EA Wins, Xbox Bleeds, and VCs Get Roasted | Golden Twig Awards 2025

All right, let's get into I wish we had some sort of musical flare going on. Maybe Dom will add that for me. The Golden Twig Awards 2025 winners. Here we go. Oh, that's Phil. First chair. First chair, Phil. Well done. All right. The talk of the year. This is the news stories that broke the internet. Basically, what I'm going to do here is I'll read out each question. I'll read out some of the nominees and then, you know, read out the winner. This one had a bunch of nominees. So, here are some of the nominees. EA gets embraced by the Saudis in the largest gaming deal ever. Ubisoft, [laughter] nepotism to Tencent. Guess who added that one? Must have been Mr. Crest. Roblox grows. Nintendo 2 Switch. GTA delays. Epic versus Apple. Craftton versus Subnotica. and then AI stories. So, the winner, and this is was pretty

cut and dry, 43% said EA. I think really that was the story. I'll also give out who added each of the stories. I will say that Adam went first in our list and so Adam is a winner as a lot of these because he took the obvious one. So, plus he's brilliant, but so Adam was that one. The runner up was what Mishka put in and we gave him a b a bunch of for this. All the AI stories. Do you remember Chris? We were like, "What are you doing?" And he put that in and that that was the runner up at 27%.
Yeah. I mean, I totally get the EA thing. I mean, this is like a huge deal in the space. And everyone in their mother who has absolutely no idea what they're talking about had an opinion on LinkedIn, right? So, like, you know, all these people just got it all wrong. But, you know, the AI stuff, I get it. I think probably the AI stories is more because AI was such a big news story over the year. I don't think it was really related to gaming at all. Right? Because AI and gaming seems very nent besides, you know, you know, ad tech

right? So, I don't know why AI stories and gaming were relevant, but certainly AI just generally.
Phil, any thoughts on EA take running away with this one?
I mean, so one thing I will say so listeners know is that we try not to all nominate the same thing. So, there's a little bit of variety. So, just [laughter] just to hang that out there. We don't always necessarily fullheartedly believe in the nominations we put forward, but yeah, this totally makes sense. This is one of the biggest gaming deals of all time, if not the biggest gaming deal. I forget, Eric, if it exceeded the Activision Microsoft purchase, but yeah, I mean, talk of the year, biggest gaming deal of all time. How do you how do you not nominate that? How do you not vote for that?
No, Activision was a little bit bigger, I think. Right.
Yeah. I think what made this bigger was the LBO nature, which didn't we actually determine it wasn't an LBO? Yeah, it basically wasn't an LBO when the the PE firm has like less than like I think it's like 5% of the deal. So, it's not an LBO.
Leverage buyout, just in case people don't know what that is. All right, question number two. Oops, we did it

again. These are our most embarrassing predictions that we as hosts made. So, let me read off a few of them. And by the way, we basically tied on a bunch of them. So, Phil's was Enzoy is the new Sims. Mishka said Apple is releasing new game app to kill web shops. Crest conveniently didn't enter anything so he wouldn't win this one. I think you've won in the past. Adam said Black Ops 7 will beat Battlefield 6. And then I said I'm not sure that families are going to buy the Switch 2. So the winner here, it's close on the first two. Actually, it's let's see if I had to just pick 29% to Philip Black. Enzoy is the new Sims. Phil just wanted an award is basically what happened here needed an award. [laughter]
Fair point. Fair point. But close behind was 26%. Mishka, Apple is releasing the new game app to kill web shops.
Split vote. Love it. Love it. Also, I will say we did not write these

questions. Mishka wrote these questions. I don't know if Enzo is the new Sims is the exact phrasing I would use, but look at I'm just happy for Enzoy and I'm happy for me who will hopefully get a trip. Does I don't know. Does the award go to Does the award go to Craftton or does it go to me? But I would I would love to go out to South Korea and present it to them. Although I don't know if they take it well. Still a believer, you know. No, I'm I'm holding out hope, man.
Didn't you move on to Animo is your your Inzo of 2026.
I [laughter] Well, I don't want to say that's an embarrassing prediction yet. That one's coming true. And that's going to be on What was the other question? Like the biggest talk of the year. It's going to be an email. Mark my words.
Okay. All right. We'll time stamp this. All right, so number three, most damage taken in a year. So here are some of the nominees. Xbox falling out of the console race. Ubisoft and all the Ubisoft things. Lilith, Warner Brothers Games getting valued zero by Netflix CEO and Amazon Game Studio. A decade of

