Fireside Chat: Paradigm Shifts – The Evolving Mobile Market And 3P Marketplaces.

Uh we're going to be talking about paradigm shift uh and the evolving mobile marketplace. So I think if we can get uh Walter Forcera and Anthony and Jane to join Chris on the stage, that would be fantastic. So uh we're going to talk here about the uh evolving uh mobile uh uh markets uh and the marketplaces. Of course it's no secret and we were talking to somebody yesterday that the mobile games market has gone through uh a number of challenges in recent years. As uh said, we've had uh the changes of data tracking and and and privacy with from the uh existing uh kind of app stores uh impacts of UA advertising. We've had positive impacts from

governmental uh legislation and obviously there's the whole inflation and and general cost of living squeeze. However, good news is despite all this the market has returned to overall growth um on many metrics. And and I feel particularly and I was trying to imbue yesterday we're on the cusp of of of even bigger growth and exciting opportunities. So I'm delighted to be able to kind of chair a panel here talking to one of the gaming giants and several great uh sort of developers and publishers about the opportunities ahead of us uh particularly in the direct-to-consumer uh arena um with new distribution uh opportunities. So first of all for the panel, can you quickly introduce yourselves and tell us how you're feeling uh with as much energy as you can in in this one morning about mobile gaming in 2025 and and why you're upbeat or otherwise. You can be downbeat if you like. Be a bit of a Be a bit of a bad way to start, but you can go that way. So uh yeah, have we got enough mics? We might have to We might have to all your mics up. Okay, We've got professional.

Okay. Shall I go first? You go first. You're the far end. Yes. Hello everyone. I'm Jane. I'm the commercial manager at UsTwo Games. UsTwo Games is a small development studio based here in London. I guess best known for premium games, so the Monument Valley series. And then how my feeling about the ecosystem currently and this year ahead. I think premium games is still a challenge, so I'm a little bit kind of hesitant to see what happens and you know what the future is for for us definitely as a premium game developer. But I guess optimistic for choices and options ahead of us in as the ecosystem evolves. You're not going to be revealing your free to play Monument Valley today then. We'll see. Might come to me now. Sarah, Sarah, how are you doing? Good morning everyone. My name is Sarah Thompson and I work with Epic Games

Store. I'm focused on the mobile piece, which we've been working really hard on and I get to work with Walter on his team on that and I'm feeling both pragmatic and optimistic. I think that you know games has been put through the ringer and many of us have felt the pain of that for the past few years in general. And I don't think we're out of the woods yet. I think we're still going to see some challenges this year, but I do think that there's a lot of really exciting innovation and disruption coming down the line over the next few years. And so while I am doing my best to support the industry and help us navigate this, I'm also really excited for all of the great things that are coming down the line. So you're kind of pragmaticistic or Oh, I like that. automatic. I don't know, whatever. Okay. Go go go Hi everyone. Can you all hear me? Yeah, so I'm Walter. So I'm all right. I run

the Epic Games Store account business development team and you know, with Sarah and our we're charged with going out and talking with developers and publishers around the world and bringing games to PC and very soon to to the mobile game store. I'm optimistic for 2025. I mean, I I kind of feel like things can't get much worse. Hopefully I won't eat those words. It's been a really rough couple of years in the game industry in general. So hopefully it's onward and upward in 2025. We will see. Almost optimistic. Okay, Anthony, how about yourself? Hello everyone. I'm Anthony. I'm the head of business business development at Playdigious. We we specialize in porting PC successes to mobile in a in a premium way. And I'm pretty optimistic for 2025. There's been some change in regulation in Europe that opens the door to a lot of things. So I'm

even if the market has been quite hard and the premium side of it is only less than 5%. We're still very interested in seeing what's happening and we have a lot of things coming. So I'm excited for it. So broadly optimistic or pragmatic stick across the whole of it. So So So let's let's let's turn this particularly to Epic, you know, reasons you're here and you're obviously entering this space with your own app marketplace. We have the PC store already. What why Why did you decide to get into this space? You've obviously, you know, you're doing quite a lot in this space. You're helping drive innovation. What what what was the the leads get into this? Yeah, it's a great question. I think it's no secret some of the change that we're trying to to make in the industry. You know, one of the most important things to us are the the creative people like, you know, the folks joined here on the panel with us and and many of you in making games and it's gotten very expensive not only from development cost

