Mobile apps news roundup: Most top grossing mobile games are integrated with Facebook, Puzzle & Dragons reaches 13 million users in Japan and more

Facebook recaps stats about its games ecosystem from GDC 2013 -- In a blog post Monday, Facebook's director of games Sean Ryan recapped some stats about its games ecosystem that were revealed during the 2013 Game Developers Conference. Ryan says more than 250 million users are playing games on Facebook each month, and 82 percent of the top 100 grossing U.S. mobile games and 75 percent of the top 100 grossing U.S. Android mobile games are integrated with Facebook. In 2012, Facebook paid out more than to $2 billion to game developers and saw total payers increase 24 percent year-over-year from March 2012 to March 2013. KakaoTalk's game platform expands into Vietnam and Indonesia -- Messaging app KakaoTalk's game platform recently expanded into Vietnam and Indonesia, where many of Kakao's more than 80 million users come from. Indonesia, in particular, has become a hotly contested market for messaging apps. Both Tencent's WeChat and Kakao have launched TV ad campaigns in the country. Messaging apps usage surpasses SMS texts for the first time ever, Informa says -- Research firm Informa told the BBC Monday that 19 billion messages were sent per day via messaging apps -- such as WhatsApp, Kik and iMessenge -- in 2012, compared with 17.6 million SMS texts. It's the first time that the amount of messages send from chat apps have usurped the amount from SMS. Despite the growth of messaging apps, Informa still expects revenue from SMS to grow to $127 billion by 2016, from $115 billion last year. Rovio's Angry Birds Friends launches on mobile -- Finnish game developer Rovio launched Angry Birds Friends, a once Facebook-exclusive title, for iOS and Android yesterday. Angry Birds Friends plays a little differently than the mobile titles in the franchise, where in Friends users can compete against other users in weekly tournaments for the highest score. UBM TechWeb cancels GDC Online, opens submissions for GDC Next, ADC -- UBM TechWeb announced that it's opened submissions for its two new conferences -- Game Developers Conference Next and App Developers Conference. Both conferences will take place in Los Angeles from November 5 to 7. The two conferences replace the GDC Online conference which was held in Austin, Texas. Basically, UBM is looking for input from the game and mobile app industries as to what topics the conference should cover. The deadline for submissions is Wednesday, May 29. Find out more about the submission process here and here. Puzzle & Dragons reaches 13 million downloads in Japan -- According to Social Game Info, GungHo Online, which now has a market cap of $10 billion, saw its incredibly successful mobile game Puzzle & Dragons reach the 13 million downloads mark across the iOS and Android versions in Japan. PlayFirst launches Deep Sea Deli -- San Francisco-based mobile game studio PlayFirst launched its latest game this week in Deep Sea Deli, a puzzle-matching arcade title for iOS. Unlike some puzzle-matching games, there's no time limit on game sessions, meaning the title focuses more on skill. GREE updates NFL Shuffle with new 'Talents' feature -- Mobile-social gaming giant GREE updated its card-based game NFL Shuffle with a new feature called 'Talents' that is aimed at increasing the game's competitiveness. Users can now utilize an NFL players Talent, a game-changing boost, to increase a card's scoring potential. Talents come in the form of gameplay enhancements such as additional swaps, and shuffles, offense and defense team bonuses, and Silver and Gold Football Bonuses.

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Mobile apps news roundup: Most top grossing mobile games are integrated with Facebook, Puzzle & Dragons reaches 13 million users in Japan and more

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