Verizon Top 10 New Titles For 2010... So far

Well it's E3 time again, and while mobile games publishers & industry pundits continue to perseverate about the iPhone, Verizon Wireless took the opportunity to remind the world that they keep on keepin' on. Apparently their deck still has over 350 games, and lest you believe it's still all about Tetris, Bejeweled & PacMan (which it kinda is) they issued a release highlighting their Top 10 NEW titles for the 1st half of 2010. Shout out to 2 of my favorite small publishers, GOSUB 60 & Sonic Boom for making the list... I hope this is translating into decent downloads/revenue. Hey, while most publishers manically pile their games on top the 10s of thousands of others in the App Store or into the difficult to monetize anarchy that's Android Market, I think it's a legit, smart and potentially lucrative counter programming strategy for some to focus on the carrier decks... where the addressable user bases are still substantial, billing mechanisms work, stores are uncluttered/edited, price points are high and recurring subscriptions endure.

Sonic Boom Wants A Bigger Bight of the Apple

Manhattan-based publisher Sonic Boom announced today that it has partnered with Canadian game developer Bight Games to realize their ambition to become a bigger player in the iTunes App Store. This major gaming push is no surprise given that the company recently hired some of the best & brightest from now extinct Vivendi Games Mobile to shepherd their content and publishing strategies. Sonic Boom will launch 3 new Bight titles over the next couple of weeks...doubling its Paid App offerings. The first, which will launch today, is a PocketGamer Silver Award winning brain-training number game called Big Top 10 ($0.99)...this will be followed by Puzzlings ($4.99), a cool looking avatar-based puzzler, and Kill All Bugs ($3.99), a tower defense insect battler. With 6 paid titles in the App Store Sonic will have more titles in play than Capcom, Konami or Hands-On....for now, at least. As I outlined in a post yesterday many established publishers (companies that pre-date the iPhone) are aggressively pushing content into the App Store, and those that have pushed the hardest seem to be reaping the rewards...if not from a financial perspective, at least from an industry perception perspective. As we all know, Apple continues to dominate mindshare in the mobile content space and those who aren't yet participating on their platform are definitely planning to be in short order.

Vivendi Vets Grant & Fasulo Bring Game To Sonic Boom

Pocketgamer.biz is reporting today that mobile games industry veterans and Vivendi Games Mobile alums Josh Grant and Lou Fasulo have joined the New York City based publisher Sonic Boom (fka Sonic Branding, fka mH20.com) as COO and SVP of Publishing respectively. The move signals a more aggressive push into the mobile gaming space (their strength has been in music apps) and an initiative to further ramp distribution beyond the US carrier channel. The combination of (one of my favorite) larger-than-life personalities, Sonic Boom CEO David Danon, with the proven operational discipline of former banker Grant and carrier vet Fasulo (two other great guys) will undoubtedly create one of most interesting companies in this business. I expect great things...and I better be invited to all of their parties.