AppLovin’s acquisition of Machine Zone last week turned heads. Shouldn’t it be MZ acquiring AppLovin? But the deal makes perfect sense when you consider that Machine Zone is only the most recent – albeit the largest – content deal for AppLovin, which has made strategic investments in mobile game studios regularly for the last two […]
A couple of years ago, Amazon Kindle asked Nativex, one of its app monetization partners, to strike hypercasual game publishers from its media plan. But Nativex demonstrated that the hypercasual audience is primarily female and 25+ with a predilection for e-reading – and that Kindle campaigns have really good conversions when targeting that audience. “We’re […]
AppLovin is set to snap up Machine Zone. Put another way, a mobile ad startup is acquiring one of the largest mobile gaming companies in the world. Terms of the deal, announced Thursday, were not disclosed, and the acquisition is subject to approvals. MZ’s valuation was reportedly around $6 billion in 2015. Machine Zone has […]
Engagement with games is up during the pandemic, but it’s not only because people are looking for a way to kill time. Gaming can be a therapeutic exercise, said Brian Ames, president of Activision Blizzard Media, the advertising and marketing division within gaming juggernaut Activision Blizzard, which owns Call of Duty, World of Warcraft and […]
Both Words With Friends and Zynga Poker are more than 10 years old. But players who left long ago have been returning to the titles organically in recent weeks thanks to shelter in place. And new users are coming on board too. The uptick, which only really started in earnest during the last two weeks […]
Gaming is growing like gangbusters in a socially distanced world, but it’s not immune to macroeconomic trends. Take Activision Blizzard’s mobile gaming arm, King, home to the wildly popular Candy Crush franchise. Activision Blizzard, which also owns the Call of Duty and World of Warcraft franchises, reported its Q1 earnings on Tuesday after market close. […]
The mobile gaming category – a more than $60 billion-a-year market – is thriving amid the brewing economic crisis. But unlike other publishers and platforms experiencing engagement spikes without the corresponding uptick in ad revenue, mobile game publishers are seeing massive boosts across the board. Nearly every metric (other than CPMs and cost per install or […]
Game developers have a lot on their plate beyond developing games. There’s testing, marketing, monetization, ad serving, analytics, optimization, user acquisition and a heap of other commercial considerations. “But developers – they just want to make games,” said Andrew French, chief operating officer at Coda, a London-based game publishing platform founded last year to provide automated technology […]
Gamers don’t just wear hoodies. “Hypercasual gaming breaks down every barrier,” said Jon Hook, VP of publishing at Polish game developer BoomBit. “It’s teens, parents – your nan could be playing these games.” Considering the audience is anything but hardcore, the key to success in hypercasual is creating a game that’s snackable and simple to understand. […]
Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. The Race To 5G Sprint and T-Mobile’s $26 billion merger was approved by the Federal Communications Commission on Thursday. The vote came in 3-2 along party lines, with both Democratic commissioners opposing the deal. The companies still face a legal battle from state attorneys […]