perspective but also on the marketing side of things and for us it's about providing that what we think is a fair share back to developers. So we have the 88/12 revenue split on PC and mobile. Um and we think that represents, you know, the respective value that people are bringing to players around the world. Um in a much more fair way. So, you know, 30% commissions it's just no longer justified. So that's the probably the biggest reason why we're doing this. Um and then also to open up the app ecosystem on mobile devices as well. It's been kind of locked down by the incumbent players and it's time for more choice. For people, for consumers, and for partners to be able to have other places to bring their games. Cool. Do you want to add to that Sarah or has he covered everything? Yeah, I I mean I think he laid it out very well and I just to add a little bit to that I think that you can see so much of what

we do is driven by the man at the top, right? Tim Sweeney is extremely principally driven and that same essence and spirit is coming into mobile and I think mobile's been really hungry for this for a few years and so we've been excited to talk to developers, share what our plans are, what's coming down the line and we're ready. Everyone else or most of mobile developers are really ready for it too and looking for that ability to grow their business and have choice and gamers have choice and give you a lot of freedom. So I think that's that's really what drives us. I mean, I think that yeah, there's definitely room for for innovation. We've kind of been in the mobile is a very innovative space and it and it did, you know, it's it's changed the way games are sold. It made them accessible to everyone. Whole free-to-play and the app stores are great. But yeah, for it feels like it's been kind of in stasis for a little while now and we and we need to shake up the status quo. I think you're worth

more than 12% but I'm glad that you've you've settled for that. Um so, talking of ways like one of the other kind of one of the trends app stores is also these direct-to-consumer web shops is a a big deal. That kind of enables the developer to have a direct relationship with a player and also to, you know, offer again bit of innovation, offer different models, offer different without having to go necessarily through the app store. So, maybe talking to talking from the from the publisher developer side first, what's your what's your take on these kind of D2C innovations? Uh well, that's that's something that uh has been on our mind for quite some time. Um the having a a publisher store um isn't as interesting uh for a premium game publisher as it should be for a free-to-play publisher. But uh as we put our fingers more and more into the free-to-try uh genre, it broadens our audience and

um it's something that can be interest- interesting to make the player that are happy with the game that we do see what other games we have. Also, um DLCs on mobile is not something that is working very well. Uh we have some issues in terms of discoverability uh for the player and that's a way to tackle that issue uh for us. So, that's something we are looking into but still nothing is done yet. Fair enough. And from a kind of from a from our two perspective is always Again, I know we'll come on to the premium stuff a little bit in the in the second and the there, but what about, you know, sort of that D2C kind of web shop stuff? Is Is that of interest for for you guys? You experiment with that? Uh I'll be honest, we aren't experimenting with that at the moment. And yeah, definitely because of the sort of premium nature of uh of our mobile games. Um but I think, you know, it's something we're really optimistic for. I think we see, you know, the huge potential for

uh that that freedom of choice for developers as as these um uh these spaces are emerging. And um you know, I think that that the huge value that's there with being able to connect directly with your players, be able to engage with your players, speak speak to your players, and that ability to kind of keep retaining them, which um you just don't have that option on the traditional app stores. Um so yeah, I think it's a really exciting uh uh I mean, there's there's there's a whole discussion about and this is the same for all distribution and maybe also the same for Epic too, really, of who who kind of owns the relationship with the player, right? And you know, you're making the game, but then you can't talk to them or engage with them. It's It's It's a kind of an odd dynamic. So, do do do from an Epic perspective, do do you have a an angle on on the kind of web shop side of things? Is that going to be like is there going to be something I don't know I don't know what you're going to say. Is that going to be featured? Is that going to be something we should look out for? Yeah, it's it's an awesome question. Um I think we have some guardrails on what we can and can't say

