The end of Facebook games?

By Andrew Wee, a Singapore-based Internet marketer and business consultant.

Is 2013 the year that the industry shifts from the social web to the mobile web as a gaming platform?

It might seem so, going by the number of sessions focused on mobile game development at Casual Connect Asia 2013, which took place from May 21-23 in Singapore.

While many major gaming networks and startups at the conference zoomed in on Apple’s iOS or Google’s Android, a number of stalwarts continued championing the likes of Facebook and Chrome’s webstore. Read more

Candy Crush played by almost 20 percent of population in Hong Kong

The company behind Candy Crush has revealed that the game is played by around 1.3 million people a day in Hong Kong, which is almost 20 percent of the city’s population. Candy Crush is a puzzle game where players earn points by matching candies — sort of like Bejeweled.

This nugget of information was revealed on TechCrunch by Riccardo Zacconi, the CEO of King, the mobile and web gaming company behind the smash hit. Read more

Touchten breaks into top 5 in US App Store with new game; secures partnership with Gimmie

Touchten, a top mobile games developer from Indonesia, has announced that its latest free-to-download title, Train Legend, has reach the top 5 position overall in the United States iOS App Store. It has logged over 200,000 downloads within 24 hours.

Created by a lean 15-person team, Train Legend, which is also available on Android, is a puzzler that tasks players with connecting color-matched railroads in order to create a path for trains. Reviewers, which gave it an average of 3 out of 5 stars, have noted its similarities to Flow Free, an earlier game where players join pipes to let water through. Read more

Applorer, which aims to be the Nielsen of mobile games, hits 100k downloads

When we first covered Applorer in March 2012, the app was just beginning to show some traction. Now, it turns out that the concept has bite in the consumer market, hitting 100,000 downloads within a year.

Available on Google Play, Applorer is a game discovery service that ranks titles based on actual gameplay statistics and personal preferences. While it has become easier to make mobile games, discovery mechanisms have not kept pace. It is still exceedingly hard for promising apps to find traction. Read more

How Fruit Ninja maker Halfbrick Studios sliced its way to the top

My dad loves Fruit Ninja. Yes, my 50-year-old career-soldier father who’s also especially fond of playing slot machine games on Facebook. In fact, he likes slicing bananas so much that he would beg for my brother’s phone just so he could achieve that 5-hit combo.

That’s when you know a game has gone really mainstream.

Although not much of a fan myself (I’ve spent more time on Angry Birds), I was intrigued to hear from the founders of Australian games company Halfbrick Studios, the people behind Fruit Ninja, when they visited Singapore to talk to game developers. The event, aptly called Developer Dojo, was organized by Microsoft Singapore and tech blog e27.

After all, very few game studios have amassed 300 million downloads on one game and then followed that up with another mobile hit, Jetpack Joyride, which is a success in its own right with 14 million downloads.

I had to hear for myself how they did it. Here’s what I’ve distilled from the one-day session on 15th September. Read more

Learn Halfbrick’s Growth Strategy and Game Development Techniques at Fruit Ninja Developer Dojo – 14 and 15 Sept

SGE readers get a special discount code 'KIWI'

Microsoft and E27 are organizing Fruit Ninja Developer Dojo, an exclusive event catered to game developers and those interested in game development.

Halfbrick, one of the world’s most successful indie game studios with more than 100 million downloads for acclaimed game Fruit Ninja, will be sharing about their game development strategies, best practices, marketing tactics and much more in this 2 day event.

Meet Halfbrick’s CEO Shainiel Deo, CMO Phil Larsen and CTO Richard Mckinny on 14 and 15 September at Fruit Ninja #DevDojo.

Ninja Gathering

Friday, 14 September, 6PM to 9PM

Halfbrick’s story – Journey to global success

• What it takes to be a  successful indie game developer
• Gaming Industry Trends and how Halfbrick is leveraging it

Ninja Development Workshop

Saturday, 15 September, 12noon to 4PM

Marketing the HalfBrick Way by Phil Larsen, Chief Marketing Officer of Halfbrick

• Reaching Critical Mass: How Halfbrick reached 100M with Fruit Ninja
•  Halfbrick’s growth strategy; cross-platform success stories
• Opportunities for game developers on Windows 8
  Game Development Techniques and Trends by Richard Mckinny, Chief Technical Officer of Halfbrick
• Building a game like Fruit Ninja- best practices, challenges, frameworks/game engines used
• Leveraging on the Windows 8 platform for game development
• Opportunities for game developers on Windows 8

Fruit Ninja Developer Dojo details:

Dates, Time & Venue:

Day 1: 14 September 2012, 6pm-10pm

Sauce, 8 Raffles Avenue, Esplanade Mall, #01-10/12

Day 2:15 September 2012, 12pm-4pm

Auditorium @ Microsoft Singapore, One Marina Boulevard

Cost:

$50 for both days(*$40 early bird special, starts now until announced)

Ticket Price includes food and drinks.

Register here.

*SGE Readers get a special ticket price of $40 from the original $50 with code ‘KIWI’.*

Six Angry Birds downloads for every 10 smartphones in Singapore: Rovio senior VP

While it’s no surprise that Angry Birds is huge in Singapore, Asia, and any place not named Antarctica, having some figures do put things into perspective.

I got them from Henri Holm, senior vice-president for Rovio Entertainment, who was in Singapore last Friday (1st June) to attend the launch of the world’s first-ever Angry Birds themed cable cars.

He revealed that for every ten smartphones in Singapore, there are six Angry Birds downloads.

If we use this study as a gauge, there would be 4.5 million smartphone users in Singapore, and three million Angry Birds downloads in the country alone.  Read more

Applorer Gamebox, which shields users from crappy Android games, hits 10,000 downloads

The bad thing about Android phones, at least from the consumer’s perspective, is that any genius can create a mobile game and upload it to the Google Play store, even if it’s atrociously bad.

Applorer Gamebox, a game discovery app store by the creators of MoVend, hopes to give users a better experience. It basically handpicks the best free games available on Android, so that users can get a curated list of quality titles.

Jeremy Ee, marketing executive at Singapore-based Stream Media, tells me that games are picked based on their ratings. Staff also play the games themselves to ensure the five-star ratings aren’t bogus. Read more

Hong Kong game startup Frenzoo wins YetiZen’s startup contest

Frenzoo, a Hong Kong-based startup that has developed a series of 3D lifestyle and fashion games targeted at girls, has won the annual “Get in the Game” YetiZen startup contest. Read more

65 Bits Episode 78 : Cheap iPhones?

Our friends at Tech65 start their weekly podcast on the following issues that dominated the tech landscape last week: (1) Technology library to loan test gadgets for disabled. – The Infocomm Accessibility Center of the Society for the Physically Disabled, (2) The Creative ZEN X-Fi rumored!, (3) Hutchison Telecom (Hong Kong) has revealed its pricing and service plans for the iPhone 3G, (4) iCall App Enables GSM to WiFi / VoIP Switching On The iPhone, (5) Blizzard Entertainment, Inc. today revealed Diablo® III, (6) Blizzard Entertainment, Inc. introduces Blizzard Authenticator, an optional extra layer of security for World of Warcraft® and finally, Byte of the week : Mozilla Labs – Introducing Weave. Do click and check out their podcast.