If you follow VentureBeat but don’t regularly check our GamesBeat site, here’s a list of the best video game stories we ran over the last seven days that you may have missed.

This week, Clash of Clans developer Supercell is now valued at $770 million and raised $130 million in February, Bethesda wraps up major Skyrim updates, and Disney fully embraces transmedia integration in Disney Infinity.

You’ll also find reviews for ShootMania, Cut the Rope: Time Travel, and a Threeview for BioShock Infinite, as well as our early impressions for Defiance.

News

• The DeanBeat: Defiance is inescapable transmedia that you’ll want to escape
• The Evil Within is the new survival-horror title from Resident Evil creator Mikami
• Nintendo finally releases the Circle Pad Pro for the 3DS XL in North America
• Angry Birds maker Rovio hires new exec to lead game development
• OnLive improves game-streaming performance with new optimization options
• Microsoft determined to make Xbox 360 more popular in Japan
• TimeGate loses appeal: Court orders Section 8 developer to pay $7.3M in damages
• Valued at $770M, Clash of Clans game studio Supercell raises $130M
• How Digital Chocolate teamed with Betable to launch a real-money gambling game in the U.K.
• Ex-Call of Duty team at Respawn Entertainment files for new trademark
• 2K Games is removing evidence of the XCOM shooter from the Internet
• Bethesda says farewell to more major Skyrim updates
• EA pulls the plug on 3 Facebook games

Mobile news

• Chinese ‘app store’ lets you install pirated iPhone apps — without jailbreaking
• PopCap releases Bookworm Heroes for iOS
• Hold on, mobile gaming monetization ain’t as easy as it looks
• Former Unity execs reveal cyberpunk tactics game for tablets
• With $11.3M to back it, Music Mastermind’s Zya app will turn consumers into music creators
• Papaya’s AppFlood helps developers monetize games in lucrative Chinese market
• Pocket Gems evolves from a successful developer into a mobile game publisher

Tech news

• Benchmark reveals Ouya’s aging Tegra 3 can’t keep up with newest Android phones

NPDs and future plans

• March 2013 NPD: Industry slumps another 10 percent as BioShock Infinite tops the charts
• Xbox division up big for Microsoft in Q3; Xbox Live has 46M members
• Japan’s Capcom slashes forecast and cancels games
• U.S. digital game revenues were stable in March, Superdata says

Exciting announcements

• Bethesda revealing Shinji Mikami’s horror game tomorrow: Here are the clues
• Breaking down what’s old and new in the 3DS’s upcoming lineup
• 3DS Nintendo Direct trailer roundup: Earthbound, new Link to the Past, and more
• Here’s a quick look at Yoshi’s Island for the 3DS
• Nintendo is making a new Zelda set in the A Link to the Past universe for 3DS
• The Legend of Zelda: Oracle games heading to 3DS eShop
• EarthBound coming to the Wii U Virtual Console this year
• Winged Pikmin take to the sky in the Wii U release this August
• Mario Party coming to Nintendo 3DS this winter
• Nintendo explains how it made Donkey Kong Country Returns 3D easier
• Mario & Luigi: Dream Team due out August 11

Interviews

• ‘Terminator’ actor Michael Biehn talks voicing Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon’s hero
• Signia Venture Partners’ Rick Thompson delivers the über-investor’s take on mobile gaming investments (interview)

Reviews

• Cut the Rope: Time Travel is a charmingly addictive puzzler with a few new tricks (review)
• Defiance is not your normal massively multiplayer online game (first impressions)
• Threeview: BioShock Infinite reviewed by a critic, an analyst, and an academic
• ShootMania Storm excels at shooter simplicity and customization (review)

Previews

• Disney Infinity takes shape as a huge investment in transmedia (hands-on preview)

Pieces of flair

• The uncanny similarities between the original BioShock and Infinite (gallery)
• Read+Watch+Listen: Bonus material for BioShock Infinite fans
• 10 better-than-Hollywood video game cosplayers
• Camp Minecraft: How educators use the block-building game to inspire kids to code
• Racing with friends: PS4′s DriveClub vs. PC’s Auto Club Revolution

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GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

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Institutional Venture Partners saw so much potential in game developer Supercell that it had no qualms investing at a valuation of $770 million, according to an interview with IVP partner Sandy Miller.

