EA inviting Sim City Social refugees to Plants vs. Zombies Adventures – Last month we reported that game developer and publisher Electronic Arts announced that on June 14 it will retire three of its Facebook games: Sim City Social, The Sims Social and Pet Society. Today we’ve learned that EA is inviting Sim City Social players to play the beta for the highly anticipated Plants vs. Zombies Adventures Facebook game via emails. The game will launch publicly on May 20.

DreamWorks, PikPok and Verizon promote Turbo with mobile game and $1M in rewards – DreamWorks Animation announced it is promoting its upcoming film Turbo with a mobile game by developer PikPok, which will feature a contest with $1 million in total cash prizes. The Turbo Racing League mobile game is available on iPad, iPhone, iPod touch, Android handsets and tablets, and Windows Phone 8, but players on Verizon, which is presenting the $1 million Shell-Out contest, will have access to unique content. You can read about the contest rules in detail here.

Former New York Times digital and mobile products manager joins EA’s Board of Directors – Game developer and publisher Electronic Arts has appointed Denise F. Warren to its Board of Directors. Warren is executive vice president of the digital products and services group and former chief advertising officer at The New York Times Company. The announcement comes on the heels of EA’s Q4 2013 earnings report which revealed the company earned $104 million in revenue from mobile, and its increasing focus on mobile and digital products.

Elephant Mouse launches Star Trek Rivals – Mobile game developer Elephant Mouse announced the launch of a free-to-play card battle game based on the recently released Star Trek Into Darkness feature film. The game will feature more than 100 cards for players to collect, representing characters, starships and technoolgies that appear in the film. The game is avilable to download for free from the iTunes App Store.

Sonic The Hedgehog debuts on Android – Game developer and publisher Sega announced that the 16-bit Genesis classic Sonic The Hedgehog has launched on Android. The game, which was already available on iOS, is now available to download from the iTunes App Store for $2.99.

Kabam to implement Google+ Sign-In – Social game developer Kabam announced that it will be the first games company to implement Google+ Sign-In. The new integration will provide users with a simple and secure sign-in process on Kabam.com and the ability to engage users with interactive posts, which allow players to share content and prompt friends to take specific actions in their games.

Corona Labs announces Dilbert Game Jam — Venture-backed mobile software company Corona Labs has teamed up with the creator of the Dilbert comic strip Venture-backed mobile software company for a mobile game development contest. Developers are invited to create a winning a game with the Corona SDK and Dilbert artwork. The winner will have the opportunity to publish the the game to major app stores. Additional prizes include yearlong subscriptions to Corona SDK Pro, iTunes gift cards and more. The contest runs from May 14 through July 12 with winners to be announced on July 19. You can read more about the Dilbert Game Jam here.

Google announces game services — During Google’s sixth annual I/O keynote in San Francisco Google’s vice president of Android product management Hugo Barra announced the launch of Google’s equivalent to iOS’ Game Center, Google Play game services. The new feature allows developers to add cloud sync to any game, so users can save their data like player progression and game state across any Android device. Additionally, Google Play game services adds leaderboards and achievements support as well as a new multiplayer feature. Also, game services isn’t limited to Android apps, the service can be integrated into an iOS or web app, allowing cross-platform play.

The London-based game studio behind Candy Crush Saga today announced that it’s launching Pet Rescue Saga on iOS and Android early this summer, while also revealing that it has more than 70 million daily active users (DAU) across all platforms — mobile, Facebook and web.

Pet Rescue Saga, which first launched on Facebook in October 2012, joins Candy Crush Saga and Bubble Witch Saga as the third mobile title from the U.K. company. Pet Rescue Saga is a match-3 puzzler in the same vein as the mega popular Candy Crush Saga. The title will launch with more than 72 levels, providing cross-platform gameplay across mobile and Facebook, meaning a user’s game state including their leaderboards, scores and progress remain synchronized. Cross-platform play has been a feature that has shown to be very successful for King’s mobile games so far. Pet Rescue Saga for mobile was developed by King’s Malmo studio.

