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| Company type | Video game developer |
|---|---|
| Founded | October 31, 2008 |
| Founder | Chris Ulm, Farzad Varahramyan, Paul O'Connor, Rick Olafsson, Emmanuel Valdez |
| Defunct | 2014 |
Appy Entertainment, Inc., was an American video-game developer focusing primarily on mobile and tablet devices. [1] Their most popular app was FaceFighter. [2] The company since to have shutdown around 2014.
Appy Entertainment was founded on October 31, 2008, by Chris Ulm, Farzad Varahramyan, Paul O'Connor, Rick Olafsson, and Emmanuel Valdez - all former executives of High Moon Studios. [3]
Appy was located at their "Secret Worldwide Headquarters", a loft-style office above an Irish Pub in Carlsbad, California. [4]
Appy released a number of apps with over 20 million downloads.
In September 2011, they reached a milestone of 10 million iOS downloaded on the FaceFighter app. [5]
While Appy began with a traditional premium pricing approach for their games, at some point switched to a free-to-play model. They also changed the pricing model of existing games like Trucks & Skulls from premium to free-to-play monetization. [6]
Free-to-play video games are games that give players access to a significant portion of their content without paying or do not require paying to continue playing. Free-to-play is distinct from traditional commercial software, which requires a payment before using the game or service. It is also separate from freeware games, which are entirely costless. Free-to-play's model is sometimes derisively referred to as free-to-start due to not being entirely free. Free-to-play games have also been widely criticized as "pay-to-win"—that is, that players can generally pay to obtain competitive or power advantages over other players.
A mobile game is a video game that is typically played on a mobile phone. The term also refers to all games that are played on any portable device, including from mobile phone, tablet, PDA to handheld game console, portable media player or graphing calculator, with and without network availability. The earliest known game on a mobile phone was a Tetris variant on the Hagenuk MT-2000 device from 1994.
Kongregate is an American web gaming portal and video game publisher. Its website features over 124,000 online games and 30+ mobile games available to the public. The company also publishes games for PC, mobile, and home consoles. It was purchased by GameStop Corporation in 2010 before being acquired by Modern Times Group MT AB in 2017.
Spil Games is a Dutch video game developer based in Hilversum. The company publishes free-to-play games for Android and iOS devices, as well as for the Facebook Platform.
Angry Birds, also retrospectively known as Angry Birds Classic, is a 2009 physics-based casual puzzle video game developed by Finnish video game developer Rovio Entertainment, and the first of the Angry Birds series. Inspired primarily by a sketch of stylized wingless birds, the game was originally released for iOS and Maemo mobile devices starting in December 2009, utlising touchscreen controls. By October 2010, 12 million copies of the game had been purchased from the Apple App Store and Nokia Ovi Store, prompting Rovio to port Angry Birds to various other mobile devices as well as to home game consoles, personal computers and others by 2011.
The Appy Awards, presented on 11 April 2011, marked successful and popular applications for mobile devices. Sponsored by The Carphone Warehouse, Europe's largest independent mobile phone retailer, awards were presented in ten categories in a ceremony hosted by television presenters Richard Hammond and Amanda Byram. According to the sponsors, it was "the UK's first major app awards ceremony designed to recognise innovation and development in app technology." The company hoped to make it an annual event.
Game Insight is a Lithuanian video game developer and publisher of free-to-play mobile games and social-network games, headquartered in Vilnius, Lithuania. The company was founded in 2009 in Moscow. Game Insight is known for its free-to-play games for iOS, Android, Windows Store, such as Paradise Island, Airport City, The Tribez. Game Insight developed the first hidden object game for Facebook, Mystery Manor. Game Insight's portfolio includes more than 45 free-to-play games, including mobile games for Google Play, App Store, Windows Store, Amazon AppStore, and games for social networks, such as Facebook, localized in 10 languages and played in 218 countries of the world. The Company employs more than 500 people worldwide.
Sonic Dash is a 2013 endless runner mobile game developed by Hardlight and published by Japanese game studio Sega. It is Hardlight's second Sonic the Hedgehog game, the first being 2012's Sonic Jump. The game was released in March 2013 for iOS, November 2013 for Android, and December 2014 for Windows Phone and Windows, along with an arcade release in November 2015 as Sonic Dash Extreme. It was initially released as a paid application, but was made free-to-play a month after its iOS release.
