{"id":556,"date":"2016-01-27T15:37:59","date_gmt":"2016-01-27T13:37:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nickdorra.com\/blog\/?p=556"},"modified":"2016-01-27T15:37:59","modified_gmt":"2016-01-27T13:37:59","slug":"mobile-game-consolidation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.nickdorra.com\/blog\/2016\/01\/mobile-game-consolidation\/","title":{"rendered":"Prediction #3: Mobile game consolidation speeds up"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>It is time for another post from\u00a0my\u00a0\u201c<a href=\"http:\/\/www.nickdorra.com\/blog\/2016\/01\/6-predictions-for-2016\/\">6 predictions for 2016<\/a>\u201c. This time it&#8217;s all about the mobile gaming space:<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-557 aligncenter\" src=\"http:\/\/www.nickdorra.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/01\/Prediction-3.jpg\" alt=\"Prediction 3\" width=\"500\" height=\"281\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Last year saw a few <a href=\"http:\/\/www.reuters.com\/article\/us-king-digital-m-a-activision-idUSKCN0SS07Z20151103\">higher<\/a> and <a href=\"http:\/\/www.latimes.com\/business\/technology\/la-fi-tn-sgn-fat-rascal-kiwi-20151209-story.html\">lower<\/a> profile deals that are\u00a0heralding a larger wave of consolidation in the industry. Just last week App Annie <a href=\"http:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/technology\/2016\/jan\/20\/apps-evolving-facebook-spotify-taxis-shopping\">revealed data<\/a> showing that the average &#8216;time to maturity&#8217; for mobile games has dropped to a mere 17 weeks, which by itself would be reason enough for many companies to seek economies of scale. But there are <a href=\"http:\/\/www.digi-capital.com\/news\/2014\/07\/5driversbehind12-5bgamesacquisitions\/\">several more factors<\/a>\u00a0driving the wave, and even big players like Activision have to consider\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.pocketgamer.biz\/comment-and-opinion\/62234\/why-activision-blizzard-bought-king\/\">lots of variables<\/a> when choosing their acquisition targets.<\/p>\n<p>The issues most relevant to animation producers are the rising user acquisition costs, and the underlying challenge of getting discovered in one of the app stores. When you&#8217;re <a href=\"http:\/\/www.gamesindustry.biz\/articles\/2015-11-11-michael-acton-smith-and-the-future-of-mind-candy\">competing for attention<\/a> with Clash of Clans and Candy Crush Saga as an indie producer, you&#8217;re hopelessly outgunned. In my <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nickdorra.com\/blog\/2015\/12\/my-presentation-at-cartoon-digital\/\">presentation<\/a> at Cartoon Digital last month, I went into more detail about how tough the market has become for kids IP based mobile games.<\/p>\n<p>One way companies are tackling the issue is by <a href=\"http:\/\/www.pocketgamer.biz\/interview\/62533\/speaker-spotlight-rob-simister-kabam\/\">licensing strong existing brands<\/a> or trying to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.seriously.com\/seriously-raises-18-million-to-build-out-its-mobile-first-entertainment-strategy\/\">build their own character based IP<\/a> that extends beyond games. Rovio has been the poster child for taking a game and diversifying it into every conceivable medium &#8211; and not surprisingly they had their board chairman and main shareholder publicly\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.fastcompany.com\/3054440\/most-creative-people\/ceo-of-angry-birds-maker-rovio-is-stepping-down\">express their interest<\/a> in participating in the upcoming consolidation of the sector.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>It is time for another post from\u00a0my\u00a0\u201c6 predictions for 2016\u201c. This time it&#8217;s all about the mobile gaming space: Last year saw a few higher and lower profile deals that are\u00a0heralding a larger wave of consolidation in the industry. Just last week App Annie revealed data showing that the average &#8216;time to maturity&#8217; for mobile&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,7],"tags":[16,43,46,48,66],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.nickdorra.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/556"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.nickdorra.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.nickdorra.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.nickdorra.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.nickdorra.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=556"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.nickdorra.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/556\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.nickdorra.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=556"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.nickdorra.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=556"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.nickdorra.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=556"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}