about web web shops today, uh at least, but you know, there's the old saying that necessity is the mother of uh the mother of invention, and I think that's, you know, particularly relevant to the web shop space. You know, developers want to have a connection with their um players directly. Um but the other piece of it, too, is the the margin, as well. I talked a little bit about that already, but you know, I think reportedly Apple and Google retain 75 to 80% uh of the their commission as margin. Um meanwhile, developers increase costs, increase marketing costs and stuff like that are keeping less and less and less. Web shops are a way for them to have transactions directly with customers and all that. It's we've essentially supported it in a not um, exact way on PC. If you bring a game to Epic Games Store on PC and you have IAPs and add-ons and things like that, you can run your own transaction systems in game, um, and keep 100% of the revenue.

Um, we have web shops available for Fortnite. I think that's no secret. And I think one of the ways to think about Epic Games Store is we're developer, too, and we want to build a store that we'd want to put our own games on. Um, so, you know, what we do with web shops in the future in terms of like formal announcements will be coming soon. I'm sure we'll have something to say about that. Very good. Is this Is there Is there a little bit of space to be creative with that? You can infer plenty from that. Yeah, we I I Yeah, and I think just to add a little bit to that, um, you can probably be making some fun guesses around what is coming down the line once we do enter the mobile space around all of the things that we wanted to do and tried to do. We want to facilitate on mobile. Um, so, I think that generally this feeling of choice, freedom to have optionality around how you're running your game and various pieces of that are going to be facilitated through our store.

So, so, just to to stay on the store for a second. I mean, we we talked about a few potential things. How would you you know, apart from the revenue share, which is is is obviously huge. Uh, you know, how what other ways would, you know, does is is the the Epic Store mobile app marketplace going to be different or differentiate itself that you can talk about? Yeah, I mean, fun fundamentally, we will be the first multi-platform storefront to be out there and I think that alone is a huge differentiator and something that is very much in alignment with a lot of developers strategy and priorities, right? Of to be able to distribute, become more agnostic, and reach as many players as possible. And so we really want to facilitate that from the store perspective as well. And listen, agnosticism is a layer that covers across everything we're doing at Epic, right? If you look at what we're doing with Unreal, you look at what we're doing with Fortnite.

And so this is something that carries through into our ethos as a store as well. And so I think there's a lot of room for creativity and experimentation as well of how are we working with developers to do cool offers, marketing, all of that great stuff with that multi-platform lens in mind. And talking about the talk from the speaker, this is a good segue into different questions. Like obviously plenty of you guys are already, you know, you're publishing on on different platforms. It's not just mobile, you've got PC kind of console games as well. And again, yeah, you're you've got a good portfolio of titles. Can how do you see the state of that of the development, I guess, right now in in in mobile versus PC console for for you guys? Where's your Where's your kind of focus? We're here on a on a stunt to be a mobile panel, but it's a it's show about everything. Well, I have to be totally honest. We are publishing games on console, but it's a very small fraction of our activity.

Most of it is publishing games on on mobile. We I think next year we have something like six mobile games coming. And it's going to be our busiest day in terms of PC console launch because we have three two of them. Yeah. It's as we are just discovering the the PC area we with three games whereas the mobile market is something that we know for for 10 years and we have tons of game coming and more and more coming. I I I just think it's an interesting thing. I remember like when mobile maybe the last couple of years mobile felt a bit of a pinch and the squeeze and and some of the bigger guys thought, "Hey, you know, mobile's kind of slowing down. Let's go to this really easy PC marketplace." Right? It's It's Steam looks easy. Let's do that. And and and I sense there's a bit of a recoil from that at the moment where they've realized Steam's quite hard in its own way. So, you know, you you guys how are you finding that early on? I'm not

asking you to sort of say good or bad things about other stores, but are you saying you're tentatively sort of finding your way in that space or are you just We We We find our way um but uh that's my personal opinion. I think that uh the space is going to be extremely crowded both on PC and mobile next year um because that's a a trend I've seen uh while while I was looking for uh PC game to publish uh and and also I'm not looking for mobile game, but I'm sure things are happening in the same way with the the large number of layoffs that has happened in the past couple of years. Um people have decided to gather and form a small studio and doing their game. Uh and last Gamescom had five time more uh meeting requests just to show me a game. So, I have I'm under the impression that

