News Byte

League of Legends-Esque Tablet Game Raises $8.2MM Round, Led by Riot Games Investor

Independent game studio Hammer & Chisel has raised an $8.2 million Series A to help launch Fates Forever, a multiplayer tablet game inspired by the popular free-to-play PC game League of Legends. Benchmark’s Mitch Lasky, who was the first investor in LoL developer Riot Games, led the round. Hammer & Chisel CEO Jason Citron founded social-mobile games platform OpenFeint, which was acquired by Gree in 2011 for $104 million and shut down in 2012. Fates Forever is slated to launch in early 2014.

News Byte

Indie Gamer Network Scopely Signs First Round of Studios

Scopely, the Los Angeles-based social gaming developer network, announced on Thursday the company’s first five independent developer studio partners: Double Fine, Big Cave Games, Highline Games, Rocket Jump Games and ZupCat Games. Led by CEO and co-founder Walter Driver, Scopely aims to better cultivate, develop and distribute releases from select developers to give them a better chance against the major studios like Zynga, Gree and others.

Are Gamers Waiting for the New Consoles, or Have They Moved On?

Will it ever again be the right time to launch a videogame console?

Seven Questions for Gree’s SVP of Studio Operations, Anil Dharni

The Japanese-based mobile games company still has ambitious plans for the U.S., although they’ve changed.

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Chartboost Secures $19M From Sequoia to Help Mobile Games Attract More Players

Chartboost, which has developed technology that enables developers to promote each other’s games inside of their apps, has raised $19 million in capital. Sequoia Capital led the round, and existing investors TransLink Capital and SK Telecom Ventures, also participated. The San Francisco company said its platform is now being used by more than 12,000 games from companies like Crowdstar, Gameloft, Kabam, Gree, TinyCo and more.

Forget Photo-Sharing; DabKick Is All About Photo-Showing

DabKick today publicly launches a set of tools to help people share pictures with each other remotely — live.

News Byte

New Mobile Game Incubator Execution Labs Opens in Canada

Execution Labs, a new incubator focused on the development of mobile games, has launched in Montreal. Participating companies will get funding, shared work space and access to the founders, mentors and marketing partners like GameStop, in return for a revenue share and equity stake. The co-founders are Jason Della Rocca, former director of the International Game Developers Association; Alexandre Pelletier-Normand, former head of deployment at Gameloft; and Keith Katz, former VP Monetization at OpenFeint (now Gree). The incubator has raised more than $1 million from investors, including BDC Venture Capital, Real Ventures and White Star Capital.

News Byte

Gree Buys Another Mobile Games Company, App Ant Studios

Gree, a mobile games publisher and network, has acquired App Ant Studios, known for its game Dino Life on Google Play. App Ant Studios’ current team will join Gree’s San Francisco office, including its four founders, who will take leadership roles in game development and engineering. Terms of the deal were not disclosed. The Japan-based company has made a couple other high-profile acquisitions to help it enter the U.S.

As Gree Moves Aggressively Into the U.S., It Breaks Out Its Revenue Here

The Tokyo-based company says U.S. revenue totaled $16.9 million in the second quarter, due in large part to the May acquisition of Funzio, a San Francisco mobile game developer.

In the Apps vs. HTML5 War, Goko Tries to Make Cross-Platform Gaming Work

To prove that its HTML5 platform is ready for primetime, Goko is releasing a handful of games based on real-world games like Dominion and Settlers of Catan.

Game Over! The Best of E3 in Photos.