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As one of the longest-running and most successful Web comics of all time, Penny Arcade has garnered an enormous and devoted fanbase who lives for the topical, no-holds-barred commentary of gamer characters John "Gabe" Gabriel and Tycho Brahe. The Web comic has also spawned the annual gaming convention PAX (Penny Arcade Expo) and multiple video games.

In a recent e-mail interview with Download.com, Penny Arcade's co-creator and writer Jerry Holkins, the man behind Tycho, discussed, among other things, his experiences developing games, current gaming trends, and his top five mobile game apps.

When is On the Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness … Read more

Attention all those of you who came of age in the 1990s: Sonic the Hedgehog is back and ready for the mobile world of the 21st century.

So get out your old HyperColor T-shirts, pop in that cassette copy of Pearl Jam's "Ten," and get ready to relive the days when kids had actually heard of a company named Sega.

The company this week launched a remastered version of the original Sonic game in the Google Play store for Android, and also announced the next title in the Sonic franchise will be exclusive to perhaps Sega's oldest foe, Nintendo.… Read more

Hot off the presses of Google IO 2013, Google Music is back with a new name, look, and service. Formerly known as Google Music, Google has now opted to brand their player as part of the Google Play Service. And though the name doesn't exactly flow very well, Google Play Music is now much more than just the cloud-powered player that comes with Android.

In an effort to compete with the likes of iTunes, Spotify, and Pandora, Google has come out full force with new label partnerships that include Universal and Sony. The result is a completely overhauled app … Read more

The latest data out on the gaming industry indicates one, simple message: times are tough.

Overall spending on game industry products in the U.S. in April hit $495.2 million, down 25 percent compared to the $657.5 million consumers spent during the same period in 2012, according to monthly sales data on the game industry from research firm NPD. Hardware sales were hit hardest with just $109.5 million spent on consoles and handhelds last month. That figure is down 42 percent compared to the same period in April 2012.

Once again, the Xbox 360 led the market … Read more

An increasing number of people are deciding to dedicate their cash to Apple's iOS rather than traditional gaming handhelds, according to a new study.

A joint study performed by research firms IDC and App Annie found that during the first quarter of 2013, total spending on iOS App Store games outpaced that of dedicated handhelds such as Nintendo's 3DS and PlayStation Vita. It was the first time that iOS games outpaced the traditional devices. In the fourth quarter, iOS was slightly behind gaming handhelds in total spending.

For now, Google Play is still a distant third, tallying about … Read more

Google's Play Books service got an update Wednesday that allows users to upload e-books or other documents to the cloud to create an online library that can be shared with a variety of the devices.

Updates to the Android and iOS versions of the e-reader app will allow users to upload up to 1,000 PDF and EPUB files to their Google Play locker. Files can be uploaded from userss computers or imported from Google Drive, as long as the files are less than 50MB in size.

Once uploaded to the library, the files will be readable on the … Read more

For Google, there's only enough room for one game in town.

The Web giant on Wednesday took the wraps off Google Play, its new game development platform, during the first day of the Google I/O developers conference in San Francisco. The cross-platform game service promises a handful of new developer features, including the ability to sync gaming activity between devices and save game progress on Google's servers.

But something that won't be saved on Google's servers will be the games that Google+ users have been playing for the last couple of years. As part of … Read more

Google's new education initiative, Google Play for Education, is designed to put more tablets into K-12 classrooms, the company said Wednesday at its Google I/O developers conference.

The new store launches this fall. It enables teachers deploy an app or an e-book to all of their students' tablets at once, and has apps that have been recommended by other teachers to make sure they are appropriate for specific ages and grades.

"Each app has been recommended by a group of educators," Engineering Director Chris Yerga said during the keynote. "This is key because teachers trust … Read more