Though you might audibly groan at a game developer trying to break into mobile gaming, wondering what’s the point, there’s certainly a big market out there for it. According to App Annie in its Q2 2019 App Index report, 11.2 billion mobile games were downloaded between April to June 2019. The most popular platform was Google Play.

As such, games account for 35 percent of all global app downloads on mobile phones for the quarter. However, they also make up 75 percent of total consumer spending on both the Google Play Store and Apple App Store. Some of the bigger markets for Google Play downloads included India, Brazil, and the United States with Arcade, Action, and Casual being the top three categories for games.

On the Apple App Store, the United States was the biggest market, followed by China and Japan. Arcade, Action, and Puzzle were the top three game categories there. In terms of spending, Fate/Grand Order was on top, followed by Honour of Kings and Candy Crush Saga. However, for average monthly active users, it was PUBG Mobile that topped the pack.

Just in case you are into casual gaming, and then, you are into casual gaming on smartphones, you will be pleased to know that Circulets got awarded the third best casual game award at something called the Anuual BestAppEver Awards. If you fall into the highly specific subset of people who actually care about all of this, then you will be very happy, I suppose. Also, I guess you will take this as an indication to buy Circulets.

Circulets was awarded for three categories- Most Innovative App, Most Innovative Game and Best Casual Game. The game won two honorable mentions, and obviously came in third in the Best Casual Game award category, losing out to Candy Crush Saga and Clash of Clans. As casual mobile games go, those are some pretty big name games, so it’s actually a fairly impressive feat for Circulets.

You can download Circulets for your Android, iOS, or Blackberry 10 device from the game’s official website.

The Sunday Times has announced its official ranking of the wealthiest 1000 Britons of the year and Rockstar Games co-founders Dan and Sam Houser have made the cut.

Both rank at 947th overall, contributing of £90 million ($151 million). Their wealth is due in part to the amazing success of the Grand Theft Auto series, especially the recently released Grand Theft Auto 5 for Xbox 360 and PS3. The fifth game grossed $1 billion in sales within three days of its launch and has shipped more than 35 million copies in its lifetime.

Of course, they’re not the only gaming industry professionals to make the cut. King’s Mel Morris, who created Candy Crush Saga, ranked 238th on the list with a total net worth of £407 million ($684 million). The game has literally made it rain for Morris thanks to its popularity and micro-transaction revenue.

Maybe when Grand Theft Auto 5 arrives on PC, PS4 and Xbox One the Housers will move up a few ranks? We’ll find out when the game is officially confirmed.

After Candy Crush Saga developer King had registered trademarks for the words “Candy” and “Saga”, thus entering into disputes with Stoic Studios’ The Banner Saga and Albert Ransom’s CandySwipe. It has been recently announced that both creators came to an agreement with King to continue using their respective trademarks without fear of infringement.

Stoic stated that, “Stoic is pleased to have come to an agreement with King regarding Stoic’s The Banner Saga trademark, which enables both parties to protect their respective trademarks now and in the future.”

Ransom added on his own website that, “I am happy to announce that I have amicably resolved my dispute with King over my CandySwipe trademark and that I am withdrawing my opposition to their mark and they are withdrawing their counterclaim against mine.

“I have learned that they picked the Candy Crush name before I released my game and that they were never trying to take my game away. Both our games can continue to coexist without confusing players.”

All’s well that end’s well, right?

Following its recent controversies over trademarking and the launch of its IPO on the stock market, which currently hovers between $18 to $20 on NYSE, King is looking to expand its staff with 165 new jobs opened up the studio. This will increase the Candy Crush Saga developer’s total employee count by 25 percent. The new roles are concentrated mainly in development while other roles are focused on design and engineering.

According to The Wall Street Journal, the new jobs have opened in Europe, North America and Asia. The main drive, with the focus on new jobs in development, seems to be creating new IPs in the vein of Candy Crush Saga which has been a massive success for the developer since launching on Facebook and eventually moving to mobiles.

What do you make of King’s rise in jobs and development efforts? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below, both positive and negative.

Yesterday, Candy Crush Saga developer King filed a trademark for the word “Candy” with the idea of protecting its IP? And remember how it would judge who was imposing on its signature gameplay on a case by case basis? Recently it seems that King filed a trademark claim against The Banner Saga. What was their reasoning, considering it doesn’t feature puzzle gameplay or candy? The use of the word “Saga”.

Speaking to Games Industry International, a King rep stated that, “King has not and is not trying to stop Banner Saga from using its name. We do not have any concerns that Banner Saga is trying build on our brand or our content. However, like any prudent company, we need to take all appropriate steps to protect our IP, both now and in the future.

“In this case, that means preserving our ability to enforce our rights in cases where other developers may try to use the Saga mark in a way which infringes our IP rights and causes player confusion. If we had not opposed Banner Saga’s trade mark application, it would be much easier for real copy cats to argue that their use of ‘Saga’ was legitimate.

“This is an important issue for King because we already have a series of games where ‘Saga’ is key to the brand which our players associate with a King game; Candy Crush Saga, Bubble Witch Saga, Pet Rescue Saga, Farm Heroes Saga and so on. All of these titles have already faced substantive trademark and copyright issues with clones.”

Horrible reasoning or a logical conclusion? Let us know what you think.

Candy Crush Saga developer King recently trademarked the word “CANDY”. No, seriously. It trademarked the word and talked about pursuing clones that were infringing on the success of its multi-million dollar puzzle game which is available for iOS and Android.

In conversation with Games Industry International, a spokesperson for the studio assuaged concerns over the trademark. “We have trademarked the word ‘CANDY’ in the EU, as our IP is constantly being infringed and we have to enforce our rights and to protect our players from confusion. We don’t enforce against all uses of CANDY – some are legitimate and of course, we would not ask App developers who use the term legitimately to stop doing so.” So if you’ve recently decided to create a first person shooter that has the word “Candy” in it, you’re safe.

As for instances where the developer wants to enforce its copyright, the spokesperson stated that, “The particular App in this instance was called ‘Candy Casino Slots – Jewels Craze Connect: Big Blast Mania Land’, but its icon in the App store just says ‘Candy Slots’, focusing heavily on our trademark. As well as infringing our and other developer’s IP, use of keywords like this as an App name is also a clear breach of Apple’s terms of use.

“We believe this App name was a a calculated attempt to use other companies’ IP to enhance its own games, through means such as search rankings.”

This sounds like a case of “best possible intentions” and could possibly go wrong at some point. Then again, maybe it couldn’t. What are your thoughts on the same? Let us know below.

The official 2013 sales numbers are in and it looks like Apple has had a huge year as far as sales on the App Store are concerned.

As the end of year numbers came in, Apple showed a grand total of over $10 billion in sales, and in the month of December alone the App store sold over 3 billion apps, ringing in over a whopping $1 billion for the month. It’s safe to say that mobile apps are certainly now one of the biggest points of revenue in Apple’s grand scheme.

Some of their more notable titles released on the app store this year include: Candy Crush Saga, Puzzle & Dragons, Minecraft, QuizUp and Clumsy Ninja. Apple has also named companies Simogo (Year Walk, Device 6), Frogmind (Badland), Atypical Games (Battle Supremacy) and Plain Vanilla Corp as developers to watch in 2014.

With the prevalence of iPhones, iPads and the assimilation of the App Store onto home computers, Apple has effectively cross-platformed the app industry in a way that most other companies are incapable of. Microsoft tried with Windows 8, but the results were almost universally disliked. What are your thoughts on Apple’s success? Let us know below.