Gamasutra Smartphone/Tablet News

Ask Gamasutra: The video games and narrative debate

Fri, 24 Feb 2012 00:00:00 -0500

Ask Gamasutra is a new monthly column that takes hot issues in the video game industry, and poses them as a question to the editorial staff. In contributing to this article, none of the editors read each other's responses. This is not about collaboration, but about the unique perspective that each individual Gamasutra editor offers. For this inaugural edition, we turned to recent comments from Twisted Metal designer David Jaffe, as stated in a recent ...

Top iPad game apps: Midway Arcade heads charts in debut week

Fri, 24 Feb 2012 00:00:00 -0500

[In this weekly column, Gamasutra rounds up the most popular paid and free iPad gaming applications on the App Store as of today, with Midway Arcade, Cut the Rope: Experiments and City Friends currently ranking among the platform's top downloads.] This week's top paid titles are: 1. Midway Arcade ($0.99) 2. Where's My Water? ($0.99) 3. Angry Birds Seasons HD ($1.99) 4. Kingdom Rush ($0.99) 5. Fruit Ninja HD ($2.99) 6. Angry Birds HD ($4.99) ...

Outplay looks to create Scottish jobs with well-worn genres

Fri, 24 Feb 2012 00:00:00 -0500

Outplay Entertainment was founded by brothers Doug and Richard Hare, both of whom have been driving forces in the Scottish video games space for a good while. The duo originally founded independent development studio The Collective in 1997, before merging with BackBone Entertainment in 2005 to form Foundation 9 Entertainment. Most recently, they revealed that the Scottish Government has granted Outplay £2.25 million ($3.56 million) in funding, allowing them to create 150 jobs in the ...

Report: App Store search to be revamped via new acquisition

Fri, 24 Feb 2012 00:00:00 -0500

Newsbrief: The search and discover facilities in Apple's App Store are reportedly undergoing a redesign after the company has acquired an app search startup platform. Chomp is a company dedicated to perfecting app search engines and helping users discover a wider variety of hidden gems. Apple has acquired the company, reports TechCrunch, and Chomp's head executives are already working with Apple to revamp the current search methods in the App Store. It's notable that Chomp ...

Rovio considering acquisitions, publishing

Fri, 24 Feb 2012 00:00:00 -0500

Angry Birds creator Rovio is considering making a number of acquisitions in the near future, while also thinking about becoming a publisher for other developers. The company was valued at $1.2 billion last year, although it later said that it thought this figure was too low. It is also considering an initial public offering, although it has said this will not happen in 2012. Talking to All Things Digital, Rovio CEO Mikael Hed explained that ...

HTML5-based platform startup Game Closure raises $12M in funding

Fri, 24 Feb 2012 00:00:00 -0500

Newsbrief: Game Closure, a HTML5-based cross-platform tools startup, has raised $12 million in a round of series A funding with the aim to provide its tools to as many developers as possible. The company used its cross-platform tools to launch a tower defense game called Popstar Defense across a variety of platforms last year, reports Venturebeat, and a number of investors were then interested in supporting the outfit as a result. Investors in this round ...

Road to the IGF: Powerhead's Async Corp.

Fri, 24 Feb 2012 00:00:00 -0500

The last time Powerhead Games was up for an Independent Games Festival award, the New York City-based developer won IGF Mobile's Best Mobile Game Design category for its unique DSiWare puzzler Glow Artisan (now available on iOS/WP7). It's up for IGF's Best Mobile Game award this year for another puzzler: Async Corp., a saccharine title featuring a catchy single-song chiptune soundtrack by FearofDark, and a simple but addictive puzzle gimmick. As new employees of Async ...

Gaming's next legal hotbed

Thu, 23 Feb 2012 00:00:00 -0500

It's an election year. And despite 2011's historic Supreme Court ruling, you really didn't think video games were going to be dropped from the political agenda, did you? As predicted, privacy is fast becoming a legal hotbed-and while it's something that's certain to impact traditional game makers in one form or another, it's mobile developers who are increasingly finding themselves in the crosshairs. A new study from the Federal Trade Commission looking at mobile apps ...

GetJar launches virtual currency for games across Android's app stores

Thu, 23 Feb 2012 00:00:00 -0500

GetJar has launched a new virtual currency that works for games released across Android's various app stores, including its own free app store, Android Market, and Amazon's Appstore. The company claims the currency and its linking to global advertisements solve two problems similar platforms have previously faced: low free-to-paid conversions due to complicated user experiences, and the lack of access to global markets. Consumers earn GetJar Gold by downloading a free, GetJar-powered game from any ...

Bungie co-founder Seropian starts up core-focused mobile dev

Thu, 23 Feb 2012 00:00:00 -0500

Bungie co-founder Alex Seropian on Thursday revealed what he's been up to since ditching Disney: a new, core-focused mobile studio. Called Industrial Toys, the developer says it wants to veer away from the "inferior gameplay, graphics, and ... elementary mechanics" that the space is mostly known for, instead promising free-to-play titles with "intricately advanced layers of narrative and gameplay." Seropian worked on a number of core games after co-founding Bungie in 1991 and serving as ...