expensive failures culminating in into many closures. So 41% the winner for this is Xbox falling out of the console race with studio closures and in the failing subscription model. This was Adam's nomination. Number two 30% was my vote which was Ubisoft nepotism. I think Crest probably agrees with that too. Loss of the crown jewels to 10centent 40,000 headcount reduction in Star Wars Outlaws underperformed although I think I got the year wrong on that. So Crest thoughts? I mean, [gasps] I think this makes the most sense. Like, and I don't think this story is over at all. So, Xbox is just a mess. You know, the enthusiast press has been carrying water for them for years, and now they're full force against them now, which when you lose the enthusiast press, dude, it's you've really lost. Hardware is failing. Software is underperforming. Call of Duty subscription revenue is likely going to fall dramatically next year. I think I should have made a prediction that Xbox gets spun out this year, but I still think they have a few more years

of calamity ahead. So, I'm not gonna make that prediction. So, but I I bet in 2027 we see something really dramatic happen with Xbox.
Phil Spencer gets fired this year, right? I mean, there's there's no way he
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I think so. Actually, that should have been our predictions. We get a little bit You're right. We should have been a little bit more aggressive,
spicy in the predictions. Let's throw it out there. My prediction is that Phil Spencer gets fired this year.
Wow.
And heaven helped them cuz he's like the only gamer left, right? Like he's the only guy with actual experience in the gaming industry, right? So,
I mean, they've really been positioning Sarah Bond. I think they elevated her to president and the writing has been on the wall. Wasn't there a news article that he was supposedly going to retire and then they they came out and said that wasn't like actually true? But it feels like they are laying the groundwork so that when it happens it's more retirement focused than
Yeah. I mean where there's smoke there's fire. If I were him, God, I wouldn't put

up with this Dude, how long do you How long can you suffer through this nonsense with Microsoft? I will say Booty is has a lot of experience in gaming.
That's true. Yeah.
Sarah Bond should not be managing this stuff at all.
Well, I don't know. I I I think there's an element of being an operator. Like sometimes you need an adult in a room to be the operator and as long as you've got really good game oriented folks underneath. I don't know. I think you can do it both ways.
All right. So Dres is like
disagree 1,000%.
Jen I Zach Aelnik not a gamer doesn't give a about games. I just think I would love to see gamers win at gaming executive positions but I just don't think it's a prereck. I think the data bears that out. He does. He doesn't give two shits. And he's been one of those gaming CEOs. Yeah. CEO. Bobby Kotic. Yes, that's true. Bobby Andrew Wilson's playing FIFA on the weekends. Well, well, maybe he's playing.
No, Andrew Wilson actually is a
He's a gamer, isn't he?
Yeah, he is. He came up through FIFA.
And so is Frank Jabau. And even No. How about this? Someone with experience in

the gaming industry [laughter] should be head of a gaming company. How about that? Like, let's let's just leave it that. Okay.
All right. So, let's go to most disappointing game of the year. Okay, there were a bunch of nominees here. Um, here's what they were. Minds Eye from Build a Rocket Boy, Enzoy, Rainbow Six, Siege X, uh, Splitgate 2 Borderlands, Call of Duty Black Ops 7, and Moco. So, the winner, which was pretty clear winner, 38%s to Minds Eye. This is Adam's entry. And so this was after seven years of development, a game so bad it destroyed the company. Wow. Number two at 20% was mine, Call of Duty Black Ops 7. Number three was Mo from Mishka. So Phil, you don't agree with this one?
I I I mean, we talked about this during the nomination, but like disappointing means there needs to be some sort of expectations to start with for you to be disappointed. And Mind's Eye was never an anticipated game to begin with. It

