1）芬兰开发商Rovio高管Peter Vesterbacka最近向媒体表示，他们打算自主发行《愤怒的小鸟》家庭烹饪手册，并通过亚马逊、苹果和Barnes & Noble渠道销售这本书。据他所称，Rovio至今已销售300万个钥匙扣，以及2000至3000万件T恤。

angry-birds-rio(from live.ifanr.com)

2）英国工作室Neon Play（游戏邦注：成立于2010年6月）近日宣布，公司旗下的iPhone、iPad和Android平台的32款游戏目前下载量已超2000万次，其中有七款游戏曾位居英国iTunes游戏排行榜之首。该公司最新热门游戏《PaperGlider》是苹果App Store实现第100亿次下载量的游戏。

paper glider(from nineoverten.com)

3）为缓解平台分裂性问题，谷歌网页版Android Market最近又添加新功能，向用户显示其Android移动设备是否支持运行某款应用程序。用户可通过谷歌帐户注册该服务，开发商也可通过由此省去应用产品描述中的支持运行平台等内容。

4）捷克小型工作室Craneballs推出的iOS第一人称射击游戏《Overkill》在发行不足三个月时间内突破了450万次下载量。该工作室位于捷克斯特拉瓦，目前仅有9名成员，其早期作品多为付费应用，其中一款名为《Monorace》的应用开发周期为3个月，但收益仅5000美元。

overkill(fron insidemobileapps.com)

该公司首席执行官Martin Chamrad表示，他们发现射击类游戏在美国很受欢迎，于是推出了采用免费模式的《Overkill》。该游戏开发周期为8个月，通过FreeAppADay进行推广，使其在一周内攀升到美国免费应用排行榜前五名。Craneballs约有三分之二的收益来自Tapjoy的广告推广服务，其下一款新游戏是休闲风格的《Super Rope》。

5）NaturalMotion和Digital Legends日前推出了一款iPhone游戏《Icebreaker Hockey》，该游戏与传统的体育类游戏有所不同，它侧重的并非模拟竞赛元素，而是更适合大众用户的动作元素。这款0.99美元游戏曾跻身iPhone付费应用榜单第8名，目前是第13名。

Icebreaker Hockey(from toucharcade.com)

玩家在游戏中的任务是控制一个虚拟人物的动作，引导他在冰上曲棍球赛场完成相关动作，然后赢得高分。虽然该游戏没有提供详细的新手教程内容，但操作却非常简单容易上手，是一款兼顾体育和休闲用户需求、富有趣味的好游戏。

6）据Appfire数据显示，Android Market目前约有20.6万款可下载应用，App Store则有42.5万款以上的可下载产品。有人认为Android应用数量很快就可赶超苹果应用（游戏邦注：Android平台每月新增应用约3万款，而苹果则是2万款）。

android-apps(from gigaom.com)

但市场调研公司Aysmco指出，Android应用的淘汰率远高于苹果应用，约有三分之一的应用已被Android Market清理出户，而App Store的同一比例仅为16%。该报告认为，Android应用产品淘汰率如此之高具有多方面原因，可能与收益有关，也可能是Android平台监管不力所致。

7）社交游戏开发商TheBroth近日也宣布进军手机游戏领域，目前正试验面向手机平台的相关游戏类型和技术，有可能将其Facebook游戏移植到平板电脑和智能手机设备。其首席执行官Markus Weichselbaum称公司旗下的《Hoop Fever Live》就是投放到iOS和Android平台的理想选择，另外拼图益智游戏是他们针对平板电脑优先考虑的对象。

jigsaw puzzle(from insidemobileapps.com)

8）雅达利最近发布了一款iPhone应用《Atari’s Greatest Hits》，整合了公司所有经典街机游戏的手机改制版本，并由位于西雅图的Discovery Bay Games公司负责针对该应用创建便携式游戏控制器。除了这款iPhone应用，雅达利之前还曾发布《Asteroids》的Facebook版本。

