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PocketGamer.biz Week That Was: The Apple gamepad, Facebook Home and the game that nearly broke Halfbrick

The past 7 days in bite-sized portions

PocketGamer.biz Week That Was: The Apple gamepad, Facebook Home and the game that nearly broke Halfbrick
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Last week, PocketGamer.biz exclusively reported that Apple is working on a dedicated gaming controller. This week, we've been pondering exactly what that could mean.

For Pocket Gamer editor-in-chief Kristan Reed, it's an obvious next step, and the positive response to this report suggests that there are plenty of devs out there who would be keen to support such a device.

And while controller peripherals have been a niche offering to date, an official model - with Apple TV support - could see iOS gaming reach TVs, effectively creating a console with unprecedented developer support.

You could argue that touch screen games won't transition well to bigger screens and joypads, but iOS developers have proven themselves adaptable in the past - updating builds for new hardware on a regular basis.

For some, tweaking a build for controller support would be a relatively small investment of time, and given the scale of the opportunity on offer, it's one many would be willing to make.

But that's quite enough pondering for now. Instead, let's take a look back at the last seven days of mobile gaming news, interviews and features on PocketGamer.biz.

Platform wars
Monetisation
  • Former Call of Duty creative strategist Robert Bowling discusses mobile's "terrifying" but "proven" free-to-play future.
  • EA All Play general manager Nick Earl claims the "market has spoken" on free-to-play.
  • Rovio reveals that its full year revenue for 2012 is up 101 percent to $201 million – and the company's largest growth area is now the sale of consumer goods.
  • Halfbrick CCO Luke Muscat explains Tank Turn Tactics – the prototype that almost tore the studio apart.
  • Freemium versus premium bickering is pointless, argues Applifier's Oscar Clark. The real shift is to games as a service.
  • Pocket Gems CEO Ben Liu explains how the firm measures retention rates in its free-to-play games.
User acquisition
  • Twitter announces changes its mobile app, introducing features that could open up new sharing and user acquisition options for mobile game developers.
  • In this edition of the chart of the week, a case study from Tapjoy and 5th Planet shows how incentivised users can sometimes be more valuable than organic ones.
Industry voices
James Nouch
James Nouch
PocketGamer.biz's news editor 2012-2013