Gaming

now.gg launches mobile cloud. Brings gaming to the next billion

Published

3 years ago

June 3, 2021

George Miller

Reading Time: 4 minutes

Powered by nowCloud OS, now.gg PaaS is already adopted by several leading mobile game developers worldwide

now.gg, the mobile cloud company, today launched a mobile cloud platform for game developers. Mobile cloud Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) from now.gg drastically changes the reach, potential and business model for game developers by solving for accessibility, shareability and monetization. Already adopted by leading game developers like Perfect World, PerBlue and Lilith Games, now.gg’s mobile cloud aims to revolutionize the way mobile game developers reach new users around the world.

For the first time ever, game developers can deliver the same graphics and high performance interactive play regardless of device, OS or regional constraints through the now.gg mobile cloud. Their gaming communities can play games on any mobile device or OS, share games instantly on social channels they already use and make in-game purchases through payment channels they already have.

Today, almost 40 percent of mobile phones cannot keep up with power gaming and 60 percent of the smartphones in the global market are low- or mid-range and cannot handle compute, storage and performance intensive games. By removing the friction previously associated with mobile gaming, it is now possible to bring the next billion users to gaming.

In addition to bringing the next wave of gamers to mobile, now.gg makes games instantly shareable through the click of a link. Instead of waiting for cumbersome downloads and installs, gamers can immediately share, click and access games. Users simply click the link to instantly play the game and make in-app purchases — no download or install needed until they are ready to commit. They can even play on third-party apps like Discord and Snapchat without leaving the platform. With 1.3 million new users joining social media every day, game developers can reach the next billion mobile gamers as they receive and share their favorite games through their social channels.

Game developers can monetize their new users with the mobile cloud without relying on credit cards. 45 percent of all online purchases are made via digital wallets and this amount is expected to rise to 51 percent by 2024. now.gg gives gamers the freedom to pay through digital payment channels they already have on the cloud, like digital wallets, cryptocurrency or game top-ups. This will enable gamer developers to attract many more new users and to also increase their margins.

Through the cloud deployment of Arm®-based server processors now.gg delivers an exciting new gameplay experience to users and developers that was not possible until now. By serving Arm-native Android or IOS games from AWS Graviton2-powered instances, publishers avoid architecture incompatibility issues, resulting in a seamless end-to-end developer experience. Such instances deliver 40 percent better performance per dollar compared to comparable current generation x86 instances, which can both reduce developer hosting costs and allow them to serve more customers per instance.

“now.gg empowers mobile game developers to acquire an entire spectrum of new users that would otherwise have been constrained by device and app store specs,” said Rosen Sharma, now.gg CEO. “The mobile cloud democratizes access to mobile gaming by removing all friction and device requirements from experiencing a new game. This unleashes an unprecedented new era of possibilities for game developers to acquire the next billion mobile gamers. The next generation of mobile gaming is here.”

now.gg is powered by its proprietary distributed Android stack on Arm-based servers, called nowCloud OS. nowCloud OS allows game developers to easily enable their existing Android apps for the cloud and build cloud native in the future. This lets now.gg adapt to the characteristics of the endpoint, bandwidth, and latency constraints and optimize the cost performance of the cloud. Game developers across the world simply need to host their game on the now.gg cloud and publish the link on their websites to bring global access to their games.

“now.gg has built a platform that leverages the global scale of AWS to provide a valuable business model to game developers worldwide. We see this as one of the most exciting use cases of our ARM servers on Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2),” said Johan Broman, EMEA Gaming Solutions, AWS. “By leveraging the mobile cloud from now.gg, and AWS Graviton2 instances, game developers can run mobile games natively, encode the rendered graphics and stream the games directly to a mobile device. This allows game developers to provide a consistent gaming experience for all mobile devices and a much more enjoyable and seamless process for the gamers.”

“Data centers running servers powered by Arm-based processors are helping to eliminate compatibility issues for mobile cloud developers, ensuring smartphone applications are readily available in the cloud,” said Eddie Ramirez, senior director of Marketing, Infrastructure Line of Business, Arm. “Through our collaboration with now.gg, we are solving for this new era of cloud-hosted gaming to enable a rich game play experience, while driving more efficient revenue streams for developers and cloud providers.”

“One of the biggest challenges game developers face is appealing to their existing community, expanding their reach, and providing an excellent experience. now.gg revolutionizes gaming by uniquely solving for user acquisition, game shareability and monetization. Regardless of device or location, gamers can now instantly access any game with a frictionless gaming experience, which is an entirely new and exciting concept. In our pilot with the technology, we saw a significant uptick in both acquisition and retention,” said Bai Xue, producer at Perfect World, a leading game developer known for popular games like Perfect World Mobile.

now.gg mobile cloud is available for use immediately.

