The idle game genre has been heating up quickly on mobile. What was once a small indie niche has been expanding rapidly over the last years. So how do you, as a developer, take advantage of this trend? How can you create the next idle game idea that will dominate the market?

Disney Heroes: Battle Mode was announced in April this year and launched globally in May as an impressively feature-complete hero brawler, developed by PerBlue Entertainment. The game mainly caters to millennials who were raised watching Disney films and are familiar with the more modern IPs. The game features many characters from the Disney & Pixar Universe, all mashed into a single game.

When coming up with new game ideas, you often want to look around you for inspiration. Most great games are often a merging of two mechanics with a twist of innovation. I like to use the 90/10 rule. Stick with 90% what you know and try to create a 10% twist. As I mentioned in the Voodoo article, Voodoo doesn’t care about your game design, they care about the market's perception of your game design. For them whichever game succeeds is how they will grow, but for game developers, history is a valuable teacher and seeing what worked in the past can help in the future.

The market for location-based gaming is heating up this summer. We’re finally starting to see some major developers come out with an answer to Niantic’s Pokemon Go, a game that is now nearly 2 years old and going stronger than ever. Pokemon Go is a staple in the Top Grossing Charts, and with user numbers reaching an all-time high this month, it’s likely to continue. As such, there are many attempting to repeat its success. Niantic plan another title this summer, “Harry Potter: Wizards Unite”. NEXT Games have soft launched their “Walking Dead: Our World”. Ludia + Universal just launched “Jurassic World Alive” in tandem with the new movie launch. Check out our Free to Play Game Design Bible Here [caption id="attachment_9164" align="aligncenter" width="600"]

Sims Mobile has big shoes to fill. Everyone knows The Sims. The sandbox life simulation has not only defined its own genre but counts among the top selling game series ever. After four major releases on PC/consoles and countless DLCs, EA and Maxis come with a second big attempt to succeed in the mobile sphere. Sims Mobile (Android, iOS) launched globally early March 2018. It’s hard to avoid comparison to the original PC game given it was made by the same developer and publisher, as well as visual style and gameplay elements. What makes The Sims franchise stand out is by far the freedom of choice in playing out your personal story. Therefore it’s interesting to take a look what kind of changes are introduced in transition to a free-to-play

The latest Clan Wars update dropped for Clash Royale this month adding a new competitive mode that pits clan vs clan in a 2 day competitive event.  Clash Royale, the poster child of innovative mobile battle arena gameplay has been losing engagement and viewer across YouTube and other streaming platforms. In fact, Clash Royale's quarterly revenues are around a half of what they were just a year ago.  The games industry is a fickle place where gamers quickly switch between titles to play whatever is hottest at the time. Clan Wars is Supercell’s attempt to lure loyal fans back and give them a new reason to play the game?

Whenever a new platform emerges, it's always interesting to see how developers jump onto the opportunity.

Recent weeks have seen much debate and controversy around the subject of Loot Boxes – randomized rewards are given to players in exchange for hard currency. Particularly in premium games, players feel ripped off if they have to pay to progress or to be competitive in P2P – especially when they don’t even know whether the box they’re paying contains something worthwhile.