was always a train wreck. Everything from Build a Rocket Boy has always been a train wreck. that was coming. So, no expectations. The real winner here to me is Call of Duty. Call of Duty or at least I would say Moco. Those are the two I'd say legitimate candidates.
I like that take that in order for something to be disappointing, you have to have an expectation of it being good in the first place. I had no idea what Bonsai was to be. I was like, wait, my I had to look it up when Adam put it in there because my thought I agree 100%. I was super disappointed in how Black Ops 7 came out. I I do agree with Phil in a way, but it was under the radar for whatever reason, but the sheer scope of this failure in terms of like the amount of money that was spent by Galaxy and all these other funds was pretty epic failure generally speaking. And then also the only reason that Call of Duty kind of bugs me is because Call of Duty was always expected to be a down year this year, right? Because last year was the year before was the hero skew. This was like an iteration of Black Ops which was you know a sign of Microsoft's mismanagement of Activision right in the

sense that they are just iterating on something one year after the hero skew and then next year we have the new Modern Warfare skew which actually should grow the franchise right we should see it growth this year I mean obviously it's not the best franchise in the series but it should grow it I guess maybe investors expected this to be a down year for Call of Duty but it probably not as extreme as actually happened. I
I mean, Eric, hasn't it been the bestselling game in the United States every single year that it's come out? Or at least, you know, I don't I don't know the exact number in front of me, but I mean, it didn't just disappoint. I mean, it lost its title to Battlefield.
It's still the second bestselling game of the year, right?
Is it? Do we do we know that at the end of the year? Was it was it Battlefield? I don't even I haven't seen the charts yet.
I don't know. I haven't I haven't seen year end try, but I do know it had the worst like review scores of any Call of Duty game ever.
Even from a just a reception standpoint,
here's what I'll say. Call of Duty will be back and Battlefield's starting to

really deteriorate fast. And so Call of Duty when it comes out this holiday will be back. I'm not too worried about that franchise despite how bad Microsoft's going to mismanage it. So
yeah, even with GTA 6 coming
Oh, that's a good point. September.
No, it's going to be October, November. Yeah, you're right. They fit right on top chop each other. I I got to rethink this one.
Yeah, this is a tough one. I mean [laughter] I do agree that Modern Warfare is their, you know, better, I guess, subbrand, so to speak. That's the one that I always loved. But are they just they're going to resurface that for the third or the fourth time? I mean, I don't know. They keep coming that back.
I mean, to be clear, Black Ops is the hero skew. They just iterated one after the other this time. Yeah, they said they're going to stop that. They're going to stop the two in a row in a sub theme in a subbrand.
Number five, Mice Nuts. The best financially meaningless game. So, I think when we did this, we assumed under 50 million. We were writing notes to each other during this to Crust's point

earlier. So, Adam threw out a bunch in the beginning. So, it was like Night Rain, Dispatch, Notables.
What a blueprint. I know. He like threw out five spray and
firebomb. Like, come on, man. [laughter] Chaos Zero, Clover Pit, uh, New Playground, Game of Thrones, Kings Road. There might even been some others. So, what one was Adam's Dispatch because he threw out five. Number two is Blueprints. I actually I did a little segment on Blueprints when it came out earlier in the year because it was one of the highest Metacritic scores of all time at launch in that point. So, anyway, Crest, 12% of people agreed with you about Game of Thrones King's Road. What's really sad about that is the only reason it got voted about is because I keeping talking about it. You know what I mean? Like no one's even heard of this game, you know? It's like I know.
And what's really sad is if you look at some of the strategies that we've seen out there about crossplatform, this game was crossplatform, PC and mobile, freeto play, absolutely massive license, insane

production value, right? And it was a complete disaster, right? And so like this was like the promise of crossplatform and it bombed, right? Now, I'm still 400 plus hours into this game, right? But honestly, it is I am starting to fade and the game is definitely fading. Like, I think it doesn't have much longer left, I don't think. I think it's one big update away from just failing. So, anyway, sad sad sad.
What's the developer for this one again? Is this a Chinese developer?
Net Marble.
Net Marvel. Sorry. Yes. I couldn't remember off the top of my head, but I don't know who actually made the game, but it probably was a Net Marvel studio. I would imagine
they had the King Arthur game. I'm sure they just reskinned it.
Yeah. No, that's true.
All right. Well, there you go. Most questionable move of the year. And so, the nominees for this are Supercell, Moco, and Boat Game Launch Strategies, Ubisoft Spin Out, Advantage Studios, Dreams Royal Kingdom half a billion dollar launch, Apple's dedicated games app, Netflix games 2.0, the big screen

