Pocket Gamer
Encyclopedia
Pocket Gamer is a website and video game magazine that focuses on handheld video games. It was launched in 2005 and is published by Steel Media. The publication covers all major portable and mobile gaming formats, including iPhone, Android, PSP and the various versions of the Nintendo DS and was one of the first to actively cover the iPhone and iPod Touch gaming markets. As well as the website and spin-off magazines, the publication hands out awards for handheld games to recognize them in several categories. The British newspaper The Guardian
periodically syndicates a list of recommended mobile video games from Pocket Gamer in their own newspaper, especially the list of recommended games for each month.
, Nintendo's Gameboy series as well as the then newly launched Nintendo DS
. They also mentioned PDAs and handheld console pretenders such as Gizmondo
and the Tapwave Zodiac
. The Sony PSP was added to the site soon after and as traffic grew "Pocket Gamer' became a barometer for the portable games industry, tracing the rise and fall of various platforms until the arrival of the iPhone in June 2007 which, thanks to the subsequent launches of the iPod Touch
in September 2007 and the App Store in July 2008, grew to increasingly dominate the editorial agenda. More recently, the site has added 3DS, Android, BlackBerry
, Windows Phone 7
, MeeGo and Palm
to the roster of covered formats.
In October 2007, Pocket Gamer launched the Pocket Gamer Guide to Mobile Games magazine, which was first featured by T-Mobile
, where it is published bi-monthly in all of their stores in the United Kingdom. It was expected to have a circulation of 150,000 copies. A digital version of Pocket Gamer was also available on the websites of Vodafone
and 3 UK
. In May 2008, British company Steel Media (founders of the Pocket Gamer website http://www.pocketgamer.co.uk) announced that it partnered with O2
to produce the Pocket Gamer Guide to Mobile Games magazine, which had an initial print run of 500,000 copies and was made available in all O2 UK stores, making O2 the 4th UK mobile network to feature the Pocket Gamer magazine. In May 2008, the magazine's circulation reached 700,000 copies, with a total audience of 1.5 million when including web and WAP
readership, and syndication reviews to Vodafone live!
and the Samsung Fun Club. The website rumored in April 2009 that Sony
would release the PlayStation Portable 2 later that year, although ultimately it was the PSPgo which was launched
In May 2008, Steel Media expanded the "Pocket Gamer" stable with the launch of a b2b-based sister site PocketGamer.Biz focused on covering the business of mobile games and subsequently launched the PocketGamer.Biz Quality Index which tracks review scores of leading mobile games and publishers plus the PocketGamer.Biz annual industry reports.
In October 2008," Pocket Gamer" launched its first foreign edition, PocketGamer.Fr, providing news and reviews on mobile and iPhone apps to a French language audience. The site grew steadily and launched its own iPhone app as well as providing syndicated content to several third party magazines. In August 2010 the site merged with number two in the market, JMobil and relaunched with a new design, new features and coverage of a wider number of platforms including Android.
in November 2008, "Pocket Gamer" launched their dedicated news and reviews iPhone app, joining with the previous wap versions of the site to provide portable gamers with tailored content on the go.
Guest Authors
, mobile
, and handheld devices in eleven categories each. Before 2010, the magazine instead published a feature showcasing the 10 best games for each type of device, in no particular order.
For 2010, on the iPhone, Firemint
won "Best Developer", Gameloft
won "Best Publisher", and Flight Control won "Game of the Year". For other mobile devices, Digital Chocolate
won "Best Developer", Electronic Arts
won "Best Publisher", and Mystery Mania won "Game of the Year". Among handhelds, Rockstar Leeds
won "Best Developer", Nintendo
won "Best Publisher", and Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars
won "Game of the Year". Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars also won the overall "Game of the Year" award.
Pocket Gamer has been listed as one of the top 100 websites by the Guardian newspaper two years running as well as being named in The Sunday Times newspaper's Top 5 Websites for Gaming /
The Guardian
The Guardian, formerly known as The Manchester Guardian , is a British national daily newspaper in the Berliner format...
periodically syndicates a list of recommended mobile video games from Pocket Gamer in their own newspaper, especially the list of recommended games for each month.
History
Launched in April 2005 with the sub-title 'play as you go', Pocket Gamer set out to provide professional editorial coverage of mobile and handheld gaming formats which they saw as the future of gaming. At launch the site focused on mobile phones (java and brew), the Nokia N-GageN-Gage
The N-Gage is a mobile telephone and handheld game system by Nokia, based on the Nokia Series 60 platform, released in October 2003. It began sales on October 7, 2003. The N-Gage QD replaced the original N-Gage in 2004....
