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16th June 2015

Nintendo Transforms Iconic Franchises To Give Players Unique Gaming Experiences

Nintendo CanadaThis year Mario reaches an impressive milestone in video gaming: 30 years as a leading man in Nintendo’s timeless dedicated website series. At E3, Nintendo celebrates Mario’s longevity with a new installment in the franchise called Super Mario Maker, one of many games at the show that transforms familiar characters and their games with unique new looks, styles and game-play features. Players will see new installments of beloved franchises like Star Fox, Yoshi, Animal Crossing, Mario & Luigi, Xenoblade and Metroid, and enjoy the reimagining of Bowser and Donkey Kong as Skylanders figures that also have amiibo functionality with compatible Nintendo games. Read the rest of this entry »

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posted in Action Adventure, Card Games, Casual, Driving, Events, Everyone, Everyone 10+, Fighting, Mobile, Music, National News, Party, Platform, Puzzle, RPG - MMORPG, RTS, Shooters, Sports, Teen, Upcoming Releases By: | Print This Post Print This Post

11th June 2015

ESAC Student Videogame Competition Winners Announced

ESACA team from the Vancouver Film School (VFS) has taken first place in the Entertainment Software Association of Canada’s (ESAC) first annual Student Video Game Competition. The VFS team, comprised of Melvin Kwan, Justin Ostensen, Charles Park and Brian Yich, has emerged as the victor in a strong pool of competitors representing schools from across Canada and all genres of video games. Their game, Zeta Busters, a strategy RPG, will be shown at the E3 Expo in Los Angeles from June 16-18, 2015. Read the rest of this entry »

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posted in Associations, Awards, Careers, Contests, Education, Events, Game Dev, National News, RPG - MMORPG, RTS By: | Print This Post Print This Post

2nd June 2015

Nintendo Announces New Games In A Nintendo Direct Micro Video Presentation

Nintendo CanadaNintendo’s Digital Event video presentation for E3 2015 might be only a couple weeks away, but Nintendo is jumping at the chance to get started early on some of its new announcements. A special Nintendo Direct Micro video is now live, and is not short on new reveals and further details about previously announced Wii U and Nintendo 3DS games. If you don’t want to spoil any of the fun surprises for yourself, stop reading now and watch the full 17-minute video presentation in its entirety. Read the rest of this entry »

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posted in Action Adventure, Casual, Digital Products, Events, Everyone, Everyone 10+, Mobile, National News, New Releases, Platform, Puzzle, RPG - MMORPG, RTS, Simulations, Social Media, Sports, Teen, Upcoming Releases By: | Print This Post Print This Post

6th May 2015

The Secret World’s Season Finale Is Here

funcomThe Secret World® has just gotten a major content and story update with Issue #11: Reaping the Whirlwind. The game’s deep, dark and unique story has been told from launch and through eleven content updates, and now the first season finale is here! The players fight their way through the Orochi tower, challenge eternal beings, grasp the ultimate power and will finally reap the consequences of their choices. Everything so far has been building up to this story climax, but it is of course not the end – it is merely the end of the beginning. Read the rest of this entry »

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24th March 2015

BioWare Expands Dragon Age: Inquisition With Jaws Of Hakkon

BiowareBioWare™, an Electronic Arts Inc. studio, has announced brand-new downloadable content (DLC) that expands the singleplayer experience for Dragon Age™: Inquisition, winner of over 100 Game of the Year awards. Now available for digital download, the Dragon Age: Inquisition – Jaws of Hakkon DLC adds an exciting new story arc to the campaign and expands on its already vast world with a new region of Thedas to explore. Dragon Age: Inquisition – Jaws of Hakkon is available first on Xbox One, the all-in-one games and entertainment system from Microsoft and PC via Origin™ for $14.99. Read the rest of this entry »

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5th February 2015

The Mighty Quest For Epic Loot Launches On PC

ubisoft canadaUbisoft® has announced that the Open Beta tag on The Mighty Quest for Epic Loot has been lifted, signaling the game’s official launch. Throughout the beta period, the free-to-play Hack and Slash action game established its direction and added many new features including crafting, open creation, barricades, new traps, rare creatures and clans to continuously grow and improve the game. Gamers can grab the game over at the Steam Store as a Free To Play title (paid DLC available, click on image below), with 36 Steam Achievements. Read the rest of this entry »

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29th January 2015

Victoria’s KANO/APPS Discusses User Acquisition

KANO/APPS  is a Victoria BC mobile and social game developer that has been very successful with game distribution on Facebook and is on the verge of launching a new game for iOS distribution. Go2mobi interviews KANO/APPS CEO Tim Teh for Village Gamer.