Source: IVP

Sandy Miller is a board advisor

Finland’s Supercell, the maker of the popular Clash of Clans [above] and Hay Day mobile games, confirmed today it raised $130 million from IVP, Index Ventures, and Atomico. That’s one of the biggest fundings for a game startup, and this shows that the gaming landscape is changing quickly.

Just a year ago, Rovio Entertainment was the darling of mobile gaming, and it was talking about going public on the strength of its Angry Birds franchise.

Rovio reported 2012 revenues of nearly $195 million, up 101 percent from $97 million in 2011. But this year, Rovio games have fallen in the top rankings of the most popular games. Angry Birds has had more than a billion downloads, but the question dogging Rovio, as it has for every game company throughout history, is, “What have you done lately?”

Supercell is close to eclipsing Rovio’s 2012 revenues — in a single quarter. Miller said that he wasn’t concerned that Supercell is a “one-trick pony” because it has two hits in two very different categories. Clash of Clans is monetizing well among young males, while the FarmVille-like Hay Day is doing well among women.

On top of that, Miller said that Supercell functions in a different way, just like its name sounds. The founders, Ilkka Paananen and Mikko Kodisoja, are industry veterans who spent six years at another game developer, Digital Chocolate. They let the company’s teams operate in small cells. They work on projects for a long time and approve a game only when it turns out to have big potential.

So far, that has worked. Supercell grossed $100 million in 2012 and $179 million in the first quarter of 2013, Forbes said. Net income, after expenses and Apple’s 30 percent cut, was $104 million in Q1. Daily revenue is now at $2.4 million and is on a revenue run-rate — if the games stay as hot as they are — of $800 million for 2013. Supercell gets 8.5 million daily players who play an average of 10 times a day.

But the question is: How long it will last?

There’s a risk in investing in a mobile game company that has to compete against hundreds of thousands of rivals. But Miller said that mobile game companies are the most interesting category for investments because it is a category where the number of new players is still exploding.

“In the other segments, it’s all about stealing market share from somebody else,” Miller said. “We like to invest where the growth is. In mobile, it is a much more open playing field. You can have other companies being successful without impacting Supercell’s success. We are late-stage investors and look for companies where they have most of their growth ahead of them.”

Mobile and tablet games accounted for 80 percent of the investments in games in the first quarter, according to investment bank Digi-Capital. That compares to just 30 percent a year ago and 5 percent the year before that. Founded in 2011, Supercell had the foresight to focus on tablet gaming.

IVP, a late-stage venture capital investor, hasn’t invested in many other game deals. But it has chosen wisely. The firm was an early investor in both Zynga and Ngmoco. Zynga went public, and Ngmoco was acquired by DeNA for up to $400 million.

This deal gave liquidity to the founders, and it was also equitably spread out across the whole employee base, Miller said. He said he regarded it as a fair valuation, considering how fast the company is growing.

“We saw the trends, and we got the deal done quickly,” Miller said. “They had their choice of investors.”

Miller also believes that a lot more hits are coming in mobile gaming. He believes Supercell itself has a strong pipeline of upcoming titles.

“The usage of games on smartphones is increasing,” he said. “Games are the biggest category by far, and it is increasing its share. That really bodes well. Supercell will have more hits, but others will have attractive games, too.”

Sandy Miller image credit/IVP

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GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

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U.S. digital game sales in March grew to $875 million, up 2.9 percent from a year ago. The data reflect a growth in mobile and a weakness in social networking games.

