Sony and Microsoft are to collaborate to develop their respective cloud platforms, covering gaming and other entertainment forms. The pair will also partner to pursue innovations in artificial intelligence and semiconductors. While the two tech giants are looking at the potential of pairing Sony’ semiconductors with Microsoft’s existing cloud offering, their announcement does not suggest that they are developing a single platform or device that they will release together. This collaboration, it appears, is about the two collaborating to bolster their [...]

New research conducted by game analytics outfit Newzoo has revealed that today over 46% of gaming enthusiasts are women. That’s perhaps as many as one billion people. While the sheer size of the audience offers plenty to be optimistic about, their current gender ratio shouldn’t come as a surprise. Many statistics over the past decade or so have pointed to a rise in the numbers of females playing games regularly. Thanks to an ongoing diversification of the types of games available [...]

Google has revealed subtle tweaks to the way mobile games on its Android Play Store are rated. Google detailed its new plans for rating games at its own I/O developer conference this week. The changes have been enacted to help – or perhaps favour – games by developers that continue to maintain and update their releases. As reported by Gamasutra, from August this year the way Play Store builds average overall ratings from customer reviews of a given game will emphasise more [...]

That figure – and Niko’s other findings – point to rapid growth in China’s games market, despite state involvement stifling game releases in the country through 2018 and into this year. Niko’s in-depth report points to the fact that China presently accounts for 25% of the world’s mobile games market. As home to 18.4% of the world’s population, China is clearly punching above its significant weight when it comes to mobile. China is currently home to 1.4 billion people. Niko’s figures [...]

Liz Waldeck-Pinckert is director of publisher monetization and strategy at mobile advertising and marketing platform AdColony. In this contributed piece, she shares valuable insights into embracing in-app advertising, while busting some myths about how users – and content creators – perceive in-game ads. If you’re just beginning to think about how to monetise your new app, or are thinking about working with ads for the first time, consider the following essential reading. Great work! You’ve just put the finishing touches on your [...]

Google CEO Sundar Pichai has revealed that game publishers have been keen for the tech giant to assert its commitment to its new Stadia streaming platform. Revealed at GDC earlier this year, the Stadia platform offers consumers a cloud-based gaming system. In short, users would have access to a wide library of  games – including technologically demanding triple-A titles – without the need to invest in expensive, powerful home-gaming hardware. Stadia promises to bring gaming to myriad devices with a screen [...]

Tencent, Qualcomm, and Vivo recently announced a new partnership, with a view to refining game experiences by harnessing the potential of on-device mobile AI. We’ve all heard so much about AI in recent months that it’s easy to assume any reference to it is simply over-enthusiastic marketing speak. But what this collection of tech giants have underway is pretty fascinating. It’s also somewhat confusing, as it’s a little complicated on the technical side of things. So let’s take a look at [...]

In this contributed piece written exclusively for TheGamingEconomy, Mark Robinson, CEO of global game analytics and real-time marketing powerhouse deltaDNA, considers a shift in the balance of power in the mobile space that is seeing success democratised as investors return… The Free-to-Play (F2P) mobile games market has always been dominated by a handful of juggernaut publishers generating the lion’s share of revenue. However, with the market beginning to reach maturity, this long-established status quo is now giving way to a model [...]

Crowdfunding platform Kickstarter has seen backers give USD$1bn (£769m) to game projects in the ten years since its launch. When Kickstarter launched in 2009, crowdfunding was little known to the public, but following some high-profile projects by prominent creators, it quickly became a very ordinary way to bankroll a game. As detailed in a new official Kickstarter blog post (via pocketgamer.biz), almost 17,000 game projects have been funded through its crowd-based model. Some tremendously successful games have been defined by their success [...]

U.S. soft drinks giant PepsiCo was, until recently, planning to launch a gaming-focused advertising campaign hosted on billboards suspended in space. If you’re not familiar with ‘stratosphere advertisements’ – also known as ‘orbital display ads’ – brace yourself. Russian tech outfit StartRocket plans to releases networks of tiny ‘cubesat’ satellites into space, which can be arranged into formations that project light back to Earth; perhaps assuming the form of a company logo or slogan. As such, the satellite arrays essentially offer orbiting [...]