, Nintendo's Gameboy series as well as the then newly launched Nintendo DS
Nintendo DS
The is a portable game console produced by Nintendo, first released on November 21, 2004. A distinctive feature of the system is the presence of two separate LCD screens, the lower of which is a touchscreen, encompassed within a clamshell design, similar to the Game Boy Advance SP...
. They also mentioned PDAs and handheld console pretenders such as Gizmondo
Gizmondo
The Gizmondo is a handheld gaming console which was released by Tiger Telematics in March 2005. The electronics design was undertaken by Plextek Limited and the industrial design by Rick Dickinson....
and the Tapwave Zodiac
Tapwave Zodiac
The Zodiac is a mobile entertainment console, launched on 5 May 2003, and released in October 2003 by Tapwave, a former private company that was based in Mountain View, California....
. The Sony PSP was added to the site soon after and as traffic grew "Pocket Gamer' became a barometer for the portable games industry, tracing the rise and fall of various platforms until the arrival of the iPhone in June 2007 which, thanks to the subsequent launches of the iPod Touch
IPod Touch
The iPod Touch is a portable media player, personal digital assistant, handheld game console, and Wi-Fi mobile device designed and marketed by Apple Inc. The iPod Touch adds the multi-touch graphical user interface to the iPod line...
in September 2007 and the App Store in July 2008, grew to increasingly dominate the editorial agenda. More recently, the site has added 3DS, Android, BlackBerry
BlackBerry
BlackBerry is a line of mobile email and smartphone devices developed and designed by Canadian company Research In Motion since 1999.BlackBerry devices are smartphones, designed to function as personal digital assistants, portable media players, internet browsers, gaming devices, and much more...
, Windows Phone 7
Windows Phone 7
Windows Phone is a mobile operating system developed by Microsoft, and is the successor to its Windows Mobile platform, although incompatible with it. Unlike its predecessor, it is primarily aimed at the consumer market rather than the enterprise market...
, MeeGo and Palm
Palm, Inc.
Palm, Inc., was a smartphone manufacturer headquartered in Sunnyvale, California, that was responsible for products such as the Pre and Pixi as well as the Treo and Centro smartphones. Previous product lines include the PalmPilot, Palm III, Palm V, Palm VII, Zire and Tungsten. While their older...
to the roster of covered formats.
In October 2007, Pocket Gamer launched the Pocket Gamer Guide to Mobile Games magazine, which was first featured by T-Mobile
T-Mobile
T-Mobile International AG is a German-based holding company for Deutsche Telekom AG's various mobile communications subsidiaries outside Germany. Based in Bonn, Germany, its subsidiaries operate GSM and UMTS-based cellular networks in Europe, the United States, Puerto Rico and the US Virgin Islands...
, where it is published bi-monthly in all of their stores in the United Kingdom. It was expected to have a circulation of 150,000 copies. A digital version of Pocket Gamer was also available on the websites of Vodafone
Vodafone
Vodafone Group Plc is a global telecommunications company headquartered in London, United Kingdom. It is the world's largest mobile telecommunications company measured by revenues and the world's second-largest measured by subscribers , with around 341 million proportionate subscribers as of...
and 3 UK
Hutchison 3G
3 is a brand name under which several UMTS-based mobile phone networks and Broadband Internet Providers are operated in Australia, Austria, Denmark, Hong Kong, Macau, Indonesia, Ireland, Italy, Sweden, and the United Kingdom...
. In May 2008, British company Steel Media (founders of the Pocket Gamer website http://www.pocketgamer.co.uk) announced that it partnered with O2
O2 (United Kingdom)
Telefónica UK Limited is a telecommunications, internet and financial services provider in the United Kingdom owned by Telefónica, forming part of its Telefónica Europe division...
to produce the Pocket Gamer Guide to Mobile Games magazine, which had an initial print run of 500,000 copies and was made available in all O2 UK stores, making O2 the 4th UK mobile network to feature the Pocket Gamer magazine. In May 2008, the magazine's circulation reached 700,000 copies, with a total audience of 1.5 million when including web and WAP
Wireless Application Protocol
Wireless Application Protocol is a technical standard for accessing information over a mobile wireless network.A WAP browser is a web browser for mobile devices such as mobile phones that uses the protocol.Before the introduction of WAP, mobile service providers had limited opportunities to offer...
readership, and syndication reviews to Vodafone live!
Vodafone live!
Vodafone live! was the brand name for the multimedia portal service of mobile phone operator Vodafone, which was initially developed by Japan's J-Phone under the J-Sky brand...
and the Samsung Fun Club. The website rumored in April 2009 that Sony
Sony
, commonly referred to as Sony, is a Japanese multinational conglomerate corporation headquartered in Minato, Tokyo, Japan and the world's fifth largest media conglomerate measured by revenues....
would release the PlayStation Portable 2 later that year, although ultimately it was the PSPgo which was launched
In May 2008, Steel Media expanded the "Pocket Gamer" stable with the launch of a b2b-based sister site PocketGamer.Biz focused on covering the business of mobile games and subsequently launched the PocketGamer.Biz Quality Index which tracks review scores of leading mobile games and publishers plus the PocketGamer.Biz annual industry reports.