King’s 70 DAU is significant because it topped Zynga’s 52 million DAU, which it announced during its latest earnings call. When comparing the companies, King is a private company with 450 employees, while on the other hand, Zynga is a public company with a much larger workforce. (more…)

Chuck the Muck is a new iOS and Android release from Kiz Studios. It is available now as a free download from the iTunes App Store and Google Play, and carries additional in-app purchases.

Chuck the Muck is a physics-based puzzle game that requires the player to fling, shoot, and walk a little orange creature from one end of the level to the other, collecting crystals along the way. The controls are quite simple, and when the game is first started, there’s not much of a tutorial. Before the first few levels, the game shows an image describing how certain mechanics work, such as walking the character, flinging the character in the goo slingshots, and expanding and retracting slingshots. These visual aids lack detail and some players may not understand all the mechanics right off the bat. Even once the mechanics are learned, there are occasional issues with the controls. The slingshot can be a bit too difficult to aim, and accidental launching is easy with slingshots that are near the edge of the screen. Even a task as simple as walking can be problematic with the amount of content on screen.

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Gameloft yesterday released its earnings for Q1 2013. The French mobile game developer achieved sales of €54.2 million ($70.1 million), up 21 percent over the same quarter a year ago.

Smartphone and tablet revenues increased by 71 percent year-over-year, representing 60 percent of total group sales compared with 43 percent in Q1 2012.

Gameloft attributes its fast growth to the success of the free-to-play model. The company adds that more than 67 percent of its smartphone sales came from in-app purchases and ad revenues in Q1. In terms of which games performed well in the quarter, Gameloft says older titles from as far back as 2011 and 2012 like Dungeon Hunter 4: Zero Hour, World at Arms, My Little Pony, Ice Age Village, Order & Chaos Online, Gangstar Rio: City of Saints and Asphalt 7: Heat, have largely contributed to the company’s strong performance in the first quarter.

Gameloft hopes three recently released titles in the past few weeks including Dungeon Hunter 4, Iron Man 3 and Order & Chaos Duels, help grow sales in future quarters. Gameloft claims Iron Man 3 was the most downloaded game worldwide on the iOS after it was launched. Future releases include Gangstar Vegas, Despicable Me and Uno & Friends.

Gameloft didn’t provide an earnings forecast for Q2 2013. Gameloft’s share price closed today at €5.29 ($6.84), up 0.95 percent.

Mobile-social gaming giant GREE today reported 37.9 billion yen ($370.9 million) in revenue and 10.8 billion yen ($105.7 million) in operating profit for the third quarter of 2013, a quarter-over-quarter decline of both sales and profits. Sales fell 4 percent and profits 24 percent. Year-over-year, revenues are down 18 percent from 46.2 billion yen ($452.1 million) in Q3 2012 and operating profit dipped by 56 percent from 24.5 billion yen ($239.7 million).

The Japanese company, which was established in 2004, also posted an “extraordinary” loss of 4.03 billion yen (39.4 million) on one-time write-off of assets related to some titles. The loss was part of GREE’s plans to shift growth strategy to “selection” and “concentration”, where it will streamline its portfolio of core titles. Card battle titles from Pokelabo, the Japanese game studio GREE acquired in October 2012, are performing well for GREE. Three of the top 25 grossing iOS apps in Japan include Guardian Battle of Glory at No. 7, Sword of Phantasia at No. 10 and Clan Battle of Fate at No. 25. GREE also plans to share its successful Android lessons with Pokelabo, while Pokelabo plans to do the same for GREE with iOS lessons. (more…)

Tower of Saviors is an iOS and Android game from Mad Head Limited. It’s available now as a free download from the App Store and Google Play, and carries additional in-app purchases.

