Mobile Games, Mobile App | featured news

What if mobile ads for games and other apps weren’t quite as random as the standard dating service and fantasy game fare, but actually showed some effort in reaching you, the individual user? An app discovery platform, Hooked, has been trying to do that in the chaotic marketplace of Android app stores. Now it’s looking to add some accountability to those ads by integrating its recommendations into ads for mobile apps and browsers.

Angry Birds is migrating to China. Rovio, the Finnish gaming company behind Angry Birds has opened its Shanghai office and outlined plans for activity parks and stores across China, one of its biggest markets.

Tuomas Erikoinen, the man who drew the hit "Angry Birds" app, doesn't really resent his creation. He's just bored with it. He sees the game's grumpy, ball-shaped, wingless birds everywhere he goes, their furrowed brows staring him down. Here in Finland's capital, where "Angry Birds" began, Erikoinen's drawings have been turned into T-shirts, "plushie" stuffed animals and two brands of soft drinks -- Tropic and Paradise.

Zynga is trying to provide some answers for its controversial acquisition of "Draw Something," a mobile game that was released only six weeks earlier and has since lost popularity.

The hit game is one of the unlikeliest pop-culture crazes of the year — and perhaps the first to make the leap from cellphone screens to the mainstream.