pivot. So, basically, this one feels like a fiveway tie. If you're looking at the chart, it just looks like a pin wheel. So, if we had to pick a winner with what was it 21% Dreams World Kingdom launch and Phil put that one forward.
I think I think you clap for this. [laughter]
I mean, I I don't even know. I don't I don't think this is like a stat sig difference in in the rankings, but I gave you that one. The next two are seem to be Oh, they are tied. 20.5% Ubisoft spin out of Vantage Studio which was Crest and then Supercell's Moco Boat game launch strategy from Adam. The last two also tied and those were mine and Mishkos with Netflix and Apples. So Phil, congrats I guess on you know I guess you get to go to Turkey and hand this award to Dream.
It's just that the award is just a big question mark. I'm just really intrigued that there was so much diversity of opinion for the most questionable move. There wasn't consensus here which I thought was was really interesting. Yeah. Do you think it's because of the

different perspectives of people we have listening? Like some people love to on marketing like you guys. Some people agree with Crest on Ubisoft. I don't know. Chris, what do you think?
I don't know. Maybe this is just kind of a sign of the times. You know, when the market's kind of in transition, you know, like people that are out of position are making really stupid decisions on what they're doing. You know, if you think about it, like all these companies are really out of position right now. Ubisoft, Supercell, well actually Dream is not so much. Apple and Netflix. So, I think the dream thing is like a big one, right? Like these guys were on the top of the world and then they did some stupid move, but now their game is doing fine, you know, like they're just doing traditional UA arbitrage, you know, but TV advertising and mobile gaming is just kind of dumb in my opinion and as I've said many times. So, I think I think that one makes sense. But yeah, I don't know. It's interesting. I think if you remember on this whole topic, I agree that they spent too much on the celebrity portion of the campaign. I think when we added it up, it got to like between, I don't know, 40 and $50

million just in like celebrity fees. So, I think that was too much. I think that the idea of using collabs or celebrities in your creative is not a bad idea if you can ensure that the creative translates and converts in UA in addition to whatever you do in TV. TV is kind of like the last stop of your game when you go to like mass market media. And basically um if you remember when I talked to Ben Webb at Scopely and we did that MAU interview, he talked about how the big win for them was that the creative coming out of any of the TV campaigns absolutely converts the best in performance marketing UA on mobile. And so that's the secret behind these that if you can make that work. But I agree, Chris, I agree. It's like putting a Royal Kingdom ad on the NBA finals with LeBron isn't necessarily what's going to convert people into your Royal Kingdom match game.
I stand by match three at equilibrium.

None of these games from plays are making it out the door either. Family scapes, Aqua Match, this market is stuffed. CPIs are too high. Clear clear the decks. Move on to merge. I think Bishka made the prediction that a Chinese company was going to get a winner in puzzle.
Completely reasonable. I mean, I don't think Truck Star is it. I think Truck Star has done great. I don't I think it's probably reached equilibrium in terms of scaling, but I think the Chinese march into casual puzzle will be interesting to see whether or not they can get this. I mean, they're already in merge, right? They're already in merge. They're aggressive. I think the challenge they have is that you can't just run. Let's let's hold off on this one. I think this is a deeper conversation, but I'm very curious to see how the Chinese will approach this.
Got it. All right. The next category, the most brilliant move of the year. So, the opposite of the last one. Here are the nominees. AI and ad tech and ad creative as fundamental saving grace post IDFA. Tim Sweeney choosing the 100 million yearsl long legal fight and the

