A mobile game, or smartphone 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.
King, also known as King Digital Entertainment, is a Swedish video game developer and publisher that specialises in social games. Headquartered in Stockholm and London, and incorporated as King.com Limited in St. Julian's, Malta, King rose to prominence after releasing the cross-platform title Candy Crush Saga in 2012. It is considered as one of the most financially successful games utilising the freemium model. King was acquired by Activision Blizzard in February 2016 for US$5.9 billion, and operates as its own entity within that company. King is led by Riccardo Zacconi, who has served in the role of chief executive officer since co-founding the company in 2003. Gerhard Florin took over Melvyn Morris's role as chairman in November 2014. As of 2017, King employs 2,000 people.
FarmVille is a series of agriculture-simulation social network games developed and published by Zynga in 2009. It is similar to Happy Farm and Farm Town. Its gameplay involves various aspects of farmland management, such as plowing land, planting, growing, and harvesting crops, harvesting trees and raising livestock. The sequels FarmVille 2 and FarmVille 3 were released in September 2012 and November 2021, respectively.
Boomzap Entertainment is a casual games developer registered in Singapore with a virtual office environment. It was formed in 2005 and has released 50 games to date that are ported on various platforms. Boomzap has developed for Microsoft Windows, Mac OS X, Nintendo DS, Wii, iOS, and Android. Its games are available on games portals such as Big Fish Games, Yahoo!, WildTangent, GameHouse, Google Play, Amazon, iTunes, Steam and others.
Wooga is a German game software company based in Berlin that develops story-driven casual games for mobile devices, such as smartphones and tablets and social networks like Facebook. It has developed mobile games such as June's Journey, Pearl's Peril and Switchcraft. The company is part of the social games company Playtika. Their name comes from the words "World of Gaming".
Words with Friends is a multiplayer computer word game developed by Newtoy. Players take turns building words crossword-puzzle style in a manner similar to the classic board game Scrabble. The rules of the two games are similar, but Words with Friends is not associated with the Scrabble brand. Up to 40 games can be played simultaneously using push notifications to alert players when it is their turn. Players may look up friends either by username or through Facebook, or be randomly assigned an opponent through "Smart Match". Players can also find potential opponents using Community Match.
Kixeye is a video game company founded in July 2007 and headquartered in Victoria, British Columbia, Canada. The company creates, develops and publishes massively multiplayer online real-time strategy games (MMORTS) for PC and mobile devices. Kixeye gained popularity as a pioneer in midcore action games featuring real-time combat on the social networking website Facebook. Following their initial launch, Kixeye's games generated twenty times more revenue per daily active user than other social games, retaining active users five times longer on average.
Ruby Blast is a tile-matching video game by Zynga. The game was first released in June 2012 on Facebook and Zynga.com and later re-branded to Ruby Blast Adventures after Zynga added a new mode with map progression. An iOS version of Ruby Blast was released in November 2012 with an Android version expected soon. In the game, players try to match three or more gems to activate power ups and dig deeper into a mine. Ruby Blast on iOS is the first arcade mobile game from Zynga and the latest Zynga game that enables players to carry progress from the Web version to mobile. On December 5, 2013 it was announced that the game would be closed. Ruby Blast was closed on January 4, 2014.
Gems with Friends is a free, tile-matching video game for iOS by Zynga. It's the sixth entry in Zynga's 'With Friends' series of games with a global release.
Party Place was a virtual party simulation and social game developed by Zynga. It is the company's first 3D mobile game. Party Place launched globally December 6, 2012 for iOS and Android devices.
Clay Jam is a claymation mobile game created by UK developer Fat Pebble and published by Zynga for iOS and Android mobile devices. It was released on November 29, 2012 on iOS and Android. The handmade, stop-motion game was created in a UK garage by Fat Pebble developers. In the game, players guide a clay ball over a series of hills with the objective of squashing monsters on the way down. As of November 2018 the game is no longer available on the Google Play Store, along with Play-Doh Jam, their Play-Doh-related sequel, which is still unavailable on the App Store.
Candy Crush Saga is a free-to-play tile-matching video game released by King on April 12, 2012, originally for Facebook; other versions for iOS, Android, Windows Phone, and Windows 10 followed. It is a variation of their browser game Candy Crush.
Crash Lab is an independent British video game developer. The company was founded in November 2011 by Steve Ellis, Martin Wakeley and Lee Musgrave
Chartboost is a San Francisco-based mobile game in-app programmatic advertising and monetization platform. Chartboost SDK enables developers to monetize on their mobile apps and connect advertisers to global in-app inventory. Chartboost's platform allows video game developers to create customized interstitial and video ads to promote new games. Developers have direct access to game data derived from Chartboost-enabled games. As of 2016, Chartboost had been integrated into more than 300,000 games with 40 billion game sessions per month.
Google Play Games is an online video gaming service by Google for Microsoft Windows, Chromebooks, and Android devices.
Hit It Rich! is a social network casino game developed by Zynga and available on Facebook. Hit it Rich is a freemium game, meaning that it is free to play, but players have the option of purchasing extra features.
Storm8 Inc. is a mobile social game developer founded in 2009 by former Zynga designer, Garrett J. Remes, as well as former Facebook engineers, including Perry Tam, William Siu, Chak Ming Li, and Laura Yip in Redwood Shores, California. Notable games include the Restaurant Story franchise, Dragon Story, Bubble Mania, Fantasy Forest Story, Castle Story and iMobsters.
There are three mobile games in the Ni no Kuni series published by Level-5. The first two were developed by Level-5 in partnership with mobile distribution companies, and were released around the original games in the main series, Dominion of the Dark Djinn and Wrath of the White Witch. The first, Ni no Kuni: Hotroit Stories, is a role-playing game set before the events of the main entries. It follows the story of Oliver and his friend Mark, and their attempts to construct a car. The first chapter was released in December 2010 through Level-5's Roid service. The second game, Ni no Kuni: Daibouken Monsters, is a social card role-playing game in which players collect cards and use them in battles, and use the abilities of characters who have been trapped in the cards. It was released in a partnership with the GREE mobile service in May 2012. The third game, Ni no Kuni: Cross Worlds, is a role-playing game developed by Netmarble, following a beta tester in a fictional virtual reality game. It was released in Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan in June 2021, and worldwide in May 2022.
Amazon Games is an American video game company and division of the online retailing company Amazon that primarily focuses on publishing video games developed within the company's development divisions.
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.
