News of the day (02/24/2014)

Mobile games are the lot of women; a former Double Fine employee presented tools for Unity; WhatsApp is not the coolest messenger; Game Insight announced an economic strategy – this and much more in the news for Monday, February 24.

Industry

Naughty Dog does not believe that “mobile development is the future.” According to the authors of The Last of Us and the Uncharted series, the industry needs diversification: “we need independent projects, middle-class, AAA titles.”

http://www.gamespot.com/articles/uncharted-dev-i-don-t-think-mobile-development-is-the-future/1100-6417930/

Marketing

Mobile games – women’s share. 68% of mobile players surveyed by the American gaming network PlayPhone are women.

http://www.pocketgamer.biz/r/PG.Biz/PlayPhone+news/feature.asp?c=57615

Development

The former technical director of Double Fine introduced a tool for Unity that optimizes game scenes. As we understood, with its help, you can cut the game levels as you like, so that they are not completely loaded, but quickly loaded on the fly.

http://www.sectr.co/

Games

Game Insight has announced the mobile economic strategy “Transport Empire”.

http://www.game-insight.com/ru/games/transport-empire

Messengers

After the Facebook social network bought WhatsApp startup, part of the audience of the American messenger refused to use it in favor of Telegram. In four days, Pavel Durov’s creation got 9 million new users.

http://www.vedomosti.ru/tech/news/23180931/messendzher-telegram-pavla-durova-privlek-pochti-9-mln

$19 billion doesn’t make WhatsApp a cool app,” says Hamish McKenzie, chief of texts at Tesla Motors. While other messengers have turned into platforms, WhatsApp has remained an application-sharing service.

http://www.beaconreader.com/hamish-mckenzie/19b-doesnt-make-it-brilliant

Eric Seferth of Wooga believes that buying WhatsUp is not a story about advertising or Asia. Most importantly, Facebook has gained access to almost 1 billion phones worldwide. So now the company can track the full user history (Big Brother is already here).

Facebook’s acquisition of WhatsApp is about phone numbers, not ads

Devices

At the World Mobile Congress in Barcelona, the Russian company YotaDevices presented the second generation of the YotaPhone. Like the original device, the YotaPhone 2 is equipped with two screens – color and monochrome (based on e-ink). The main difference between the new device and the previous model is the design. Now it looks like the Nexus S, released by Google and Samsung in December 2010.

http://www.vedomosti.ru/tech/news/23175781/dvuglavyj-smartfon-2

Nokia has introduced as many as three Android devices. All work on the original firmware and come without Google Play. Nokia Store and Yandex.Store will stand in its place. The younger model – Nokia X – will soon hit the Russian retail at a price of 4990 rubles (a 1 GHz dual-core processor, 512 MB of RAM, 4 GB of storage and a screen resolution of 800 by 480 pixels).

http://www.cnews.ru/top/2014/02/24/nokia_vypustila_smartfony_na_android_cena_v_rossii_561929

While Microsoft was showing low-power Android backgrounds from Nokia for 99 euros, Mozilla announced the development of a smartphone on Firefox OS for $25. It will have a 3-inch Wi-Fi screen, Bluetooth and, bomb, a VHF radio.

http://www.iguides.ru/main/gadgets/other_vendors/mozilla_rasskazala_o_smartfone_za_25_dollarov/