Gaming

Flexion Enters into Partnership with Jam City

Published

1 week ago

May 9, 2024

Niji Narayan

flexion-enters-into-partnership-with-jam-city

Reading Time: < 1 minute

Flexion, the games marketing company, has partnered with Jam City, a leading mobile entertainment company behind some of the world’s highest-grossing and most enduring mobile games, to bring a selection of the publisher’s best-in-class games to the Alternative App Stores: Amazon Appstore, Huawei App Gallery, Aptoide, ONE store, Samsung Galaxy Store, DT Hub and Xiaomi GetApps.

“We are always looking for new opportunities to build our network of global players, and Flexion is a proven partner that will help introduce our award-winning titles to new audiences in the alternative stores,” Curtis Barnes, Senior Director of Publishing Operations for Jam City, said.

“We’re all about helping developers like Jam City reach the full potential of their games. We’re delighted they have chosen us to add revenue and audiences for their games on the alternative app stores,” Jens Lauritzson, CEO of Flexion, said.

The post Flexion Enters into Partnership with Jam City appeared first on European Gaming Industry News.

Gaming

Mobile Games Index: Analysis of 95M Game Interactions Reveals Shifting Engagement Trends, Available Now

Published

2 weeks ago

May 7, 2024

George Miller

mobile-games-index:-analysis-of-95m-game-interactions-reveals-shifting-engagement-trends,-available-now

Reading Time: 2 minutes

The anticipated fourth edition of the annual Mobile Games Index, powered by adjoe and Statista, is now available.

The latest report offers a clear look into the current state of the mobile gaming sector, analyzing the past 12 months of the first-party data from 95 million app interactions across 27 million users. The MGI 2024 reveals what people choose to play on their mobile devices, filling the gap in industry knowledge and enabling game developers and user acquisition specialists to benchmark their products and ultimately target the right audiences with the right content.

Moving forward, it is up to the industry decision-makers to analyze the findings and promptly adapt to the newly-emerged engagement trends from MGI 2024, effectively engaging desired audiences.

A Peek at Shifting Engagement Trends to Capitalize on

Based on predictions from Statista, the overarching trend in the market is its robust growth with a forecasted expansion from $166.1 billion in 2024 to $227 billion by 2028.

Remarkably, Card games are expected to grow the most dramatically at 13.8% a year, nearly doubling their global revenue by 2028. Judging from the engagement charts of MGI 2024, the main driver of growth in this category is Solitaire games. The audience is showing a clear preference for Solitaire – these games hold 7 out of 10 positions in the top list of card games worldwide by time spent with titles from MobilityWare, Gimica, Scopely, and Playvalve, among others.

What allows the market to show revenue growth is the positive changes in global daily time spent. After the dip in engagement highlighted by the last year’s Index, adjoe confirms that average daily sessions have rebounded to 21.5 minutes from 17.3 minutes reported last year, marking a 22% increase.

The most engaged demographic of mobile gamers globally is the 40-49 age group, which has experienced a remarkable 33% increase in daily gaming time, now at 23 minutes daily. The strategies targeted at older demographics over the past 12 months can be deemed successful. However, this has led to a loss of focus on engaging Gen-Z, which has shown only modest growth in time spent.

The MGI also reveals that women are outpacing men in daily gaming time across most genres – as reported for the 4th edition in a row. This consistent and high performance makes the female audience a continuously safer bet when it comes to user targeting.

Another continued trend is the dominance of top publishers such as Supercell, Garena, King, and Playrix, while there’s still space to occupy for smaller publishers. For instance, ForgeGames tops the engagement charts with their game Special Forces Group 2 – capturing over 43 minutes of average daily engagement.

The insights continue in the MGI 2024, going granular to segment and visualize global mobile game engagement data from adjoe by genre, region, and demographic. At the same time, Statista’s extensive market research provides a macro-view of the current and future industry, offering figures for global downloads and revenues with forecasts extending to 2028.

Mobile Games Index 2024 Is Available in Open Access

The MGI 2024 goes deep below the surface of market data and creates a comprehensive snapshot of the mobile gaming industry today. Inside are

For developers and marketers, this report is the green light to benchmark performance against industry leaders and align their products with the rising expectations of mobile gamers. This comprehensive tool is now available for free to inform decision-making and help optimize strategies for short- and long-term actions.

The post Mobile Games Index: Analysis of 95M Game Interactions Reveals Shifting Engagement Trends, Available Now appeared first on European Gaming Industry News.