Tell Us about KANO/APPS

KANO/APPS focusing on mid-core to hardcore RPGers, KANO/APPs develops free-to-play strategy games. Mob Wars: La Cosa Nostra is one of our more popular games.

Our smaller, niche audience provides more focused opportunities for in-game monetization. Since we’re free-to-play, about 95% of monetization occurs through in-app purchases, such as vanity items & power-ups.

We develop strategy games rather than “casual games.” Our users invest a lot of time into playing the games, and so, with the popularity of tablets and other screens, it makes sense to launch a mobile version of our game. Mobile gives us the opportunity to provide more engagement for our users.

We’re getting ready to launch a game called Free Rider HD on mobile for iOS.

Free Rider HD is the sequel to one of the most played online games of all time with over 500 million plays and +1 million player drawn tracks.

 

We are doing the development work, while Ira provides the intellectual property (IP). For game developers a great strategy is to partner with someone with established, compelling IP. Of course, for startups this can be risky depending on the IP partner because there may be revenue expectations, and it can be tough to determine how successful your game will be.

What has been the biggest change since you started making games?

In the past it was challenging and expensive to develop games for different platforms. The challenge at the time was we could not respond quickly to user needs in order to optimize acquisition and monetization.

However, now with better devices and utilizing HTML5, it’s easy to update quickly across multiple platforms.

How do you acquire new users?

For desktop we typically work with partners such an online games hosting websites that help us to publish our games and worry about distribution so that we can focus on game development.

We started out on desktop at the dawn of Facebook. We have experienced a ton of success working with several desktop portals including Kongregate and Armor Games.

What do you think is the key mobile advertising for game developers?

For user acquisition on mobile a tool that can identify users by demographic and by OS would be important. We’re looking for relatively affluent, English-speaking users on iOS. So a tool that provides that degree of precision would be important.

Tim Teh is CEO of KANO/APPS has launched a number of new titles in 2014, and will launch even more in 2014. Check out the amazing trailers for some of their games here.

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Mobile Advertising Insights for Game Developers

Mobile advertising provides an additional tool to drive user acquisition.

With mobile advertising, there are tactics and strategies that optimize and dramatically lower the cost of acquisition. An approach for a developer like KANO/APPS might look like the following:

  • Create initial modest test campaigns targeted at iOS users in their target countries.
  • Target one at related games and APPS likely to be played by folks who would like their new game.
  • Target another campaign targeted at people frequenting mobile sites with related content.
  • Run the campaigns for a short while, gathering enough data to provide insights.
  • Look at performance by iOS version, iOS device, region, app placements, site placements and other factors.
  • Taking the just the highest performing pockets from the targets noted above, create new campaigns targeting just those pockets. For instance, there may be specific iOS versions and devices that dramatically outperform others, or there may be specific targeted APPS that work very well.
  • Get to work on optimizing those campaigns and scaling them up further as performance dictates.

Go2mobi is a Mobile Audience Targeting Platform and used by many different kinds of performance based advertisers, brands, and agencies around the world. The company is based in Victoria, BC.

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28th January 2015

Xbox Live Games With Gold For February 2015

Xbox 360Looking for something new and shiny to get you through the dreary month of February? Microsoft invites you to check out the latest Xbox Games with Gold offering, giving Xbox Live members one game for Xbox One and two additional games for Xbox 360: Read the rest of this entry »

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14th January 2015

New Nintendo 3DS XL Launches In Canada February 13th

Nintendo CanadaDuring a Nintendo Direct presentation earlier today, Nintendo announced that the new Nintendo 3DS XL system will launch in Canada on February 13 at a suggested retail price of $229.99. New Nintendo 3DS XL offers a number of new enhancements designed to offer the smoothest and most engrossing portable gaming possible. New Nintendo 3DS XL features a wider range of controls with the addition of a C Stick and ZL/ZR buttons, super-stable 3D via face-tracking technology and built-in NFC functionality that allows for communication with amiibo figures. Read the rest of this entry »

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posted in Action Adventure, Card Games, Everyone, Everyone 10+, Fighting, Mobile, National News, New Releases, Party, Peripherals, Platform, Puzzle, RPG - MMORPG, Shooters, Simulations, Sports, Teen, Upcoming Releases By: | Print This Post Print This Post

4th December 2014

Secrets Revealed In Latest Update For The Secret World

funcomThe latest game update to The Secret World® is here, chock full of content to explore and secrets to unveil! Issue #10: Nightmares in the Dream Palace takes you back to Tokyo to visit all new areas such as the docks and a haunted neighborhood infested with evil spirits and demons from the darkest of nightmares. Read the rest of this entry »

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