Epic versus Google versus Apple on all of those uh lawsuits and settlements. Play Tikica acquiring Super Play, Saudis entry into gaming. And so Mishka combined a couple things in here. Scopi uh buying Niantic and then obviously just you know what Saudi doing with EA and Moonton and others. So the clear winner on this one was with 40% Tim Sweeney. So, this is the one I put forward. I didn't realize we had so many Tim Sweeney fans in the audience. Or maybe it's all of the mobile people who want lower rough share deals coming out of Apple and Google. Number two was the Saudi entry into gaming. And so, Phil, this kind of like like I said, like looped yours in because yours was specifically sculpy buying Niantic.
Again, we didn't write these. Mishka wrote these. [laughter]
This doesn't make any sense to me, right? This is not a win for the industry. This was a win for Epic, period. End of sentence, you know. I mean, they basically did a back alley

deal with Google for most favored nation, which they had an agreement to do this from the very beginning, like five well, I don't know, whenever this thing started, you know. So,
2020. Yeah.
Yeah. This goes against all of Tim's principles. You know, the reason he started this whole thing to begin with is to improve the ecosystem for everybody, not just for Epic, you know, the judge herself basically said the these exact words. this is not just me, you know, it's like they basically said they're like two mortal enemies who pounded out each other relentlessly in the courtroom for years are now suddenly BFFs. She's like, it's just crazy. And so, you know, and when Tim first started this stuff, he said, "We are fighting for freedom of people who brought smartphones and install apps from sources of their choosing, for the freedom for creators and apps to distribute them as they choose, and the freedom of both groups to do business directly." Right? like that was his stated goal. Now they're just benefiting to do business directly with Epic, right? Everyone else can go be off, right? Basically, so it's like,

yeah,
I don't think people really are understanding exactly what this agreement says.
Well, if I remember correctly, that got rejected by the judge who with the calling them BFFs that are now so we are unresolved at this point in time and I think the judge is actually looking at what the outcomes are still going to be. So that one got rejected to your point and yes I think we were all shocked when we're like wait so if you have a cosmetic inapp purchase it's less royalty rate like how on earth is that for everybody and fighting for the freedom of creators that didn't seem to make sense.
Yeah it really doesn't.
But I think you know him spending over $und00 million on the fight was what maybe what people were were thinking about. Okay, so the limping donkey award and so the definition of this
I had to ask the guys I'm like what do you mean? So this is like a unicorn company like only on paper and I think it the bed kind of. Is that what

does it mean to you guys?
Company was worth a lot of money. Now it's not worth a lot of money.
All right, there you go. I talk it a little bit more as like the bed. All right, so this is basically a tie for the number like first here are the nominees. Dream Haven is not the Blizzard 2.0 that it was valued at. TheoryCraft not the Riot 2.0 it was valued at. [laughter] Believer also not the Riot 2.0 it's valued at. Ubisoft less than the sum of its IPs. Bungie Marathon Fiasco. Destiny Collapse. Sony's impairment loss. Gaming VCs I think crush you put this you just like summarized and said let's do all gaming VCs. And then Forte again, I think, which was that might have been the winner last year, raised 900 million for web 3 gaming and nowhere to be found. So the the tie for the winner seems to be TheoryCraft ekking it out a little bit with 28%. And then Crest Gaming VCs coming in at 27%. Uh, both of these were your picks. You might as well just add them all up together and just put

Lightseed, Griffin, A16Z, Galaxy as the big VCs that are just absolutely failing miserably and you know their their stated strategy of you know Blizzard/Riot 2.0 was stupid to begin with. What do you think is going to happen? You know, so
do we if we were to rewind back in time to and this was all over COVID, right? when all of these guys got these investments. Do you think you back then would have said that was a smart move or a dumb move to invest into those teams?
Oh, I was saying it back then. I was saying I'm I've been saying it all along. This is not a venture capital investment space. Mobile is an investment space for VCs because it scales over time, right? Gaming is like a one hit type thing and then they start all over again. It's just not a VC model. It never was like that. I've been saying this forever. Yeah. Right. No.
And I don't want to disparage like the small VCs that are help funding, you know, small startups, like at least the

