Rovio fires employees, tanks come out for Android, women with children shop more often - and other news of the week for a mobile developer

Moms as a target audience

WildTangent published the results of a new study, according to which 80% of mothers play mobile games at least once a week, and 68% of pregnant women play games several times a day.

As a result of the study, the audience was divided into four groups: pregnant women, mothers with infants, mothers with babies, and mothers with children aged 5 to 17 years. Women with babies spent the least time on games, which is obvious, but 76% of them play while the baby is sleeping, and 55% play when they are bored. More than 58% of women with babies play to rest and relax. Pregnant women devote the most time to games, an average of an hour or more more than women with babies or toddlers.

The study also showed that 37% of mothers with children over 5 years old and 34% of expectant mothers buy things that they advertise in games.

Rovio Reduces Employees

Rovio confirmed the information about the dismissal of employees. As a result of the closure of the office in Tampere, 110 people lost their jobs, which is about 14% of the company's workforce. The original plan was to reduce 130 jobs.

The actual closure of the Tampere studio means that the entire company is now based in Espoo, where Angry Birds were released in 2009.

After a significant increase in staff in 2012, the company's profit fell by almost
half. Rovio's chief financial officer, Herkko Soininen, said the reason for the decline in
profits was the development of the company in the field of animation and merchandising. Despite this, Rovio is still planning the premiere of an animated film based on the Angry Birds game in 2016.

World of Tanks Blitz released on Android!

Along with the version for Android , update 1.5 for the game appeared. In it, Wargaming added British technology, expanding the tank fleet to more than 100 vehicles.

World of Tanks Blitz was introduced in March 2013, and 12 months later began a closed beta test of the game on iOS. It was attended by more than 150 thousand people. In May, residents of the Scandinavian countries got access to the game, and for all other iOS users, the doors were opened in June. On the GameRankings aggregator, the game received an average rating of 85%.
The Android version has already scored more than 500 thousand downloads, and the average rating is above 4 points.

Even on a smartphone with a small screen, playing is quite comfortable, and on tablets there are no problems at all. There are minor problems with playing through 3G networks, but there is no particular discomfort. The game turned out to be cross-platform and supports accounts from iOS versions. To run World of Tanks Blitz, the device must have a GPU chip no worse than Mali-400MP, Adreno 320, PoweVR SGX544 or Tegra 3. A full list of supported phones and tablets is published on the developer's website .

Zynga promotes The Killers songs in his farm

Zynga, along with Apps for (RED), became partners with Jimmy Kimmel and The Killers in a charity event for the FarmVille 2: Country Escape mobile game. Until December 7, players could listen to The Killers' new song “Joel the Lump of Coal” for free, playing the game, or buy it by donating to the AIDS campaign.

For free, the song could be listened to an unlimited number of times through a special application window. The game also offered a link to download songs from iTunes. The purchase cost the players $ 1.29, and the whole amount went to charity.

This is not the first time a mobile artist has been supported by a popular artist.
Since 2009, more than 5 million users of Zynga products have participated in 150 promotions, supporting 50 million charities.

Kabam and Marvel expand partnership

This year, the collaboration between game developer Kabam and Marvel Entertainment, known for their superheroes, began with the Marvel: Contest of Champions mobile game.

Now companies are planning to expand the scope of interaction. The new game will be PRG, and Kabam from San Francisco plans to work on it. Alas, while there is no specifics, only common words that joint efforts of the company will achieve great success and mutual praises.

I'd like to believe that the output will be a new and really good game, which is interesting to play. But it's hard to count on. Unfortunately, often in such situations, large companies try to avoid risk for players and, instead of creating a new one, clone existing and already established games.

Personally, to me, as a player, I’m sad of such a monopolization of the market, this means that for really new games it will be harder and harder to get to my consumers.
Nevertheless, we will be optimistic, stock up on patience and believe in the best.