At its core, Tower of Saviors is a match-3 puzzle game, much in the same vein as Bejeweled Blitz and Candy Crush Saga. The goal is to form lines of three or more runes of the same color. Unlike similar games, runes don’t need to be swapped to make an immediate match. Instead, they can be freely dragged until they’re in the player’s ideal position. This alone creates a sense of strategy not found in other match-three puzzle games. The strategy is increased with the numerous battle and character elements Tower of Saviors presents throughout the game. Progressing through the game or spending in-game currency will unlock character cards. Each card is marked with a color and when a line of runes is formed, characters of that color will attack the enemy. During each stage, enemies will appear at the top of the screen. After a set number of turns, those enemies will begin attacking the player’s team. If the player’s hit points reach zero, the game is over, but if all the enemies are defeated, the player will be rewarded with numerous prizes, including new characters.

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Draw Rider is an iOS and Android app from 17Studio. It is available now as a free download, with a premium version available for $1.99. The premium version includes more features, more levels, and removes advertisements.

Draw Rider is a single player racing game where the player’s goal is to complete each stage within a strict time limit. While the game only runs from left to right, its use of rough terrain, balancing, and physics make the simple goal quite difficult to accomplish. Even with a high difficulty level, Draw Rider provides a concept that is simple enough for gamers of all levels to grasp.

Draw Rider places the player in the role of a stick figure riding a bicycle from the far left end of the level to the far right. The four on-screen buttons accelerate, brake, lean forward, and lean backward. There’s not much else to the gameplay, but those tools are more than enough to add a sense of challenge to the experience.  That challenge is further increased by the rough terrain. While the first couple levels are mostly flat, the stages quickly become full of pits, dips, hills, and other obstacles and rough areas that will require the player to quickly master the controls and understand the physics engine if he or she wants to find success. To make it even harder, each level comes with three time limits, of which the longest much be beaten before the next level is unlocked. There are 37 stages in the free version of the game, which will provide more than enough challenge for the majority of players.

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Japanese mobile-social gaming juggernaut DeNA today reported 52.3 billion yen (approximately $528 million) in revenue for its fourth quarter of 2013, a 22 percent increase year-over-year, while operating profit rose 3 percent from the same quarter of the previous year to 18.2 billion yen ($184 million). For the 2012 fiscal year, the company set a new earnings records with revenues of 202.5 billion yen ($2.04 billion) and 76.8 billion yen ($775 million) in operating profit, up 38 and 28 percent respectively.

“DeNA’s full-year revenues and operating profits increased for the ninth consecutive year, representing growth every year since the company went public,” said Isao Moriyasu, President and CEO of DeNA, in a statement. “We will continue to pursue aggressive growth worldwide for our mobile internet business, especially in the mobile-social games sector.” (more…)

Social games developer and publisher Zynga today announced the release of its seventh game under the “With Friends” brand, an endless runner titled Running With Friends. The game should be available to download for free from the Apple App Store starting tonight and tomorrow morning.

Set in a cartoon-style re-imagining of Pamplona, Spain, the game puts players into the town’s famous Running of the Bulls Festival. Gameplay is very similar to Temple Run, Vector, Subway Surfers, and other games in the endless runner genre. It’s particular similar to the latter in that the device is oriented vertically, with the camera behind the character, allowing the player to swipe and tap in order to dodge obstacles across three lanes.

While it may be similar to other endless runners, Running With Friends is also adding several new features to the formula to keep it fresh. The social element of games has always been Zynga’s primary concern and Running With Friends is no different, allowing users to do as the title suggests and play with their friends asynchronously. The level for each round of the game is randomly generated, but players who compete with friends will compete over the same randomly generated level. The player who gets the highest score by running farther and collecting more stars, wins.

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Zynga today revealed its newest core game title, Solstice Arena, a multiplayer online battle arena game for mobile devices from the A Bit Lucky team.

A Bit Lucky is the developer behind games like Lucky Train and Lucky Space, which were shut down on Facebook in September 2012 while the studio continued to work on Solstice Arena. When Zynga acquired the studio, also in September 2012, A Bit Lucky’s employees became a part of Zynga San Francisco and continued to work on Solstice Arena, though little was known about the game at the time.

Today we finally learned that Solstice Arena is a MOBA game, a genre that originated with the popular mod Defense of the Ancients (DotA) for Blizzard’s PC and Mac strategy game Warcraft 3.

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