Gaming

The German Games Industry Association congratulates all winners of the German Computer Game Awards 2024

Published

4 weeks ago

April 22, 2024

George Miller

the-german-games-industry-association-congratulates-all-winners-of-the-german-computer-game-awards-2024

Reading Time: 3 minutes

• “EVERSPACE 2” by ROCKFISH Games is ‘Best German Game’ 2024
• Pixel Maniacs from Nuremberg wins in the ‘Studio of the Year’ category
• ‘Best International Game’ is Baldur’s Gate 3
• ‘Player of the Year’ is Maurice Weber

High-quality games, great entertainment and many well-known personalities from the games industry and the cultural, societal and political spheres – the German Computer Game Awards 2024 (DCP), presented this evening in Munich, featured all that and more. Numerous guests celebrated the best games from Germany and the creative minds behind them in person at Eisbach Studios in Munich. The award show, which was hosted by Katrin Bauerfeind and Uke Bosse, was additionally followed by hundreds of thousands of viewers via live stream. A total of 800,000 euros was awarded in cash prizes. “EVERSPACE 2” by ROCKFISH Games was chosen ‘Best German Game’. The ‘Studio of the Year’ award went to Pixel Maniacs from Nuremberg, which has made a name for itself with successful games like the party racing game “Can’t Drive This”, its multifaceted involvement in the game industry and its promotion of young talent, as well as with its innovations in the area of marketing. The ‘Special Jury Prize’ was awarded to the project “Gaming ohne Grenzen” (Gaming without Borders), an initiative that enables young people with disabilities to participate actively in game culture – for example, by assessing in inclusive game testing groups the accessibility of various games as well as the ability of certain technologies to help overcome barriers in video games. In voting by the community and the jury, Maurice Weber was selected ‘Player of the Year’. The games editor and Twitch streamer regularly analyses current developments in the games industry and takes a critical look at them, while at the same time formulating a clear stance for more diversity and against extremism in games and society.

The German Computer Game Awards, which honour the year’s best German-produced games, are hosted by the German Federal Government, represented by the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Climate Action, and game – The German Games Industry Association.

‘Congratulations to all winners of the German Computer Game Awards 2024!’ says Felix Falk, Managing Director of game. ‘Even in these very challenging times for many German firms in the industry, German games companies have created high-quality and successful games that have deservedly been honoured on the big stage of the DCP. Around half of these outstanding games were developed with the support of federal game funding. This once again demonstrates the potential that we can leverage when the underlying policy framework for game development in Germany provides for truly predictable and internationally competitive conditions – conditions that allow games from Germany to shine even more brightly all over the world and achieve even greater success on the national as well as international stage. We must make this our goal!’

Overview of all winners:
Best International Game (not endowed)

Baldur’s Gate 3 (Larian Studios)

Best German Game (endowed with 100,000 euros)

EVERSPACE 2 (ROCKFISH Games)

The other nominees will each receive 30,000:

Atlas Fallen (Deck 13 Interactive/Focus Entertainment)
Fall of Porcupine (Critical Rabbit/Assemble Entertainment)

Best Family Game (endowed with 40,000 euros)

Spells & Secrets (Alchemist Interactive/rokaplay)

Newcomer Award – Best Debut (endowed with 60,000 euros)

Ad Infinitum (Hekate/NACON)

The other nominees will receive 25,000 euros each:

Fall of Porcupine (Critical Rabbit/Assemble Entertainment)
Lose CTRL (Play From Your Heart)

Newcomer Award – Best Prototype (endowed with 50,000 euros)

Misgiven (Symmetry Break Studio)

The other nominees will receive 25,000 euros each:

Bloodletter (Katharina “Mikey” Müller, David Cafisso, Marvin Braun, Alica Schneider/Hochschule für Technik und Wirtschaft Berlin)
EcoGnomix (Lars Hinnerk Grevsmühl, Lars Eble, Bahy Nguyen, Marcel Zurawka, Alec Shae)
Footgun: Underground (Eduard Dobermann, Theo Lohmüller, Georg Nimke, Robert Pistea, Lukas Salewsky)
REPLICORE (Sarah Inés Roeder, Rody Nawezi, Leonhard Gläser, Maximilian Götz/ HAW Hamburg)

Best Innovation and Technology (endowed with 40,000 euros)

Marble Maze (Fox-Assembly)

Best Serious Game (endowed with 40,000 euros)

Friedrich Ebert – Der Weg zur Demokratie (Playing History/Stiftung Reichspräsident-Friedrich-Ebert-Gedenkstätte)

Best Audio Design (endowed with 40,000 euros)

Ad Infinitum (Hekate/NACON)

Best Game Design (endowed with 40,000 euros)

Lose CTRL (Play From Your Heart)

Best Graphic Design (endowed with 40,000 euros)

The Bear – A Story from the World of Gra (Mucks! Games)

Best Mobile Game (endowed with 40,000 euros)

Cat Rescue Story (Tivola Games)