initial round to get them going and to get like some kind of like, you know, early stage stuff going. That makes sense to me. It's just that these big levels, it's like you're becoming a publisher, right? And the publishers should make these investments, not venture capitalists.
Yeah.
The thing is, it's it's the tourists, right, that don't know anything about games that are coming in here and making these big investments. That's the thing that drives me insane, you know, like people that have never even been in the industry just like the hot chick at the bar, you know, you know, in 2021. It was just really stupid. The whole idea was stupid.
Yeah.
Well, I just think we should first of all just issue a correction that La La Land was not the winner. In fact, it was actually Moonlight and Forte is actually the winner here, Jen. We misread the colors.
Oh, is that true?
Yeah. Theory Craft actually has the lowest vote share. It's just that the red shares look very similar to one another. Oh.
Oh, did I mess that up?
Yep. [laughter] Oh, so gaming VC's FortForte won again basically.
Correct.
Gaming PCs got number two, but Forte is

number one. You're right. Ship.
Yeah. If you add up all the that the VCs did, they won by a by a landslide, right? So like Believer, TheoryCraft, and Gaming VCs, those three added up to more than Forte. What I see in all these results, Eric and Jen, is a lot of expressive voting, a lot of anger that people are trying to unleash when they vote. A [laughter] lot of anger at web3, anger at Ubisoft, anger at all these different people. Even though there might be a better informed voting choice,
I don't know. But see, the thing is that Ubisoft is so off the radar from everyone. I don't know if everyone's angry besides me, right? Like no one cares about this French company that's failing, right?
I don't think that's the case at all. I think what really bothers people is the nepotism that you've pointed out. I think you've been good at continually pointing out how broken that is. I think the criminal activity, I almost call it a criminal activity of siphoning siphoning the IPS to a new company, your most valuable assets. I just remain astonished how this is legal under EU law. And I think it's just like all

these franchises that should be having value are just being mismanaged left and right. And these are like franchises I think people love. Not to mention, it feels like they become a factory for the same open world game over and over again. It's an easy punching bag, right? And they're
It really is easy. So, we're doing a deep dive with Pixels and Profits with Joseph, Kim, and Matt. Matt and Brian. So, I'm doing that tomorrow. So, that should be interesting.
Oh, yeah. Also, for Ubisoft, we've been glossing over all of the workplace hostile work environment. Remember the there was like the lawsuit this year?
No, none of which has been fixed. None of which has been fixed.
No. And Serge was a dirty birdie, that one, man. So he once he got fired, that's when everything fell fell off a cliff. Anyway, I'll talk more about it later.
Oh, on somebody else's podcast. Got it.
On someone else's podcast.
This is great. This is great. Thank you so much. Okay, so sorry about that. Yeah, so the pink and the red look the same. So Forte actually won again. Like I think that was a repeat from last year. Okay, so the next one is Crushed

It. Here are the nominees. Grow a garden. This is Phil's topping 21.3 million CCU Century Games, Battlefield 6, Clash Royale, and Supercell's new president Sarah Jessica Bach. I guess this is me. I think that was Mishka's. I think I had my all of Chinese gaming, but I think it got put in here as microfund, which is Gossip Park Harbor. So, almost another tie. Ekking it out for the win is Century Games, which is Adams Battlefield 6. So, Chris, you and I kind of tag team on this one a little bit. Uh, I think I gave kudos to the marketing side of Battlefield 6. You obviously on the business side. So, that was pretty close. 33% to Century Games, 31% to Battlefield 6. Adam, you know, cleaning house with all of this. I guess next year I'm going to have to go first and maybe I'll get more. Phil, congrats. You got you yours got third.
I was happy for Grill Garden. I didn't expect it to get basically a fourth of

the vote. I think there's just a lot of people that don't touch or interact with Roblox games and I would say you'll be hearing more from Roblox next year.
All right.
Yeah. Well, Grow Garden is like this one hit wonder, right? It's down dramatically as is Roblox stock, which we'll talk about in a minute.
Yeah. Yeah.
But holy crap, dude. Yeah. This thing is like one and done, you know? That's Yeah.
Yeah.
Move all your bets to steal a brain rot. Still going strong. Crushed it.
Yeah. Yeah, there's
And on Fortnite, too.
Fortnite? Really?
Yeah. On UFN, it's doing really well.
Oh, oh, they ported it to Fortnite.
Mhm. I think you'll be hearing a lot more about that this year, too.
Oh, all right. Interesting. [music]