SYBO Games is a Danish video game company located in Copenhagen, Denmark founded by Sylvester Rishøj Jensen and Bodie Jahn-Mulliner. SYBO is mainly known for being the creators and intellectual property owners of the second-most-downloaded mobile-runner game, Subway Surfers, which SYBO co-developed with Kiloo. SYBO has also released a second mobile runner game titled Blades of Brim. Like Subway Surfers, Blades of Brim is also an endless runner freemium title with in-app purchases. SYBO was among the first seven Snapchat games with Subway Surfers Airtime, released late 2019.
Scopely, Inc. is an American interactive entertainment company and mobile-first video game developer and publisher. The company is headquartered in Culver City, California, with offices across the US, EMEA and Asia.
Microsoft Solitaire Collection is a video game developed by Microsoft Casual Games and published by Xbox Game Studios for Microsoft Windows. It combines the Solitaire, FreeCell and Spider Solitaire titles that were included with previous versions of Windows. It also introduces Pyramid and TriPeaks to Windows for the first time, as well as new daily challenges and themes. Unlike the games included in Windows 7 and earlier versions, Microsoft Solitaire Collection is freemium adware with Xbox Live integration.
Plarium Global Ltd. is a video game developer, publisher and subsidiary of the Australian gambling machine manufacturer Aristocrat Leisure. It is known for creating mobile, desktop and browser games in various genres including MMO, RPG, action, strategy, and casual.
Super Mario Run is a 2016 platform game developed and published by Nintendo for iOS and later Android. It is Nintendo's first mobile game that is part of one of the company's long-running and major franchises.
AppyStore is a comprehensive learning videos and games app for kids up to the age of 8 years. The platform developed by Mauj Mobile, a mobile value-added services (VAS) provider curates content to help in child development by leveraging technology. Mauj is funded by Sequoia Capital, Westbridge Capital and Intel Capital.
Playrix Holding Ltd., also known as Playrix Entertainment and Playrix Games, is a developer of free-to-play mobile games behind titles such as Township, Fishdom, Homescapes, and Gardenscapes. The company was founded in 2004 by Dmitry Bukhman and Igor Bukhman in Vologda, Russia, and moved its headquarters to Dublin, Ireland in 2013.
Nintendo, a Japanese home and handheld video game console manufacturer and game developer, has traditionally focused on games that utilize unique elements of its consoles. However, in the early 2010s, the company saw several successive fiscal quarters where they were running at an operating loss. This financial turmoil prompted a shift in strategy to enter the mobile gaming market with the aid of mobile platform development partner DeNA, using mobile titles as a marketing tool to entice that audience into purchasing Nintendo's dedicated video game hardware.
Apple Arcade is a video game subscription service offered by Apple. It is available through a dedicated tab of the App Store on devices running iOS 13, VisionOS, tvOS 13, iPadOS 13, and macOS Catalina or later. The service launched on September 19, 2019.
Hardlight is a British video game developer founded by Sega and based in Leamington Spa, England. Revealed in January 2012, it is focused on mobile games for smartphones and became a part of Sega Europe in 2019.
Voodoo SAS is a French video game developer and publisher based in Paris. The company was founded in 2013 by Alexandre Yazdi and Laurent Ritter. Voodoo's games began predominantly as free-to-play "hyper-casual games", which they helped popularize. Since then, the company has shifted to developing and publishing casual games and apps. Its games have been collectively downloaded 5 billion times as of May 2021. By February 2022, their apps surpassed 6 billion installs. The company has been criticised for cloning other games.
The popularisation of mobile games began as early as 1997 with the introduction of Snake preloaded on Nokia feature phones, demonstrating the practicality of games on these devices. Several mobile device manufacturers included preloaded games in the wake of Snake's success. In 1999, the introduction of the i-mode service in Japan allowed a wide variety of more advanced mobile games to be downloaded onto smartphones, though the service was largely limited to Japan. By the early 2000s, the technical specifications of Western handsets had also matured to the point where downloadable applications could be supported, but mainstream adoption continued to be hampered by market fragmentation between different devices, operating environments, and distributors.
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