China

• Government Freeze on China's Games Market Continues to Thaw – But Is It Enough?

  6 days ago News

  

  More games are to be released in China. Under normal circumstances, that statement would be far from newsworthy. But for nine months in 2018, the world’s largest games market had been significantly stifled by new Government regulation. In March last year, following a restructuring of the state institutions, China’s Government declined to approve a single new video game for release. Many titles were simply stopped in their tracks, while numerous others hand their monetisation potential stifled. Updates and new content, after [...]

• App Store Customers Spend £1.7bn Over Festive Week; Apple Issues Profit Warning

  2 weeks ago News

  

  Apple customers across the world collectively spent USD$1.22bn (£1.7bn) in the week that ran from Christmas Day 2018 to New Years Day 2019: the company’s user spending record for the period. The festive week is famously a time for peaks in app spending; and clearly 2018/19 has been no different. On New Years Day alone, App Store users spent USD$322m (£254m), marking a new all-time single-day spending record for Apple’s customers. “The App Store had a record-breaking holiday week and New Year’s [...]

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• China's Government Ends 9-Month Freeze on New Game Approvals

  2 weeks ago News

  

  China may be the world’s biggest game market, with regard to user numbers and revenues, but for many months the nation’s Government had declined to approve a single new game. That all changed in recent days. As reported by the South China Morning Post, a new body, the State Administration of Radio and Television (SART), was formed in March 2018, with a view to monitoring media content intended for public consumption. From 28 March 2018, no new game titles were approved [...]

• Fortnite Perfects In-Game Purchases as Yearly Revenue Hits USD$3bn

  8 months ago News

  

  Fortnite is the break-out gaming success of the year. It has currently got 45 million users playing the game (across platforms) and has a run rate of around USD$3bn (£2.3bn) per year. The game has barely touched the sides in terms of growth; and with its Android launch next month, a huge spike in user growth is expected. The freemium gaming model perfected Fortnite’s success has been built on a freemium model. Its ‘Battle Royale’ version is free-to-play across all platforms. Players [...]