A new report by Sensor Tower reveals that 2020 has been a record-setting year for worldwide spending on the Apple App Store and Google Play Store, which collectively passed $100 billion in a single year for the first time ever in November. From a report: The trend of increased spending continued over Christmas, when consumers around the world spent an estimated…
Tag: mobile games
Americans of All Ages Are Spending More on Video Games
We know that time and money spent on video games is surging due to the pandemic. Now, industry-tracking firm The NPD Group is providing detail on where that growth is coming from. From a report: And it turns out that people across all age demographics are playing more games more often. That’s big for mobile games, but it also includes Nintendo,…
Afghan Youth Find Escape in a Video Game
An anonymous reader shares a report: Rifle fire, hurried footsteps and distant explosions. The rat-a-tat of a firefight. Cars mangled from grenades. The young man was transfixed. It could have been any day in Kabul, where targeted assassinations, terrorist attacks and wanton violence have become routine, and the city often feels as if it is under siege. But for Safiullah Sharifi,…
UK Ad Authority Bans Misleading Homescapes and Gardenscapes Ads
An anonymous reader quotes a report from the BBC: Two misleading ads for mobile games that bear little relation to the actual product have been banned by the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA). The ads, for the Homescapes and Gardenscapes games, both come from developer Playrix. They showed a game where users pull pins in a specific order to solve a puzzle…
‘PUBG Mobile’ Will Escape India Ban By Cutting Out Tencent
Last week, India banned another 118 apps with links to China. PUBG Mobile Lite and PUBG Mobile Nordic Map were included in that sweeping ban. Now, PUBG Corporation says it’s looking for ways to bring the apps back to India. Engadget reports: The South Korean company was included in the ban because the mobile games are published by China’s Tencent. In…
Amazon is Good at So Many Things. Why is it Bad at Games?
In recent years Amazon has become a major force in television and film, so we have seen that the company can succeed in generating popular mass entertainment. Why is the company struggling so badly with games? Discussing the question with people involved with Amazon Games, some common themes emerge. From a report: “We’re bringing a lot of Amazon practices to making…
Why Apple Stopped Updating Over 15,000 Games in China’s App Store
Apple “has faced mounting pressure from the Chinese government in recent weeks to comply with local regulations, including that all games show proof of a government granted license,” writes Engadget. And now it’s finally come to a head, CNBC reports:
Apple has blocked updates on tens of thousands of revenue-generating iPhone games on its App Store in China amid rising tensions between…
Google Removes 25 Android Apps Caught Stealing Facebook Credentials
Google has removed this month 25 Android apps from the Google Play Store that were caught stealing Facebook credentials. From a report: Before being taken down, the 25 apps were collectively downloaded more than 2.34 million times. The malicious apps were developed by the same threat group and despite offering different features, under the hood, all the apps worked the same….
UK Government Encourages Social Distancing With In-Game Health Messages
To help slow the spread of the coronavirus, the UK Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) is using advertisements in mobile games to encourage social distancing. CNET reports: The message “Stay Home. Save Lives” has begun to appear in popular games like Candy Crush Saga, Sniper Elite 4, Dirt Rally 2.0 and Farm Heroes. The DCMS teamed up with…