Atari-Greatest-Hits-App(from iphonelah.com)

9）Blue Ox Technologies宣布旗下字谜游戏《7 Little Words》自5月5日发布以来，已突破140万次下载量。该游戏称雄澳大利亚App Store免费应用榜单，在美国市场也排到了第三名。该公司称他们有意推出这款游戏的法语版本《7 Petits Mots》，随后还将发布西班牙语版本。

7-Little-Words(from iphoners.org)

10）据pocketgamer报道，从E3展会中法国发行商Gameloft所展示的哈里波特和伏地魔角色这一迹象中可以看出，该公司有可能已获得《哈里波特与死亡圣器》电影的手机游戏开发授权。众所皆知，Gameloft的竞争对手EA之前已发行了《哈里波特》视频游戏，而这次的手机游戏授权却落到Gameloft手上，这种现象颇为耐人寻味。据称这款游戏将与电影同时在7月15日左右发布。（本文为游戏邦/gamerboom.com编译，如需转载请联系：游戏邦）

1）Rovio to make Angry Birds cookbook

by Tim Green

Egg recipes. Possibly lots of bacon ideas.

Rovio’s latest IP hammering wheeze is to move into book publishing, having already done video games and soft toys.

Peter Vesterbacka, the marketing chief and “Mighty Eagle” at Rovio, said at the Open Mobile Summit that the firm is in discussions with Amazon, Apple and Barnes & Noble to distribute the book.

He then told mocoNews that Rovio would self-publish the book rather than share back the 90 per cent revenue that traditional publishers demanded.

The news shows that Rovio has no intention of scaling back its ambitions for mobile’s biggest property.

Angry Birds had been downloaded 100m times by March 2011, and Vesterbacka told Moconews that the spin-offs are “not a hobby,” revealing that the firm had sold three million keychains and 20 to 30 million official t-shirts.（source:mobile-ent）  

2）Neon Play passes 20m downloads

Tim Green

Nice birthday present for the UK games firm.

The Cirencester-based studio was launched in June 2010, making an instant impact with its Flick Football game.

Its output has been prodigious – with 32 games for iPhone, iPad and Android, of which seven have hit number one in the UK iTunes games chart.

The most recent chart topper was Paper Glider Crazy Copter.

Oli Christie, CEO of Neon Play, said: “We are proving that you don’t have to be in London or the US to have a successful mobile apps business.

“We’ve got big plans for the year ahead and we are already working on some exciting and ambitious projects. We are also planning to take our existing games and go cross-platform.”

Another interesting stat from the firm was that Paper Glider was Apple’s 10 billionth download from the App Store.（source:mobile-ent） 

3）Android Market tells you which apps work on your device

By Kevin C. Tofel

Tweet With hundreds of different smartphone models and a growing number of tablets that run Google’s Android operating system, fragmentation continues to challenge. Some devices can run certain apps, while others can’t. Google begin taking steps to address this issue last year, and more recently, has added a new function to its web-based Android Market. Consumers can now see if an application is supported on their Android device.

Although Google hasn’t made an official announcement about the Market feature, Android Central picked up on it and I’ve taken it for a spin. On the left side of any application’s Market page on the web, Google will show if any or all of your Android devices will support the app. Users will have to be signed in through their Google account for the service, as that’s how Google checks support at the device-level.

The new compatibility check won’t help make newer applications magically work on Android devices that run Android 1.5, 1.6 or another older version; just 4.4 percent of the total Android device pool as of June 1. But it will help both consumers and developers in the long run.

Device owners don’t have to waste time installing an application that may not work well with their device in the first place, nor will they have to “test” any such apps within the 15-minute return window for Android apps. And developers don’t have to waste space in the software’s description to specify what phones or tablets an app is supported on.（source:gigaom）  

4）Craneballs on Its iOS Hit Overkill, Losing Incentivized Installs & Upcoming Game Super Rope

By Kim-Mai Cutler

It’s a story we see every week. A tiny studio — after experimenting with title after title — gets a lucky break and soars to the top of the iOS app store’s free charts with an unexpected blockbuster.