In October 2008," Pocket Gamer" launched its first foreign edition, PocketGamer.Fr, providing news and reviews on mobile and iPhone apps to a French language audience. The site grew steadily and launched its own iPhone app as well as providing syndicated content to several third party magazines. In August 2010 the site merged with number two in the market, JMobil and relaunched with a new design, new features and coverage of a wider number of platforms including Android.
in November 2008, "Pocket Gamer" launched their dedicated news and reviews iPhone app, joining with the previous wap versions of the site to provide portable gamers with tailored content on the go.
Guest Authors
- Ray SharmaRay SharmaRay Sharma is the founder and CEO of XMG Studio, a mobile games studio located in Toronto, Canada. Ray is also the Chairman of Xtreme Labs, a co-founder of Extreme Venture Partners and sits on the boards for Wellpoint Health Services Corporation and the Ontario Judicial Council , the body that...
- Si Shen
- Rick Marazzani
- Tak FungSupermono studiosSupermono Studios is a video game publisher and application development studio based in London, UK. It was founded by ex-Lionhead developer Tak Fung and artist Dave Ferner in 2010.They are best known for developing games for the iOS and andriod, with MiniSquadron and EpicWin being their most...
Awards
Since 2010, the Pocket Gamer Awards are handed out every year in March to video games for iPhoneIPhone
The iPhone is a line of Internet and multimedia-enabled smartphones marketed by Apple Inc. The first iPhone was unveiled by Steve Jobs, then CEO of Apple, on January 9, 2007, and released on June 29, 2007...
, mobile
Mobile phone
A mobile phone is a device which can make and receive telephone calls over a radio link whilst moving around a wide geographic area. It does so by connecting to a cellular network provided by a mobile network operator...
, and handheld devices in eleven categories each. Before 2010, the magazine instead published a feature showcasing the 10 best games for each type of device, in no particular order.
For 2010, on the iPhone, Firemint
Firemint
Founded in 1999 by CEO Robert Murray, Firemint is a developer and publisher of video games based in Melbourne, Australia. Originally an independent company, in May 2011, Electronic Arts announced the acquisition of Firemint Pty Ltd for an undisclosed sum, making it an in-house studio for EA...
won "Best Developer", Gameloft
Gameloft
Gameloft SA is a major French computer and video game developer and publisher headquartered in Paris, France. The company also has subsidiaries in 31 countries around the world....
won "Best Publisher", and Flight Control won "Game of the Year". For other mobile devices, Digital Chocolate
Digital Chocolate
Digital Chocolate is a video game developer headquartered in San Mateo, California. It was founded in 2003 by Trip Hawkins, the entrepreneur and founder of the video game publishing giant Electronic Arts and founder of The 3DO Company. The company focuses on developing games for mobile phones, iOS,...
won "Best Developer", Electronic Arts
Electronic Arts
Electronic Arts, Inc. is a major American developer, marketer, publisher and distributor of video games. Founded and incorporated on May 28, 1982 by Trip Hawkins, the company was a pioneer of the early home computer games industry and was notable for promoting the designers and programmers...
won "Best Publisher", and Mystery Mania won "Game of the Year". Among handhelds, Rockstar Leeds
Rockstar Leeds
Rockstar Leeds is a British video game developer. Based in the eponymous city of Leeds, West Yorkshire, Rockstar Leeds has primarily published handheld games for Game Boy Color and Game Boy Advance , as well as developing Midnight Club 3: DUB Edition and the Grand Theft Auto Stories games for the...
won "Best Developer", Nintendo
Nintendo
is a multinational corporation located in Kyoto, Japan. Founded on September 23, 1889 by Fusajiro Yamauchi, it produced handmade hanafuda cards. By 1963, the company had tried several small niche businesses, such as a cab company and a love hotel....
won "Best Publisher", and Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars
Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars
Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars is a video game for Nintendo DS, PlayStation Portable, and iOS, developed by Rockstar Leeds in conjunction with Rockstar North. It is the thirteenth game in the Grand Theft Auto series, and the very first for Nintendo DS and iOS.-Gameplay:Chinatown Wars has a...
won "Game of the Year". Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars also won the overall "Game of the Year" award.
Pocket Gamer has been listed as one of the top 100 websites by the Guardian newspaper two years running as well as being named in The Sunday Times newspaper's Top 5 Websites for Gaming /