Vietnam’s game industry is in a difficult place right now. With over 60 million internet users and over 50 million smartphone owners, of which gamers make up 30 million, it is a small market.

People’s Daily, which is considered to speak on behalf of the Communist party, leads the initative to introduce age rating systems for games.

Mobile games brought in about 75% of the global $39.7 billion app revenue in the first half of the year. So far, customers have spent $29.6 billion on games.

The analytical service DataMagic has upgraded its games classification system. When evaluating your desirable niche you can now filter games not just by their genres, but also by sub-genres (essentially, by their mechanics), and by setting.

Modus, a publishing division of Maximum Games focused on indie projects, breaks down typical steps that indie developers should take to approach a publisher.

Zachtronics has made its games free for schools and similar non-profit academic institutions. Private and for-profit schools can expect discounts.

China is the world’s biggest market by mobile game revenue (to reach $30 billion in 2020). It is also extremely difficult to navigate for foreign publishers.  First, you’ve got stringent regulations imposed by the Chinese government. Secondly, sensitivities and preferences of the Chinese players can be a puzzle game in and of itself.

Redhill Games founded in 2018 by Remedy and Wargaming alumni has secured $11.4m in investment for its first project.

Audio designers who worked on Creative Assembly’s hit Total War: Three Kingdoms wrote a post on Gamasutra on creating the audio for the game.

Lion Studios, AppLovin’s publishing branch, has launched the second annual contest for mobile game developers called Ultimate Game Changers. $300,000 will be split between four top contestants.

Mobile games industry has embraced hyper-casual genre relatively recently, but it is already outperforming casual gaming in a number of ways. GameAnalytics compares the two categories against the backdrop of the more established genres.

Sony will not be seeking partnerships with indie or smaller developers as part of their strategy for PS5. Instead, the console holder will focus on big publishers and AAA exclusives.

So, you have released a mobile game. Do you know what to consider a good retention rate for your title? Wondering how much time users spend playing similar games? And what about money? How does your ARPPU compare to that of competitors?

A quirky balletic 2,5D shooter inspired by flash games was launched on June 20 and has by now cleared over 250,000 sales across PC and Switch.

Several indie developers have noticed abnormally high numbers of Wishlist deletions for their games.

According to Bethesda’s blog, Germany will get the uncensored version of Wolfenstein: Youngblood for the first time in the history of the MachineGames’ series.

Instagram was instrumental in promoting the mobile hit Archero. It provided 48 percent of the game’s ad impressions on iOS.

How to advertise a mobile game in 2019? Apptopia explains the rules of player engagement. 

Sensor Tower analyzed 100 top publishers by game revenue on App Store and Google Play. In Q1 2019, App Store game publishers grossed 48 percent more than their counterparts on Google Play.