next year we next year and probably 2026 as well, we are going to see much much more game coming out of the blue from very small studio that are doing things. So, it's going to be very tricky to make yourself seen uh in the inside the that large number of games. Yeah, I mean it's interesting. I was this isn't in my questions, but I was thinking about this today. I mean one of the big smash hits that's come from a very small developer, a one-man band, is is of course Balatro, which is it was on Steam and it's now, you know, tearing up on mobile as well. It's it's it's it's doing very well. So, you mentioned the cross-platform thing. I don't know, my head's just kind of thinking around the opportunities there. I don't know, I think cross-platform could be an interesting an interesting one to look at. Um looking at looking at us two, obviously creative pioneers, I remember earlier SD days when it was Mills, who was was doing free-to-play games. Was Was there. And it was there, yeah. I remember success earlier. I remember what was it? The unicorn game or something or happy the whale. I can't remember what it was.

Whale Trail. Yeah, yeah, earlier. That was great. That's a blast from the past. You've you've done free-to-play, so but some It's true. Yeah. When you kind of thinking about the mobile landscape now and all these different stores and subscription models, you know, it it it does that the obviously you're working with around Monument Valley 2 with Netflix and there are other partners out there you've done work with Apple Arcade. I'm sure what stores are all looking to I'm sure there's a reason why you're sat on this stage. So, like do you see this as a a good time a good opportunity for you to work with different partners and and and bring different experiences with different partners or how do you see the kind of multi I guess store or you know, Yeah, yeah, I think uh you know, yeah, as you say we've been lucky enough to be able to work with some some of the big subscription partners. So, we've just released Monument Valley 2 with Netflix Games. We had another game on Netflix Games a few years ago as well, The Garden Between. We've had a

number of titles on Apple Arcade. So, we've yeah, we've definitely sort of seen the subscription space as a natural home or an evolution for where premium can can could could thrive at a time where sort of premium is becoming less popular or less the norm um and yeah I think you know as as with everything the subscription stores and the the content strategy for those is evolving you know certainly still premium games but there's definitely a push for more retention a push for more live ops which does sort of shift that model that that we're used to working in and we're having to sort of think of ways that that we adapt to that the kind of games that we're making and how we would satisfy those needs with those big subscription partners um and then with the sort of third-party stores yeah this is definitely something we've been keeping an eye on for a while and I think the thing that really

excites us about the emergence of these is that it's yeah of course uh a good a nice revenue share that we you know that is is optimistic for us but I think you know that aside it's it's about being able to access different audiences that we wouldn't have been able to reach through sort of the traditional app store methods and you know I think it's about being able to be kind of discoverability across these new new stores is going to be huge for us accessing the audiences that will come with with those stores are definitely players that we wouldn't have been able to hit on um uh you know the the traditional app stores you know I think for a small developer like us as well it comes with some you know things will some challenges which will be upkeep if there's you know different SKUs across different stores it'll be more um upkeep for us and that's something we'll we'll need to consider but yeah I think there's definitely an evolution of

of what premium looks like across these spaces so yeah we're we're kind of navigating that I'll come on to premium in just a second but I guess one question which you've sort of answered, but I'm I'm I'm I'm interested in and you you're probably not going to answer, but like is you know, as I say, talked to I talked about how us two initially done different things and you know, and do do you foresee a world in which you would look at different models, look at free-to-play? Or is that just an anathema where us, you know, where you guys are in terms of what you're trying to create? Yeah, I think um I mean, I definitely that we we wouldn't say no. Like this this it it is something that we have sort of ideated around and you know, try and fit like what is an us two games version of free-to-play look like? Um and you know, we haven't found an answer to that yet, but it doesn't it's not to say that we aren't thinking about ways that we can adapt our our current games, our current offering. For example, Monument Valley 3, we are looking into or we we we will be doing some sort of seasonal live ops

