Author: BWild

Several mobile games from top brands retired by Disney

| October 9, 2015

A number of different apps have been removed, including titles from Marvel and Star Wars.

Disney Interactive recently announced that it would be retiring a range of its mobile games for Android, iOS and Windows Phone based devices, meaning that while they haven’t been taken down by the app stores online, they also won’t be updated or supported at any point in the near future.

This step has been taken as Disney Interactive has chosen to focus its resources on new and upcoming mobile apps.

The mobile games won’t actually be taken down from the online stores, so they are available for people who still have them, the support will no longer be there and the updates won’t keep coming. Two of the mobile apps that have been considered to be the most controversial among those that were taken down are “Star Wars: Tiny Death Star” and “Star Wars: Assault Team”. Though “Assault Team” had been developed by a Disney mobile studio, “Tiny Death Star” was created by NimbleBit, an indie developer.

Recent reports have stated that NimbleBit wasn’t informed of the retirement of the mobile games.

Mobile Games - DisneyThis was reported by GameSpot, which pointed out that the controversy surrounding the retirement of these mobile apps was started when a fan was the one to notify NimbleBit of the situation when they weren’t able to download the game from the Apple App Store.

Other games that have been removed include both “Monkey Island” and “Monkey Island 2”. Those were some fan favorite titles and their removal has been disappointing to many people who enjoyed them. They were often considered to be the adventure game apps that were the funniest ever put out by Lucas Arts.

Other mobile apps that have had their titles retired include “Guardians of the Galaxy: The Universal Weapon, Avengers Alliance, Avengers Initiative, and Wreck-It Ralph, but there were also many more.

For device users who purchased these mobile games using real money, no refunds were being offered at the time this article was written. Moreover, special offers and in-game items will also not be provided to the players of these apps.

Verifone partnership with Barclays to bring mobile payments to a new level

| October 6, 2015

The recent announcement that these two giants were partnering together has also revealed a plan for transactions.

Verifone recently revealed that it was entering into a deal with Barclays that would have the two companies working together, and now it has stated that it will be integrating with Pingit, the British banking giant’s mobile payments technology.

This would bring the smartphone payments service to retailers that use Verifone’s transaction services.

This means that it will bring mobile payments together for Pingit’s 20,000 clients and add on the 70,000 businesses in the U.K. who are already Verifone transaction service customers. This could potentially be a stepping stone for the companies that could take the services more broadly throughout Europe. According to June Felix, the president of Verifone Europe, “What prompted the partnership, was a focus on Verifone’s part to help our retailer clients to enable commerce through every channel possible, whether it’s mobile, terminal or Web.”

The partnership sets the stage for a broad scale expansion of mobile payments that could occur quite quickly.

Mobile Payments partnershipFelix explained that Barclays is “very innovative and very well-established player in terms of consumer payment,” when taking into consideration its solid position in the United Kingdom, which is already among the largest European markets. She also pointed out that Pingit provides a “unique value proposition.”

By partnering with Barclays for its smartphone payments transactions to add the option to the Verifone physical countertop terminals, it makes it possible for Verifone to step outside its previous confines of those terminals into mobile shopping areas. This is an angle that it has never before been able to take.

It also remains a type of transaction of which many consumers remain completely unaware. With large names such as these, there is the potential to change that in the United Kingdom, so that consumers will learn about the technology and choose whether or not they want to use it.

Verifone isn’t without its experience in mobile payments, as – according to Felix – the company was “very involved” in the entry of Apple Pay into the United Kingdom’s marketplace. “The partnership with Pingit is really very consistent with that,” she said.