The Czech Republic’s Craneballs became yet another rising star earlier this year with its free-to-play hit Overkill, a first-person shooter that saw more than 4.5 million downloads since its initial launch less than three months ago.

The company, just nine people in a city called Ostrava about 400 kilometers east of Prague, turned to mobile apps during the financial crisis two years ago when their normal web development work dried up.

They launched Overkill after eight months of development with an initial promotion through FreeAppADay and it shot up the charts and held onto a Top 5 spot on the free charts in the U.S. for a little over a week. The game monetizes through in-app purchases of a virtual currency called OM or Overkill Medals.

Chamrad didn’t share revenue figures but did say that Apple’s recent crackdown on incentivized installs has been tough for the company. About two-thirds of the studio’s revenue was coming from Tapjoy offer walls. Other bigger studios have been more cautious with their words: Glu, a larger publicly traded developer, said it anticipates it will be able to replace 50 to 75 percent of the lost offer wall income with other types of advertising. Craneballs had mostly been using offer walls in one direction: just to earn revenue and not to promote their titles.

The company’s not sure exactly how it will cope except to keep working with in-app purchases in free games. Craneballs’ next title reflects experimentation with casual, kids-oriented games.（source:insidemobileapps）  

5）Icebreaker Hockey Skates Up the Top iPhone Charts

By Christopher Mack

Sports may be a popular gaming genre, but when it comes to casual audiences like in the mobile space, the target demographic for these types of apps can be relatively narrow. Nevertheless, a new iPhone game from NaturalMotion and Digital Legends named Icebreaker Hockey is expanding that audience by removing many sports-specific elements in favor of creating a more mainstream action title.

It seems to be working. The $0.99 title scored a #8 spot earlier this week on the top paid iPhone apps. Currently, it is #13.

Icebreaker Hockey deviates from the games that merely simulate a sport. The concept of Icebreaker is simple: players control a single avatar and must skate the length of a hockey rink and score a goal. Each level comes with an ever increasing number of defenders and the added challenge of winning as high a score as possible. Although the game doesn’t really have much of a tutorial, the app is accessible for most users and easy to pick up.

Overall, Icebreaker Hockey is a fairly fun app that sports and non-sports fans can enjoy. Though it may still be more enjoyable to the former, its rise up the top paid app charts have shown just how accessible the game is to other types of players. Although the game is easy to learn and uses Natural Motion’s Endorphin animation technology well, the only real complaint to be had is that the play can be very repetitive. This may not be a deal breaker for some, but for others, they might find themselves bored after only a few short play sessions.（source:insidemobileapps）  

6）Android Devs Seemingly ‘Less Persistent’ Than iOS Devs

by Eric Caoili

Comparing the number of applications added to and removed from the app stores of iOS and Android, market research firm Aysmco argues that Android developers are “less persistent” than their iOS counterparts.

The Android Marketplace has some 206,000 apps available, and Apple’s App Store has more than 425,000, according to figures from AppsFire. Android will likely catch up to Apple at its curent rate of new apps added each month (30,000 versus 20,000 at Apple).

Asymco points out, though, that the number of apps that are published but then unpublished for whatever reason is much higher with Android developers. While 80,000 (16 percent) apps have been removed from iOS, nearly a third have been taken off Android.

“Android developers and producers seem to be more prolific but less persistent,” comments the research group. “With few if any constraints on submission, it’s understandable that there will be more apps thrown into the catalog.”

It adds, “But why would they be so rapidly removed remains a mystery. Maybe economics, maybe policing, maybe something else altogether explains this.” （source:gamasutra）  

7）Facebook Social Game Developer TheBroth Getting Into Mobile Games

By AJ Glasser

Another notable social gaming developer is trying to cross the chasm between the Facebook platform and mobile gaming. Facebook social game developer TheBroth is currently exploring mobile game development for some its established titles, in a story from our sister site Inside Social Games. CEO Markus Weichselbaum explains some of his plans:

“Kickmania is my favorite and one of the most promising of gameplay types out there combining social aspects and casual gameplay,” Weichselbaum says. “The whole look of it is sort of 2008, so there’s a lot of work to bring this one into modern times. We feel this is going to be ideal for mobile.”