content. And it's I guess not a very traditional live ops, you know, sort of offering, but it's DLC type. Yeah, I think I mean, in a very us two games way, you know, kind of thinking about kind of these premium style play experiences. That's kind of how we're we're approaching that. And and that's that's totally new for us, so yeah. I think you know So effectively, what you're saying is Monument Valley free-to-play. That's what you're saying. You heard it here first. Almost, not quite. I don't think I said that. I didn't say that. I did. So there you go. No, no, it's fascinating. But I guess again, from both of you and in terms of the premium space, cuz I'd say where you are, um obviously, you know, we've been around mobile a long time. We've seen like the changes. The subscription businesses, you know, kind of look to be the kind of savior for for for premium. Maybe they will make there's challenges there as well. Do do you see that premium will retain a segment or will grow us further within that mobile space? Cuz

free-to-play has become so you know, it's so dominant, right? I remember we used to do these panels called like premium versus premium and this is I'm older so it probably it's probably now about 10 years ago, but but it was a real battle and you know, that's not a battle that people talk about anymore, right? So Well, you you you have to think of about about uh premium and free to play are completely two different things. Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. You uh what we are putting our fingers into is uh free to try. So you can try the game just like as a demo and then download the rest of the content for within the also within the game itself. Um yeah. But and we cannot do the full change towards a free to play because it involves completely different skills. Yeah. Uh and you're not putting your money in the same place because you need to in order for a free to play to be successful, you need to invest invest largely in user acquisition. Yeah. And we can't do that.

No, it's it's a difficult one. I I guess I guess I'm saying from the flip side though, are you you're obviously in the premium space. Are you guys both quite bullish that premium's going to retain a a segment of the market or can can grow? I mean, you know, it's not a lot of money to spend on games often, you know, it's like five or six quid premium games. So are you still feel confident that space is going to exist one way or another? Uh yes, definitely. I think players want that kind of experience that have have a start, have an ending and doesn't request you to put more money in it uh just to be in some kind of a top competitors of a of the game. Uh I I definitely think that the experience that player that have on on PC uh with premium games, uh that's something that can translate into the mobile market and more and more uh mhm PC developers were thinking that uh mobile gaming wasn't gaming. Yeah. And that's shifting. They are more and more understanding that no, that's just a

different audience of real gamers and they want real games, good games that you can play well, like an actual PC or console game. Okay, fair enough. So, you're still bullish on that. I I've got two more questions. I I ask Epic and then I'm going to give people a chance to ask a question before the final one. So, obviously, we're here on a panel and and talking about some We've got developers here. At the moment, the store is just kind of launching. You know, at some point, the mobile store is going to be open for more developers. Do you Do you Do you When When When's that going to be? Roughly. Yes, that's a great question. Um so, yes, third-party games are coming to the store, the mobile store, very soon. Um and we are actively working on We have a suite of release management tools, we call self-publishing tools, that are, you know, fully featured on PC and we're, you know, furiously working on getting those fully featured on mobile, uh which will allow us to really bring on the masses and come one, come all. Um so, that's soon, not as soon as

third-party games are coming to the store. Um but, you know, I think one of the things that we're striving to do is make it an easy place to bring games. So, if you've done If you've worked with the EGS on PC, it's the same tool set to do to use on mobile. Um and we really embrace the the one store, multi-platform, you know, Sal was talking about that before, um to make it easier for partners. And is Is it like It's going to be easy for any developer to to to bring their their game or will there be a selection process or I don't know how much you can say. I'm going to keep asking questions until we know. The plan is to have it open to all, like we do on PC. Um and it's just we have to get our work done. Okay, we're we're getting there. Joe, I've got I've got one more question to ask the club before to close. So, anybody would like to ask questions to kind of Epic or us two or Pladidus, very prominent companies. You scratch your head, that's not a question. There's a question over here. Hi. I So, this sounds fab and opening

