Virtual reality as a trend, a new report from App Annie, not a word about Apple Watch - and other news of the week for a mobile developer

Birds burst into virtual reality

The Finnish company Rovio continues to search for itself in various forms and genres. This time the studio announced a game using virtual reality. Rovio made a statement that a VR game in the Angry Birds universe was, a year ago, but then it turned out to be an April Fools ’draw.

This time everything is serious: at the Rock in Rio USA festival, held in Las Vegas, the company showed a demo version of its game, the heroes of which were the same birds, not only in profile, but with a third-person view. No pigs or destruction - the game will be another racing simulator in the Angry Birds universe, but we’ll find out whether the VR-performance will help the project become more successful than the other race from the Finns Angry Birds! True, not earlier than the release of the consumer version of Oculus Rift in 2016.

If the project is still launched, then Angry Birds will be the second after Temple Run series of popular mobile games adapted for virtual reality devices.

Japanese gamers play 3 times more American

The Asian market for mobile games not only overtakes the western one in terms of installation and income, but also in another, no less important parameter - time spent in games. According to a new report from AppAnnie, Asian countries are the undisputed market leaders, which it is unlikely that anyone will catch up in the near future.

The Japanese make 3 times more sessions than the Americans and 7.5 times more than players from the UK. In second place in the ranking are gamers from South Korea, who are only slightly behind the Japanese.

Interestingly, Android users from Europe and the US tend to spend more time on Social apps than on games.

Monster Strike Earn $ 3.8 Million Per Day

The Japanese Butler Monster Strike brought mixi more than $ 333 million for the last quarter of 2014, which is about $ 3.8 million a day! Currently, the project is officially released in Japan, Taiwan, North America, South Korea, Hong Kong and Macau. The closest and main competitor, GungHo, earns $ 4.5 million a day on all of its projects, including Puzzle & Dragons, but at the moment, Puzzle & Dragons is 1-2 points behind Monster Strike in the Japanese store, which is already confidently holding onto the first location.

Now it’s hard to find figures to compare the incomes of both companies for the last quarter of 2014, according to which, probably, mixi is already ahead of GungHo. In total, mixi earned $ 927 million for the whole of 2014, which is 829% more than in 2013. The company's revenue also grew very significantly - from $ 1.9 million to $ 275.4 million. Next year, the company plans to achieve revenue of $ 1.54 billion and revenue of $ 434 million.

Ubisoft plans to seriously engage in VR games

The adherents of virtual reality are becoming more and more. More or less adequate hardware is already available and is actively developing, and finally the necessary mover has appeared - large game publishers have shown interest.

Not so long ago, Ubisoft admitted that they believe in the promise of VR and, moreover, even started developing several games.
Well, this is great news for all players who want a new experience. The first strong brand will be the trigger for the active growth of the new market. It is worth waiting for other publishers to make similar statements soon, and there the indie teams will catch up.

Sega will remove some of its games from the App Store

In the near future, SEGA intends to remove some of its games from the Google Play, App Store and Amazon, which, according to them, do not meet modern standards. Some sources have information that these games will be sent for revision and then they can return to the parties, although the cost may increase, but this is doubtful, since it is not necessary to remove it from the public to update the game, but simply post update.

What kind of games are we talking about - SEGA does not specify. In mobile stores, you can find more than a hundred projects under the SEGA label, and most of them are low-cost ported classic games. If all these games disappear from the story, then SEGA will have quite a few active projects, and if they intend to return them all after refinement - how long can it take and is it real at all ?!

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