Another game type TheBroth wants to revisit for mobile is jigsaw puzzles. The developer has proprietary technology that supports an actual puzzle simulation where players either need to drag pieces in order to rotate them or can toggle an auto-rotate mode that activates when the player selects a puzzle piece. This technology is currently in use within PuzzleBee and forms a Planet Domo mini-game; Weichselbaum could easily see it as a standalone jigsaw title for iPad or tablet — but not for smartphone.（source:insidemobileapps）  

8）Discovery Bay Games joins Atari’s blast from the past

Aislyn Greene

As casual games increase in popularity, the original king of the casual game, Atari, is making a bid to regain relevancy. The gaming producer, once known for its cutting edge technology and games like Pong, Centipede and Asteroids, recently released an iPhone app called Atari’s Greatest Hits, a collection of its classic arcade games remade for mobile devices.

Seattle’s own Discovery Bay Games is getting in on the action. The company has developed a portable game controller for the Atari app, which will be released this fall. The controller is retro in design — complete with joystick — but retrofitted to be used as an iPad dock.

In addition to the iPhone app, the company has launched a Facebook version of Asteroids that lets players share and compare scores.（source:techflash）  

9）Blue Ox’s 7 Little Words hits 1.4 million downloads in just over a month

by Keith Andrew

Developers may dream of scoring that first, big hit, but when it comes to long term survival, being able to follow up any success with another, preferably bigger, release is key.

Blue Ox Technologies originally adorned these pages back in 2009 as part of a six developer strong marketing experiment to push a group of word based games on the App Store.

Little Words, big downloads

According to the latest figures, word puzzler 7 Little Words has clocked up more than 1.4 million downloads since launching on May 5.

In the process, it’s topped the free app rankings on the App Store in Australia, and made it as high as third spot in the US.

“I knew 7 Little Words was a good game when I tried it out on my brother and he couldn’t put it down,” Christopher York of Blue Ox told us.

“But I never had any idea the game would gain such a huge enthusiastic following so fast. There’s even a 4th grade classroom in Chicago that’s using the game a basis for their class project.”

Next steps

Rather than site back and enjoy his success, however, York says he has plans to further expand 7 Little Words’ base.

“The largest single download day was Sunday, May 29, which was Memorial Day weekend in the US,” he added.

“7 Little Words was the #3 free app overall on that day and got over 164,000 downloads.

“For now I’ve hired contractors to help with developing new level packs and I’m getting ready to launch a French version, 7 Petits Mots, with a Spanish language version to follow.”（source:pocketgamer）

10）EA and its Deathly Hallows Part 2: Gameloft steals last gasp of Harry Potter licence for mobile

by Jon Jordan

As far as we can tell, although there’s been no official confirmation, but Gameloft appears to have wrestled the high profile Harry Potter licence from EA, at least when it comes to the mobile game based on the final film version of J.K. Rowling’s novels.

The evidence was found on the side of Gameloft’s meeting room at E3, which shows Harry and Voldemort (at least Daniel Radcliffe and Ralph Fiennes) in profile, sizing each other up for their final encounter.

And perhaps it’s not too far-fetched in the context of Gameloft and EA Mobile’s arch-rivalry to say that the French publisher has pulled off a Massivius Surprisium spell, given that EA has released all Harry Potter video games to-date, having secured the licence on a deal rumoured at around $500 million before the first film was made.

Of course, with the deal not yet formally announced, we have no idea in what form the mobile game will arise only that its official title will be (deep breath) Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2: The Mobile Game.

Presumably, it will be released alongside the film around July 15. （source:pocketgamer）