Price increases on the App Store, generosity of Amazon users, advertising efficiency with the stars - and other news of the week for the mobile developer

App Store raised prices

Following the increase in prices for apple devices, the Russian App Store increases the cost of applications, games and in-game purchases. According to a representative of Apple, these changes were adopted in connection with the depreciation of the ruble against the dollar. As a result, from December 19, the internal course of the App Store is as follows:

$ 0.99 - 62 rubles;
$ 1.99 - 123.99 rubles;
$ 2.99 - 185.99 rubles;
$ 3.99 - 242.35 rubles;
$ 9.99 - 618.09 rubles.
etc.

Changes so far have only affected new applications, and old games and content can still be purchased at low prices.
I want to remind you that as a result of the last rise in price, iPhone 6 can be bought from 53,990 rubles, and the price of the iPhone 6 Plus starts at 61,990 rubles.

With such serious price hikes, one can expect a sharp decrease in demand for "golden" apples and, as a fact, a gradual decrease in the iOS audience in Russia.

SimCity BuidIt World Release

The epochal city builder and founder of the SimCity genre is experiencing its rebirth on mobile devices. After a trial run in Canada, the game officially releases immediately on two platforms: iOS and Android.

The creators promised to revise the game and adapt it for mobile devices. It is difficult to say how much this was possible. The feeling of the game remains quite controversial: on the one hand, the game is noticeably different from all the other city builders, on the other - there is a very big influence of farms, in particular, Hay Day. And instead of building a city, a lot of time will have to be spent on playing the farm.

In any case, the game should pay attention at least in order to evaluate the result and form your opinion.

Interesting facts about users in the Newzoo analytic report

The report showed that the most generous last year were users of Amazon devices. Among them, 64% spend money on mobile games. The shares of paying players on the iPad and iPhone are less and comprise 57.1% and 47%, respectively. And according to tradition, in terms of the number of users willing to pay for the game, Android is significantly behind - only 36.5%.



Also, Newzoo found out how gender affects the willingness to make purchases in mobile applications. As can be seen in the diagrams, men pay an average of 25% more than women. This is provided that mobile games are equally popular among both sexes.

An interesting fact is that the proportion of players paying for mobile applications is approaching the same indicator for games on PC and consoles. Over the past year, the total revenue of the entire mobile gaming industry amounted to $ 25 billion, and, according to Newzoo, this number will only grow.

Messi was more effective than Kate Upton

Last week, EA began broadcasting FIFA 15 Christmas ads . In a 50-second video, football stars Lionel Messi and Eden Hazard play each other on the net amid gingerbread men singing the Christmas carol and other festive paraphernalia.

From December 5 to 21, the video scored more than 2 million online views. And this figure is much better than that of the advertising of the Game of War game from Machine Zone, in which the American model Kate Upton was involved. Throughout the entire campaign, with its help, it was possible to collect only 2.5 million views, although advertising on TV and on the Internet was launched 2 weeks earlier than at FIFA.
The reason for this difference may be the fact that Machine Zone has invested heavily in the television version of advertising, while advertising on the Internet remains more effective.

As of December 18, gaming companies spent about $ 675 million on television advertising over the past year.

Apple recalls iOS 8 SDK and support for 64-bit code

Since February 2015, any new application must be built on the iOS 8 SDK and support 64-bit code in order to get to the App Store.

Apple recalls that by June 1, all applications and games already on the App Store must comply with the new requirements. All these requirements were described even earlier, in mid-October, and are no longer news, but they should be taken into account and not delay implementation for later!

The company recommends using the “Standard architectures” setting in Xcode by default, so that the resulting application supports both 32-bit and 64-bit architecture.