Market researcher SuperData said the digital games category — which includes mobile, social, and online games — was stable in March, up 1.1 percent from February.

The social gaming segment revenues were $124 million, and the number of monthly active social gamers in the U.S. dropped below 200 million for the first time in a year. That’s a decline of more than 10 million monthly active users. SuperData said that signifies the departure of less-committed players as both conversion rates (from free play to paid play) and average revenue per playing user were both up in the category.

“EA’s retirement of SimCity Social and Playfish, which it initially had acquired for almost $400 million in 2009, emphasizes the loss of interest in the space by major publishers,” SuperData said. “Despite a mostly static leaderboard, Facebook insists that it remains a healthy ecosystem, evidenced by the payouts to smaller and medium-sized developers.”

Meanwhile, mobile game revenues in the U.S. were up 7 percent in March at $157 million. The average conversion rate was 5.34 percent, though the attention span of mobile gamers weakened.

“Supercell dominated the U.S. mobile games market in March, with both Clash of Clans and Hay Day among the top grossing mobile titles,” Supercell said. “EA’s The Simpsons: Tapped Out appears to be on its way out of the top charts, as the dream of mobile casino titles like Big Fish Casino to claim one of the coveted top three spots is becoming more tangible.”

Free-to-play massively multiplayer online games saw an increase of three million players in March, and overall revenues in that category grew to $195 million. Part of the reason was the success of three mech-battle games — Meteor Entertainment’s Hawken [above] and Infinite Game Publishing’s MechWarrior Online.

The pay-to-play MMO segment lost an estimated 289,000 subscribers in March, but revenues remained stable at $86 million. A further seasonal decline is expected in April.

In downloadable content on the PC and consoles, revenue was stable at $312 million versus February. Compared to the same month a year ago, DLC revenues grew 19 percent.

SuperData captures information on 2 million paying online gamers. 

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GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

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Confirming previous rumors, Supercell raised $130 million in funding in February that valued the company at $770 million, according to an article in Forbes.

For a game company, that’s a huge take, and this shows just how ambitious the Finnish firm is. Supercell is riding high on the success of Clash of Clans, a fantasy-strategy game that is addictive and monetizes remarkably well.

The Forbes story asks if Supercell is the “fastest-growing game company ever.” Supercell’s competition, Puzzle & Dragons creator GungHo Entertainment in Japan, would probably qualify as one of the fastest-growing game companies ever. But the fact remains that both are the darlings of the moment in mobile, as Rovio (another Finnish company) was (and some may argue still is) with its hit franchise, Angry Birds.

On the strength of two games, Clash of Clans and Hay Day (which both came out in the summer for iOS devices), Supercell grossed $100 million in 2012 and $179 million in the first quarter of 2013, Forbes said. Net income, after expenses and Apple’s 30 percent cut, was $104 million in Q1. Daily revenue is now at $2.4 million and is on a revenue run-rate — if the games stay as hot as they are — of $800 million for 2013. Supercell gets 8.5 million daily players who play an average of 10 times a day.

Index Ventures invested $52.5 million of the $130 million funding into Supercell, with participation by Institutional Venture Partners and Atomico. All shareholders, including Accel Partners, sold 16.7 percent of their holdings to the new investors. (See our interview with IVP’s Sandy Miller here).

Supercell CEO Ilkka Paananen admitted in an interview with Forbes that the round was not entirely necessary, that it was more of an opportunity to give shareholders a quick payout as both a “thank you” for hard work and to shrug off any pressure to go public. Supercell’s plan is to become something like the Pixar of mobile games.

Supercell previously raised $12 million from Accel in 2011, at a $52.3 million valuation. The company was founded by Paananen and Mikko Kodisoja, who sold another startup, Sumea, in 2004 for $18 million in cash and stock to Digital Chocolate. They stayed for six years before leaving to start Supercell. They focused on making iOS games.

