down from the company’s prediction of $84 million to $88 million it provided in the Q4 2012 earnings release. As of March 31, 2013, Glu finished the quarter with a cash balance of $21.2 million and no debt.

Glu’s stock price dipped 7 cents after the release of its earnings report to $3.01 per share, with a market cap of $200.5 million. In after hours trading, the stock dropped even more to $2.90.

Mobile game developer and publisher Animoca today released more region-specific data pertaining to the Android handset market share. The Android-focused game studio’s latest report broke down the Android smartphone market share in three leading European countries — Germany, France and the U.K.

Starting with trends Animoca saw in all three countries, Samsung occupied more than half of the top 10 spots in the U.K., France and Germany. A similar pattern was surfaced by Animoca in its previous reports for Hong Kong and India, Singapore and the U.S. — although Samsung’s share wasn’t quite as dominant in the U.S.

The South Korean-headquartered Samsung’s Galaxy S2 and S3, its leading line of smartphone devices, were at the top No. 1 and No. 2 spots in all three countries. In Animoca’s other reports, only India and Japan didn’t show the same amount of dominance for Samsung devices that was seen in other regions. In India, low-end devices were more popular, while in Japan, Samsung didn’t occupy at least half of the top 10 positions.

Sony’s Xperia series of handsets were the second most popular Android smartphones in the three key European markets. The mid-range Xperia U, which was launched around the globe in May 2012, was the only Sony device to appear in the top 10 of all three countries, making Sony the only OEM besides Samsung to chart in the top 10 in Germany, France and the U.K.

Lastly, the only other smartphone OEMs that appeared in the top 10 were HTC in the U.K. and Germany, and LG in France.

Data for this report was collected from individual Google Play users of Animoca games located in the specified European country, and who played an Animoca title between March 9 and April 8. (more…)

Real-money gaming is now reality in the U.S. with Skillz, a first-of-its-kind multiplayer tournament platform, which gives players the chance to compete for real money and virtual currency in mobile games of skill. The platform launched today in beta for Android.

“We’re bringing real-money gaming to the U.S. right now, and we’re the first people to do that,” Andrew Paradise, co-founder and CEO of Skillz, tells Inside Mobile Apps.

Skillz enables games of skill to be played in cash tournaments in 36 states — such as California, New York, Texas and more — as well as virtual currency tournaments in any game worldwide. All a mobile developer has to do to enable cash and free multiplayer tournaments is integrate Skillz’s SDK, which can be implemented in as short as an hour to three work days.

Skillz has come out of stealth with 10 developers with 10 games on board, including Gnarly Games with GnarBike Trials, Spooky House Studios with Bubble Explode, Rocketmind with Big Sport Fishing 3D Lite and more. The first batch of titles run the gamut genre-wise, with genres like endless runners, bubble shooters, mini golf and more.

The obvious question to ask is how did Skillz make real-money gaming legal in the U.S.? The easiest answer is that real-money gaming via a skills competition has been legal for years in most states. First, it’s important to define the difference between a skill versus a chance game. On one end of the spectrum is a skill game like chess and on the other end is a chance game like roulette. The legal definition of a skilled game is if a skilled player predominantly beats an unskilled player about 75 percent of the time. Examples of games of skill where a cash competition is legal include chess tournaments, running marathons, golf tournaments, fishing tournaments, esports tournaments for games like StarCraft 2 and Call of Duty, even the arcade game Golden Tee, and more.

“One of the things we created is a way to statistically verify the level of skill versus chance in a game, and so one of the things we do is plug in these virtual currency tournaments into a given game and then we’ll run virtual currency tournaments and gather data,” Paradise says. “Basically, we can look at how often skilled players beat unskilled players and then determine if a game is skill versus chance.” (more…)

AppShopper returns to the Apple App Store – App discovery service AppShopper, which was pulled from the Apple App Store in December 2012 just like AppGratis recently, returned to the Apple App Store this week. The developers altered the approach of the app so that it doesn’t directly compete with the app store by focusing on social discovery through a core Wish List functionality.

Rebtel announces public launch of its Voice Platform for iOS and Android developers – Mobile VoIP company Rebtel announced the public launch of its free SDK for iOS and Android developers, which allows them to integrate free global calling capability into any app. The company first opened up its service in beta back in December 2012. Interested developers can go here to learn more.

Slant Six Games releases Max’s Pirate Planet – Slant Six Games, the developer behind some titles in the SOCOM: U.S. Navy Seals franchise for Sony PlayStation systems, released an interactive pirate board game for kids called Max’s Pirate Planet — A Board Game Adventure. The title is priced at $2.99 and available for iOS, Android and Kindle Fire.

Animoca launches Thor: Lord of Storms – Hong Kong’s Animoca launched action-strategy defense game Thor: Lord of Storms, which is based on Norse Mythology. The title is available now for free on Android.

Plink launches mobile app for iOS – Plink, a loyalty program that rewards users for making offline purchases, launched a mobile app for iOS. Now current Plink users from the web or Facebook can manage their account anywhere, while new users will be able to create an account and connect their credit or debit card to the account, so they can begin earning points by purchasing offline from more than 50,000 of Plink’s partners.

Zattikka launches Legacy of a Thousand Suns – Legacy of a Thousand Suns, a massively multiplayer online role-playing game originally for Facebook from game studio 5th Planet Games, made its way iOS this week. The mobile version of the game was developed by Spellgun Studios, which is part of games entertainment group Zattikka.

