What’s New, Mobile World? | March Digest

by Alice Goncharova

Welcome to the first monthly news digest by Apptica! In these series, we are going to compile the most significant news from the field of mobile applications and games.  

Without further ado, let's sum up the results of March!

Most Resonance News

Last month, the mobile community openly demonstrated its political position and opposed Russia's actions in Ukraine. In particular, mobile game developers have removed dozens of games from Russian application stores. For instance,  mobile games from Niantic, Zynga, Small Giant Games, MADFINGER Games and other studios are no longer available on the territory of this country.

Moving on to more positive news: Meta plans to plunge Instagram users into the metaverse! Mark Zuckerberg announced the integration of NFT to this social network. He did not say what role non-fungible tokens are supposed to play in Instagram, but said that the company will be able to implement NFTs in the next few months.

M&As

As for the March deals, Netflix showed that its mobile game production is gaining momentum. The company has acquired two studios: Texas-based Boss Fight Entertainment, an independent game developer, and Finnish Next Games, publisher of ‘Stranger Things’ and ‘Walking Dead’ games, for $72M.

Niantic studio has acquired 8th Wall, a creator of a WebAR-based augmented reality development platform. The Pokemon Go publisher is planning to use augmented reality technologies to build a real world metaverse, in which digital worlds will unite with physical locations.

Mobile Games

About 82.4% of all mobile apps that are stated to be released on iOS this spring, will be games. According to Apptica, Puzzle, Role-playing, and Simulation games (that have ruled the mobile market this winter) surely will continue to fill mobile stores this spring.

Also last month some promising mobile titles were rolled out. For instance, Hitman Sniper: The Shadows is now officially available in the App Store and Google Play worldwide. This action RPG will continue the original Hitman story: players are going to join a group called The Shadows and complete missions around the world.

Trendy play-to-earn games also appeared on the market: Blocklete Games, a gaming franchise built on the Flow blockchain, has launched a Beta-Version of a new season of Blocklete Golf. It became one of the first interactive sports mobile titles to feature blockchain technologies – it provides unique digital avatars in the form of NFTs that users can collect, trade, train and compete with.

Another P2E metaverse title that has already hit mobile ass stores is a new Chimeras game. Its Alpha Version is already available for players (since March 30) and will last at this stage for 2-3 months.

What is more, in March many game development studios have announced upcoming releases of compelling mobile titles:

  • Netflix has announced three more mobile games coming up. Soon users around the globe will be able to try a new educational RPG, a brick-breaking game and a hybrid FPS/ runner title by Netflix on iOS or Android.
  • Activision Blizzard officially confirmed that it is working on Call of Duty: Warzone for mobile. The company has also announced job openings across the studios that are engaged in the development of this game.
  • Also Activision is planning to reveal the mobile version of Warcraft this may.
  • Dead by Daylight Mobile, a new survival horror game, is launching in Southeast Asia on 28 April. The original PC title first appeared in 2016, and four years later its mobile version hit the stores in most countries of the world, with the exception of Asia.

Funding

  • Kooply, an Israeli startup, has raised $18 million to create a mobile game development platform. The leaders of the round were Microsoft, Playtika and TPY Capital. Samsung Next, Aleph Venture Partners, Entrée Capital and Flint Capital Partners also invested in this project.
  • Third Time Entertainment studio has raised $3.5 million in funding to produce mobile and browser-based blockchain titles. So far, we know only about an upcoming horse-racing game with NFTs.
  • Mumbai-based Play Games24x7 studio has raised $75 million. After that, its valuation reached $2.5 billion. Now this company claims to be one of the fastest growing online gaming studios in India.