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GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

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With over 20 billion games downloaded across all smart phone and tablet platforms in 2012, the mobile gaming market is shifting inexorably away from dedicated handheld consoles.

Statistics released today by analytics site App Annie and market research firm International Data Corporation (IDC) showed that total game spending on the iOS App Store and Google Play eclipsed that on dedicated handheld consoles during fourth quarter of 2012.

Apple led this dominance, helped by a growth in Google Play gaming revenue, particularly in Japan and South Korea. Around 60 percent of purchases of Google Play games came from the Asia-Pacific region that period.

Despite business models that are vastly different, Nintendo and Apple, when viewed in isolation, actually matched each other for sales pretty closely. “While the most popular games and their business models are quite distinct, Nintendo and Apple were surprisingly close in terms of aggregate consumer spend on game software in the fourth quarter of 2012,” said Lewis Ward, IDC’s gaming research manager, via press release.

Nintendo dominated the list of top five grossing dedicated handheld games, with key titles like Pokémon Black/White Version 2 (DS) and New Super Mario Bros 2. (3DS). Sony’s PlayStation Vita and PSP consoles had a limited share of the packaged game market, with Nintendo shipments topping Sony’s by a ratio of nearly 3 to 1.

All 2012′s top grossing games on iOS and Google Play (listed below) were free-to-play titles supported by in-app purchases. All the top-grossing dedicated handheld titles were full-priced boxed (or boxed plus digital) releases.

While the game is a long way from over for dedicated handheld consoles, both Sony and Nintendo are surely taking notes on this shift in mobile gaming spending patterns.

iOS App Store

1. Clash of Clans Supercell (Finland)

2. Puzzles & Dragons GungHo Online (Japan)

3. Hay Day Supercell (Finland)

4. Kingdoms of Camelot: Battle for the North Kabam, (U.S.)

5. The Simpsons: Tapped Out Electronic Arts (U.S.)

Google Play

1. Puzzles & Dragons GungHo Online (Japan)

2. DragonFlight for Kakao NextFloor (South Korea)

3. Anipang for Kakao SUNDAYTOZ (South Korea)

4. GREE GREE (Japan)

5. I Love Coffee for Kakao PATISTUDIO (South Korea)

Dedicated handhelds

1. Pokémon Black/White Version 2, DS, Game Freak (Japan)

2. New Super Mario Bros. 2 3DS, Nintendo (Japan)

3. Animal Crossing: New Leaf 3DS, Nintendo (Japan)

4. Super Mario 3D Land 3DS, Nintendo (Japan)

5. Mario Kart 7 3DS, Nintendo (Japan)

[Report images via App Annie]

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GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

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Mobile gaming is hitting its renaissance. In both the Google Play and Apple iTunes app stores, the percentage of money spent on games out of the total amount spent on apps is increasing, according to analytics firm App Annie, which released the data this week at the Mobile Gaming USA East event in New York.

The gaming industry and mobile device makers alike are putting their hopes in mobile games as the rocket to vast profits. While smartphone and tablet revenues are a small slice of the overall game market, the growth rates based on data from December are gathering momentum. Evidence collected by App Annie in December suggests that mobile gaming nirvana is not so far away.

The iOS app store continues to generate five times more revenue from games than Google Play, but Google Play is growing. In fact, in South Korea, the money spent on games is almost entirely on Google Play. In Japan, iOS is significantly bigger than Google Play. Apple generates more game revenue than Google Play in the United Kingdom, China, Australia, Canada, German, France, Russia, and Italy. Still, Google Play earns a higher percentage of its revenue from games compared to the Apple iOS app store.

“What was very telling was that December was the biggest increase we have ever seen for iOS, driven by device sales and promotions,” said Oliver Lo, vice president of marketing at App Annie, in an interview with GamesBeat.

Google Play gaming grows

For games, the top three countries generating revenue in the Google Play store are Japan, South Korea, and the U.S. Together, they drove about three-fourths of the Google Play games revenue in December, said Lo.

