Tag: mobile games

Samsung takes on mobile games

| February 11, 2013

Mobile Games Samsung EA partnershipSamsung and EA team to push mobile games forward

Game industry giant Electronic Arts (EA) has teamed with Samsung Electronics to makes progress in the mobile games space. Samsung recently launched its own applications store to rival that of its long-time competitor Apple. The store is still in a fledgling state, but offers a wide variety of applications to consumers using Samsung mobile devices. The company has become heavily interested in mobile games and has been working to bring in more gaming applications to its new store, which has presented Electronic Arts with a very promising opportunity.

100% Indie initiative may attract developers to Samsung platform

EA and Samsung have teamed to launched the 100% Indie initiative, which is meant to attract developers of mobile games to the new Samsung app store. The initiative will provide developers with 100% of the revenue their mobile games generate through Samsung’s platform for their first six months, higher than the typical 30% developers usually get from other platforms. The initiative is scheduled to launch on March 4, 2013.

Higher revenue shares could be very alluring to developers

After the six month period had expired, developers with mobile games on the Samsung platform will give 10% of the revenue their games produce from that point forward to the company, keeping the rest for themselves. The following year, Samsung’s share rises to 20%, with the company’s share capping at 30% after two years. Samsung believes that developers being able to keep a higher share of their revenue, especially during the first six months of the launch of a new game, could be very lucrative to innovative and ambitious independent developers.

Samsung shows strong interest in mobile games publishing

Samsung recently overtook competitor Apple as the world’s largest smart phone seller. With the help of EA, the company may soon establish itself as a leader in the realm of mobile games. While Samsung will not focus on developing mobile games itself, it has a strong interest in acting as a publisher for such games. EA has extensive experience in this field, as the company is one of the largest publishers in the game industry currently.

Mobile games take priority with Zynga

| February 9, 2013

Zynga Mobile GamesZynga shifts focus to mobile games

Zynga has been experiencing a significant amount of turbulence in the social gaming space recently. The company made its fortune through Facebook with its vast portfolio of social games. Last year, however, Zynga suffered a proverbial fall from grace as consumers abandoned the company’s games and Facebook stopped showing exclusive favor to the developer. Zynga has adopted a new approach to gaming in an effort to reclaim its throne and has shifted focus to mobile games.

Social gaming takes a back seat

According to the company’s latest financial earnings report, Zynga saw revenues of $311 million in the fourth quarter of 2012. The company experienced a net loss of $48.6 million during the same period. Revenues have been stagnant for the company for several years, but in-game sales have dropped by 15% throughout 2012. For the company to reclaim its place in the game industry, it will have to make a big splash in the mobile games sector.

Zynga working to break into the mobile space

Zynga has already aligned itself with a mobile-centric focus. The company has a workforce of approximately 20 developers working exclusively on mobile games. The rest of the company is focusing on the business aspects of entering into the mobile space, such as marketing, developing better in-game monetization schemes, and working to build new mobile deployment platforms for its upcoming games. Though the company has adopted a very strong focus on mobile games, it is unlikely that Zynga will abandon its social games any time soon.

Social games not likely to be abandoned by the company

Though Zynga may have lost a great deal of favor with consumers over the past year, the company still boasts of more than 298 million monthly active users for its games. Most of these users come from Facebook, where the company’s most popular games are still featured. For its mobile games, Zynga will have to find a new publisher, as Facebook has shown wariness of supporting the company’s titles and the fact that the social network has a very limited presence in the mobile gaming sector.