Dots is a ridiculously fun, simple game that has taken iPhone and iPad owners by storm (and reduced my fingertips down to bleeding little nubs). In fact, the game has been downloaded more than 5 million times and played almost a billion times in less than four months.
Wouldn’t you like to get that on Android and Kindle Fire? Sure you would. Good news! It’s coming to Google Play today. And a new game mode is coming to all devices, including iPhones.
It had to happen eventually, but now that it has, it feels weird: smartphones are now officially outselling dumb feature phones internationally for the first time ever. And what made it happen? Cheap Android phones.
Continuing its expansion at roughly the same pace as the known universe, Facebook has just announced that they have acquired Mobile Technologies, the developer of Jibbigo, a universal translator app for Android and iOS.
Although it was a great idea, this notion of a cheap Android game console, the Ouya left a lot to be desired at launch. The hardware had some obvious deficiencies, like controller dead spots, but more importantly, the game library at launch was practically non-existent.
Right now, it looks like the Ouya is a dud: a great idea that just didn’t have a chance because it couldn’t get a push. But you know who might be able to take that same idea and get developers to treat it more seriously? Amazon. And they’re working to do just that.
Remember Draw Something? It was this wonderful, flash-in-the-pan game by the utterly charming developer OMGPOP, and had the misfortune of being such a success that it caught the evil overlord attentions of Zynga, who promptly bought the company, killed a game an ex-OMGPOP had privately made for his wife, and then ran the company into the ground, laying off the vast majority of the team.
OMGPOP’s practically dead now, and the only purpose the shell of the company serves is as a cautionary tale not to let Zynga touch anything good or wholesome, ever. There’s still more OMGPOP assets Zynga can kill, though: next up on the chopping block, Zynga plans to behad OMGPOP’s popular gaming portal website.