this up as a as a mobile store you you mentioned there that people hadn't seen mobile gaming as real gaming in a mindset. But actually, globally, places like India, Southern Hemisphere, Africa, that's all they do. And so, I imagine that opening up this store is going to make that market that Southern Hemisphere market massive for you. What plans do you have to assist in the development cycles coming out of those places and diversify your creator pool from places like LATAM, Southern Asia, Africa, etc.? Good question. Was that for us? I'll take a first stab. Yeah, so, totally agree with what you're saying. And I think for us, that's all new territory. I mean, I mean, mobile in general is new territory for us. And we're really excited about those regions as well. So, that's definitely something we're going to be spending a lot of time on in really educating

ourselves on it and looking at what is the best way to be supporting those other regions. And that I think that I agree I think it's a huge opportunity. Okay. Cool. We got any other question before we go into There's another Oh, there are questions now. All right, go for it. So, thank you for the insightful chat. As you mentioned, uh the store the mobile store is going to be open for third-party developers soon. And are there any like technical limitations in terms of what kind of engines we could use to uh get access to the store and get published there? Yeah, so, um myself, Sarah, Shawn McGinnis here in the front, um are all here from the store team. Um we're here to talk to people like you um to tell you more about what's coming with the store. Um, so that would be the first thing to do. We're here. Uh, we're going to be at shows all year, um, to to help people get on the store. Um, the You say technical limitations, um,

we have an SDK for Epic Online Services. Uh, pretty straightforward. We're reducing the requirements on mobile. No cross-play required. No achievements. So you're really just integrating with our e-commerce back end for your IAPs, um, should you choose to do that. Uh, and then authenticating through uh, an Epic ID. Uh, and it's a fairly light integration. Uh, our partners could probably speak to that experience more specifically, but um, we haven't seen a ton of hiccups with that yet. Okay. And there's no limitations in terms of your tech and what you're using. So there uh, maybe is an assumption that you have to be using Unreal. Not at all. You can be using Unity. You can be using proprietary tech, um, just like you do on EGS PC. We have lots of Unity driven games over there. We have a great relationship with Unity. Um, so we're very supportive of whatever tech you're using can um, work with what our SDK is. And I just want to add to that that my

experience with, you know, the support I got from Walter and his team with the PC stuff was amazing and better than any other store that I've worked with. So I I just wanted to Are there any other stores in the uh, in And I'm happy to challenge anyone on that. Uh, do you have time for that final question? Let's go for that one last question. Was it Was it the front here? No, where Oh, yeah. You're You're nearest. Keep it be a short one cuz Sure, I'll keep it quick. Uh, it's just for Epic Games Store. I was just curious if you guys had a take on how you're going to like break the like network effect advantage of the incumbents. Like obviously everyone agrees the 88/12 split is amazing. It's really good that you guys are doing that, but you know, Steam continues to grow, makes, you know, new new records and um, you know, people are going to go where the users are and that's the problem with Apple and Google. I was just wondering if you guys had a take on that. Tough question, good question. It's It's actually I you know, catch me off mic and I probably have a lot more to say about it. Yeah, I mean obviously scale is is critical and

you know, I think it's no secret there's artificial limitations to how much alternative stores can scale right now due to install processes that have been enforced by the platform holders and stuff like that. So, we're going to need some help from regulators around the world to sort of streamline that stuff. But we do know that people are looking for choice. We obviously are bringing our own games to Epic Games Store. They're there already on mobile, but we don't win without partners either and it's been the same thing on PC. So, third-party partners along with Epic, we can try and make that change, but we're going to have to build the scale and that's something we're excited about for the next few years to see that grow. Cool. And you know, we've done a lot on PC already for the last 6 years. So, you reference Steam and while our numbers pale in comparison to Steam, we are a very healthy ecosystem that's become an important part of a lot of developers

distribution path and growth path frankly. So, I think the beauty with mobile is that it's such an enormous scale that even if you are you know, fragmenting the market, you can still build a really robust ecosystem of gamers that will be meaningful. I suspect that it'll be the point where we get to that agnostic platform, that's when that network effect can change completely. But on that note, Chris, you want to just sum up? just going to say can we have a big round of applause please for my incredible panel? THANK YOU EVERYONE. MHM.