These three countries also spend a higher percentage of app money on games than any other country. In data from the month of December, South Korea’s Google Play app revenues are 95 percent based on games. Japan’s Google Play app revenues are about 88 percent based on games, and the figure for the U.S. is 76 percent.

With Google Play, the percentage app downloads from games ranges from mid-20 percent to low-40 percent figures. Arcade, action, and casual games make up close to two-thirds of game revenue. Other popular categories in descending order are brain and puzzle games, cards and casino, sports, and racing. South Korea and Japan skew toward brain, puzzle, and casual games. In the U.S. and Australia, the more popular categories are card and casino games.

Japanese gamers are big spenders. With Google Play, Japan has the highest games revenue-to-download ratio by far. As a category, cards and casino games have a high revenue-to-download ratio.

On Google Play, the top app publishers in December in terms of downloads were Facebook, NHN, Rovio, Google, and GO Launcher. Japanese and South Korean game publishers dominate the revenue rankings for Google Play. The top revenue producers worldwide were NHN, DeNA, GungHo Online, Gree, and Colopl.

For games, the top revenue generators on Google Play in December were GungHo Online’s Puzzle & Dragons, DragonFlight for Kakao by NextFloor, NHN’s Line Pope, Anipang for Kakao by Sundaytoz, and a casual title from Patistudio. Of these top five, all were from Japan and South Korea.

“We’re seeing reverse globalization, where Japanese and Korean companies are dominating the store,” Lo said.

In the U.S., the top revenue generators among games on Google Play were DeNA’s Rage of Bahamut, DeNA’s Blood Brothers, Ateam’s Dark Summoner, Playtika’s Slotomania, and Dragonplay’s Slot City.

iOS app store gaming stats

App Annie found that the U.S. and Japan contributed over half of the total revenue for the iOS app store in December. Asian countries lead the way in percent of revenue coming from games on the iOS app store. China has more than 80 percent of its iOS app store revenue coming from games. It is followed by Japan, Macau, Singapore, and Canada.

Japan has the highest games revenue-to-download ratio on the iOS app store, followed by Switzerland, Australia, and Singapore. As a category, card games have the highest revenue-to-download ratio in the iOS app store, followed by role-playing games, casino games, and strategy games.

Apple’s store is still the cream of the crop, earning 350 percent more revenue than Google Play, and growing more in absolute dollar figures than the upstart Android store.

On iOS, Apple and Google are the top app store publishers in downloads during December. They were followed by EA, which had 958 apps, Rovio, which had 28 apps, and Disney, with 199 apps. But in revenue, EA was No. 1 in December, followed by Supercell, the Finnish publisher of Clash of Clans. It was followed by Gameloft, Gree, and GungHo Online. The rest of the top ten included Zynga, Kabam, NHN, Square Enix, and Rovio.

When it comes to games alone, Clash of Clans was the top worldwide revenue producer on iOS  for each month in the fourth quarter. It remained No. 1 in December, followed by EA’s The Simpsons: Tapped Out, Puzzle & Dragons by Japan’s GungHo Online, Supercell’s Hay Day, and King.com’s Candy Crush Saga.

And in the U.S., the top revenue generators among games in the iOS app store were Supercell’s Clash of Titans, EA’s The Simpsons: Tapped Out, Supercell’s Hay Day, Backflip Studios’ DragonVale, and Kabam’s Kingdoms of Camelot: Battle for the North.

Putting mobile gaming in perspective

The amount of money associated with mobile apps is still relatively small. Electronic Arts reported $1.2 billion in revenues in the last three months of the year. But mobile games accounted for only $100 million of that amount. That was up 18 percent from a year ago. And EA said that  EA said that The Simpsons: Tapped Out was a top-grossing game on iOS in the quarter, generating $23 million in digital revenue. By comparison, a top hit on the consoles can generate hundreds of millions of dollars in sales.

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GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

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