Rovio’s most popular app could now be taking on Candy Crush as it jumps into a new game category.
When it comes to the mobile gaming industry, Angry Birds continues to hold its position among the most popular app series in the world, but at the same time, it isn’t even approaching the financial successes that are seen by puzzle based options such as Candy Crush Saga.
The Angry Birds developer has now decided to that its mobile games will be closer to Puzzle & Dragons.
Rovio has not been blind to the match-three puzzle style mobile gaming apps and it has now soft-launched two new games in the Angry Birds series that have dumped their traditional bird slingshot style play for, yes, themed match-three puzzles. Angry Birds Fight! has now been made available in Thailand, while Angry Birds Stella Pop! is available to Canadian downloaders.
Mobile gaming developers have been using single country debuts as a type of standard for testing their apps.
The mobile app developers use these single country releases to be able to refine their new games before they are ready to launch them worldwide. According to recent reports from early downloaders, the style of the newest Angry Bird match-three puzzle games is that of “freemium” applications, in which they can be downloaded and played for free, but where there are in-app purchases for virtual items available to players who want to enhance their experience.
The Angry Birds Fight! version of the game involves having to match three or more birds in a line in order to be able to combat enemies – somewhat similar to the highly popular Puzzle & Dragons game from the GungHo Online app developer based in Japan.
On the other hand, the Angry Birds Stella Pop! is more comparable to the Puzzle Bobble (also known as Bust-a-Move) console classic bubble popping game, or to the more recent mobile gaming app from King (maker of Candy Crush), which is called the Bubble Witch Saga. This move will be a defining one for Rovio, which still holds onto considerable popularity with its Angry Birds app, but that has been watching that popularity slide since late 2012.
GungHo Online sees major revenue spike through mobile games
GungHo Online Entertainment, a Japanese game publisher, recently acquired Grasshopper Manufacture, an innovating game developer that has a strong focus on mobile games. Since the acquisition, GungHo Online has been seeing significant increases in its revenues, largely due to the popularity of mobile games in the Japanese market. Japan has long been on the cutting edge when it comes to technology and gaming, so it is no surprise that Japanese consumers have been adopting mobile technology en masse. This widespread adoption has given consumers access to a vast assortment of mobile games, but consumers have shown strong interest in a particular game that is netting GungHo Online a great deal of revenue.
Financial report notes GungHo Online pulling in $65 million in monthly revenue
GungHo Online recently released its latest financial report, which suggested that one of its mobile games is bringing in a proverbial fortune on a regular basis. The report highlights Puzzle & Dragons, which was developed by Grasshopper Manufacture. Game industry analysts claim that this single mobile game is bringing in more than $65 million on a monthly basis due to popular in-game purchases and advertising. The game is only a year old, having been released in February 2012, and boasts of more than 8 million users.
Company claims growth has yet to slow
The success of the company’s mobile games have lead to a spike in profits. GungHo Online saw its sales grow by more than 168% in 2012, with operating profits climbing a staggering 690% during the same period. GungHo notes that it is still see aggressive growth in mobile games. In January 2013 alone, the company reported that sales had reached $91 million, growing by 1,022% from what they had been in 2012.
Mobile games beginning to dominate the game industry
Mobile games continue to prove that they have become a very lucrative market for the game industry. These games had once been considered a marginal sector of the game industry that would never serve as more than a gimmick for consumers. Due to strategic in-game transactions and advertising, however, mobile games have become a very influential part of the game industry as a whole, with many developers that have long been focused on consoles now making the transition to become more mobile-oriented.
