Author Archive

Gameloft’s future is 3D

January 9th, 2007 by Arjan Olsder Posted in Games | 4 Comments »

While we noticed a lot of big developers and publishers scaling down in the number of releases in 2006, Gameloft is actually working pretty hard to push out new games in 2007. Gameloft has announced it will launch 20 mobile games in 3D along 2007. At the same time, Gamloft announced it will in the future only bring high quality 3D mobile games.

Read the rest of this entry »

Amp’d shows the numbers

January 8th, 2007 by Arjan Olsder Posted in Analysis & Editorial | No Comments »

Amp’d Mobile, the content driven US based MVNO has disclosed details about their consumer base. Amp’d now serves up to 100K consumer of which 89% is postpaid. The average monthly spend on mobile games is $3.

Finesse and Javart team up for Domino Quake

January 7th, 2007 by Arjan Olsder Posted in Games | No Comments »

Thursday, Finesse and Javart announced on MobileIndustry.biz about their cooperation to distribute Domino Quake all over. Today, we discussed the fine details and future prospects with Javart Business Development Manager Angelo Rocca.

Read the rest of this entry »

OneNine Studio’s licensed GoPets

January 7th, 2007 by Arjan Olsder Posted in Brand Licensing | No Comments »

OneNine Studios, a new mobile game developer started by people from Activision, Gameloft and Vicarious Visions announced their activities to develop the mobile version of GoPets. GoPets is an online multiplayer community that holds half a million players.

Noticing the mobile games industry

January 7th, 2007 by Arjan Olsder Posted in Analysis & Editorial | No Comments »

Thanks to the guys at QB, we noticed a nice post on cellular-news about how the mobile games industry pulled the attention of publishers over the last years. It shows a nice increase on the expected revenues that will be made in the industry.

Mobile Advertising Firm Amobee’s second funding

January 7th, 2007 by Arjan Olsder Posted in Companies & M&A | No Comments »

Amobee, the mobile advertising firm that also has solutions for mobile games, has just completed their second round of funding according to MocoNews. In this round they are expected to have raised between $ 15 million and $ 20 million. The exact amount in not disclosed though. Participats in this round where Accel Partners and Sequoia Capital who invested $ 5 million in the first round. They where joined by Globespan partners.

Trip Hawkins: DC blossomed in 2006

January 6th, 2007 by Arjan Olsder Posted in People | No Comments »

The game tycoon blog did an interesting interview with Trip Hawkins about his past and present in gaming. The main bit of the interview is based around the business of Digital Chocolate. He explains 2006 was the year Digital Chocolate started to blossom as operators opened up to his original IP instead of just taking on branded mobile games. Also he noted to be doing business in 70 countries and the US isn’t a primary revenue driver for Digital Chocolate. This being said, it’s interesting to see that DC is not only doing licensing on a low level, but also approaching the market a bit differently. The interview also handles the application AvaPeeps that DC is about to launch. AvaPeeps is a social networking application that integrates with services like mySpace.

InfoSpace done with restructuring

January 5th, 2007 by Arjan Olsder Posted in Companies & M&A | No Comments »

We have covered InfoSpace a lot lately as a lot of things seem to have gone wrong in a short time what resulted in major restructuring. Though the rumours about the sale of their mobile gaming units are still in the air, InfoSpace says it’s done reorganising for now as it finished it’s lasts steps. From now on, Steve Elfman, who joined InfoSpace in 2003, will head up the mobile department and report directly to Jim Voelker, the CEO of InfoSpace since 2002. The complete announcement is here.

Read the rest of this entry »

Orange Pixel releases Brik-Link

January 5th, 2007 by Arjan Olsder Posted in 1 | No Comments »

Clearly there is a lot of love going on between OrangePixel and the guys over at SmallFry Mobile as SmallFry choose to release yet another mobile game trough OrangePixel called Brick-Link.

Read the rest of this entry »

Simon Says; Go Cross-Platform (Eidos)

January 4th, 2007 by Arjan Olsder Posted in Brand Licensing | No Comments »

In an exclusive interview with MobileIndustry.biz, Simon Protheroe (director of new media at Eidos) explained the benefits of developing games to be delivered across multiple gaming platforms. He explains the return on investment is much bigger if a mobile game can be deployed on both the mobile phone and PC or Xbox Live Arcade. Something several other companies we highlighted like Cheeky and Software Amusements are already aiming at. Simon still believes in publishing dedicated mobile games, but Eidos will clearly bring as many titles as possible to other platforms to cut development and marketing costs.