Glu Releases Quarterly Results and Mystery Case Files Game

Mobile games firm Glu Mobile (NSDQ: GLUU) announced that their first quarter revenues grew 31% year over year to $20.6 million, up from $15.7 million.

Glu CEO and President Greg Ballard said the better than expected revenues had been boosted by strong sales in the US and China, as well as a “rebound” in the European market.

Glu's top ten titles represented approximately 43% of revenue in the first quarter of 2008, which was down from approximately 57% of revenue in the first quarter a year ago. The average revenue per top ten title was $886,000, roughly equal to the first quarter of last year. New titles released in the first quarter of 2008 included Age of Empires III, based on the best selling Microsoft strategy franchise, Solitaire Pop from PlayFirst, as well as key original titles from Glu such as Space Monkey and CrossPix.

In addition, Glu launched “Mystery Case Files: Agent X,” a game designed and developed by Big Fish Games for mobile phones in North America. Mystery Case Files has established itself as an industry-leading brand and franchise from Big Fish Games, with more than 1.8 million units sold. Big Fish Games is credited for creating and molding the hidden-object genre, which is now the most popular category in the downloadable casual games business.

“We’re very excited that our partnership with Big Fish Games will bring innovative and exclusive content like Agent X to mobile phones,” said Jill Braff, senior vice president of global publishing, Glu. “Mystery Case Files is a powerful brand, and we look forward to providing fans with a deeply engrossed and unique experience in bringing a hidden object game to the mobile platform.”

“Our Mystery Case Files franchise has an extremely loyal following; fans will now have on-the-go access to a new and exciting chapter in the series,” said Paul Handelman, vice president of business development at Big Fish Games. “We developed Agent X to meet the high standards of the Mystery Case Files series and with the help of our publishing partner Glu, pushed the limits of the platform and delivered a best-in-class mobile gaming experience.”

Mystery Case Files: Agent X casts players as virtual detectives solving mysteries by finding hidden clues. The game includes exciting weekly updates that provide fresh content to bring players’ into immersive environments. Users can also post high scores to the Mystery Case Files leader boards to compete against others and compare their abilities.

Namco and Big Fish launch Atlantis Sky Patrol

Casual game publisher Big Fish Games had their first mobile game hit the market this week thanks to their partnership announced last July with Namco Networks.

Inspired by the online PC hit game, Atlantis Sky Patrol is an addictive, action-driven puzzler with more than 100 levels. In the game, players must knock out and destroy doomsday devices by shooting and matching chains of colored marbles moving through a track before the chain reaches a detonation core.

The game launched on Verizon last week and can be found in the What's New, Puzzle, and Exclusives categories of the game section of Get it Now. The game is scheduled to launch on other operators soon as well.

This is the first of a number of Big Fish titles to hit the mobile market. In October, Big Fish announced a partnership with Glu (NASDAQ: GLUU) to bring Mystery Case Files: Agent X to the market later this year as well.