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.
Hitcents is a video game publisher and mobile app and games studio, headquartered in Bowling Green, Kentucky. They are the creators of the cross-platform gaming series Draw A Stickman. In 2014, Hitcents partnered with actor Tom Hanks to develop the Hanx Writer. Founded in 1999 as a software company by twin brothers Chris and Clinton Mills, the company has offices in Los Angeles and San Francisco.
indiePub Entertainment, Inc. was a publisher of video games based in Cincinnati, Ohio, United States.
Ghostbusters: The Video Game is a 2009 action-adventure game based on the Ghostbusters media franchise. Terminal Reality developed the Windows, PlayStation 3, and Xbox 360 versions, while Red Fly Studio developed the PlayStation 2, PlayStation Portable, and Wii versions. The game was released after several delays in development and multiple publisher changes. In North America, all versions of the game were published by Atari Interactive, while in Europe, the PlayStation 2, PlayStation Portable, and PlayStation 3 versions were published by Sony Computer Entertainment Europe. A separate game for the Nintendo DS with the same title was developed by Zen Studios and released at the same time, albeit with substantial differences in the gameplay and story.
Pocket Gamer is a video game website and former print magazine that focuses on mobile, portable and handheld games. It was launched in 2005 by Steel Media Limited.
Ray Sharma is the founding partner and CEO of Extreme Venture Partners, the founder of XMG Studio and a super angel investor.
Temple Run is a 3D endless runner video game developed and published by Imangi Studios. The player controls an explorer who has obtained an ancient relic and runs from demonic monkey-like creatures chasing him. The game was initially released for iOS devices on August 4, 2011, and later ported to Android systems and Windows Phone 8.
American Girl is a series of video games developed by various studios and distributed by American Girl.
David L. Hoyt is an American puzzle and game inventor and author. He is the most syndicated puzzle maker in America.
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.
Socialpoint is a Spanish video game developer based in Barcelona. Founded in October 2008 by Horacio Martos and Andrés Bou, the company specializes in free-to-play mobile and social network games. Socialpoint was acquired by Take-Two Interactive in February 2017.
Uken Games is an independent game studio based in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. The company was founded in 2009 by Chris Ye and Mark Lampert to build cross platform social and mobile games for iOS and Android. In 2011, the company was the recipient of the Digi Award for Canada’s Most Promising New Digital Company. Uken was in the top 10 of Deloitte's Fast 50 and #13 in their Fast 500 for 2014, after being one of Deloitte's "Companies-to-Watch" in 2013. Uken was certified as a Great Place to Work and was recognized as one of Canada's Top Small & Medium Employers in 2017. Uken partnered with Sony to develop Jeopardy! World Tour which was released in May 2017. Subsequently in March 2018, Uken also developed and released a second trivia title Who Wants To Be A Millionaire? which became the top trivia game on mobile. In 2020, Uken released Ava’s Manor, a solitaire game where users renovate and decorate the manor while discovering mysterious clues and dabbling in a romantic love story.
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.
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, the growth of the mobile gaming market in the early 2010s led to several successive fiscal quarters where they were running at a loss. Nintendo, led by president Satoru Iwata at the time, developed a strategy for entering into the mobile games market with development partner DeNA, as a means of introducing their franchise properties to mobile players with a goal of bringing them to buy Nintendo's consoles later. Since 2015, Nintendo has internally developed a number of mobile games, while also publishing games with other developers, including games outside of the initial DeNA partnership. Several of them have been entered the top-downloaded games list on the iOS App Store and Google Play stores, earning over US$100 million in revenue in total.
Krafton Inc. is a South Korean video game publisher and holding company based in Bundang-gu, Seongnam. It was created in November 2018 to serve as the parent company for Bluehole, founded by Chang-Byung-gyu in Seoul in March 2007, and its subsidiaries. The company has published several notable video game titles including TERA, PUBG: Battlegrounds, New State Mobile,The Callisto Protocol and Moonbreaker. According to Forbes, Chang has a net worth of $2.9 billion and is one of the seven gaming billionaires in South Korea.
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.
War Drum Studios LLC, doing business as Grove Street Games since 2020, is an American video game developer based in Gainesville, Florida. The company was founded as War Drum Studios in October 2007 by Thomas Williamson and Michael Owen. It is known for developing mobile game ports, including several based on Rockstar Games properties.
Ghostbusters is an action game developed and published by Beeline Interactive for iOS in 2013.