Drippler launches iPhone app, Android app reaches 5 million users – Drippler, the app that provides users with device-related content and information about their handset, launched an iPhone version of its app this week. The Palo Alto, Calif.-based startup also announced that it reached the five million total user mark across its suite of Android apps.

NARR8 to launch editor tool for its motion comics app in late May – NARR8 announced that it’ll be adding a new editor tool to its motion comics app (review), which will allow users to create their own interactive stories with visuals, music and basic animation. The editor is slated to launch in late May.

Editor’s note: Arcade action game Nimble Quest is the latest offering from Tiny Towers and Pocket Planes developer NimbleBit. Kevin Oke, Lead Designer at both Adrian Crook & Associates, a social-mobile game design consultancy, and PlayRank, a second screen startup, analyzes the stickiness in Nimble Quest. He previously wrote a guest post for Inside Mobile Apps that analyzed engagement in Supercell’s Clash of Clans.

NimbleBit, creators of Tiny Tower and Pocket Planes, released their latest title the aptly named Nimble Quest at the end of March. While it’s a fun game, I’ve found four key issues described below that I believe limit its stickiness and in turn, its ability to monetize.

According to AppData, after a strong start peaking at No. 6 on the top free iPhone apps chart for the games genre, it has slid to No. 217 as of this writing. Its rank on the top grossing iPhone apps chart for the games genre is at No. 190. These positions may be at least partially attributable to the issues I found.

The Compulsion Loop

This is the biggest barrier for Nimble Quest to overcome. The nature of its compulsion loop makes for a very grind heavy experience that hinders its stickiness.

It’s a rule of thumb in game design that the shorter the loop, the more addictive the experience. By analyzing the loop (diagram above), one can see that unless the player is willing to spend hard currency, they have to restart from the beginning every time. The variable session length nature of the game means that as the player and their friends improve, it takes more and more time for them to challenge their ever-increasing high scores.

Essentially Nimble Quest is banking on players getting invested enough in leaderboard competition to start paying once the grind becomes too much to bear. This is a risky hook to rely on here, as it’s one that is much better suited to games with more of a sense of permanence and ownership, like city builders and strategy games such as Kingdoms of Camelot by Kabam. The reason being that without such permanence, it’s much easier for the player to decide to quit when the grinding gets tiresome.

As in any freemium game leveraging the player’s time for money, if the player tires of the grind too quickly and churns out, they can’t be monetized. However Nimble Quest is especially at risk here because of their compulsion loop. Fixed session lengths with level progression and difficulty determined by a party XP level would have provided more stickiness. (more…)

Game company GungHo Online, the makers of the Japanese juggernaut mobile game Puzzle & Dragons, saw its market cap surge to $9 billion as its stock prices significantly jumped in the past few days.

GungHo’s stock, which is traded on the Osaka Stock Exchange, has more than doubled in price in April, increasing by about 20 percent from yesterday to today. As industry watcher and analyst Dr. Serkan Toto pointed out, the swell in the Japanese company’s stock price could be attributed to the recent launch of the English version of Puzzle & Dragons on Android, and the announcement for a version of the puzzle and role-playing game hybrid for the Nintendo DS handheld system and a new spin-off game called Puzzle & Dragons Challenge for iOS and Android (both titles are Japan only).

GungHo’s market cap is larger than other Japanese gaming powerhouses like GREE and DeNA as well as Zynga, which released its quarterly earnings yesterday.

Puzzle & Dragons, which is said to be generating between $62 million to $86 million per month, was labeled by Distimo as the top grossing app worldwide.

Yesterday, during Zynga’s Q1 2013 earning call, CEP Mark Pincus announced the launch of Draw Something 2. The game is available to download for free exclusively on the Apple App Store. An Android version is coming soon.

The first Draw Something was a simple draw-and-guess game where players compete against each other to create pictures based on stimulus words. The game won the award for Best Social Network Game at last night’s Game Developer’s Choice Online Awards ceremony. It was the first time Zynga managed to take home a GDC Online Award, even though its games have been nominated for the past two years.

Draw Something 2 introduces a live feed where players can share, ‘like’ or comment on drawings, and follow friends, artists and celebrities. It also adds a collection of new drawing tools like new patterns, textures and colors.

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Distimo’s latest report takes a deep dive into the Amazon Appstore, taking a look at the top apps and publishers in terms of estimated daily downloads and one-off revenues in the app store. The report also takes a look at the differences and similarities between the Amazon Appstore, a third-party app store for the Android platform, and Google Play.

App tracking company Distimo kicked off its April report by revealing that the top 200 free apps on the U.S. Amazon Appstore saw a total of 16 million downloads in March. Similarly to the Apple App Store and Google Play, the most downloaded genre of apps were games, with Imangi Studios’ Temple Run 2 leading the way as the most downloaded free app. Also, eight of the top 10 most downloaded apps were games, with Netflix and Facebook as the two non-game apps.

As expected, the amount of device installs for free apps in Google Play is significantly higher compared to the Amazon Appstore. The Dutch firm adds that Google Play is approximately 10 times larger than the Amazon Appstore in the U.S. For example of the disparity between the two app stores, Developer Halfbrick Studios’ Fruit Ninja Free, which is ranked No. 9 in the Amazon Appstore among the top free apps, was downloaded 9.1 times less than in Google Play, which translates to 2.3 million installs from Google Play and 250,000 from the Amazon App Store in March.

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