Fortis closes, Rovio cuts, Google Play Store woes, PIF x Unity(?), EU proposals slammed, more

Hello and welcome to the mobile gamer.biz digest. I'm Neil Long and every week I go for a walk and tell you what's happening in the mobile games business. Here we go. The one that's caused most debate this week, judging by website traffic and LinkedIn commentary is the closure of Fortis Games. This one was kind of confirmed all across LinkedIn on Tuesday when loads of staff posted about the studios closure. Lots of them said over 400 people would now be looking for work. We were the first to post about this and of course asked Foris for comment. A few hours later we did get a comment from co-founder Steve Chang and he essentially confirmed that it would be closing. Some of the messages on LinkedIn suggested that Las Vegas Sands Corp. The parent company of Fortis Games essentially just chose to pull the plug

on it, terminating all of the contracts and staff worldwide with immediate effects. This was a studio that launched with some fanfare in 2022, co-founded with Steven Chiang, Shan Faust, and Calvin Laauo, who between them have lots of experience at places like EA, Zingga, Machone, Twitch, and more. Fortis acquired three studios in 2022 as part of its coming out party. Portugal's Doppio games, Brazil's Octagon Games, and Romania's Metagame. But as we note in this article, in the four years that followed, it did not launch a game globally. It did soft launch Twilight Towers in September 2025, but earlier this month, Fortis announced that game would be closing. There's a couple of other games listed on its website, Mergemon Wilds and Bloom and Breakfast. They, according to App Magic, generated

a few downloads that looked like early user testing. There's another title on its account called Havoc Crew, which also did not make it out into the market. So, lots of reaction to this one. And as a side narrative, this is another large casino or gambling company that wanted to expand into mobile games and has since retreated. So yes, Fortis Games closing over 400 staff likely affected. Robio has cut 20 staff at its Turkish studio, Ruby Games. The Angry Birds maker confirmed the staff cuts to us on Wednesday afternoon. There's a load of LinkedIn posts out there if you want to find them. But the statement provided to us confirms that the Ismir Turkeybased Ruby Games will be losing 20 staff but will still be running with a reduced team to continue

to run games like Hunter Assassin, Beauty Care, and My Tidy Life. Roio said the move is due to challenging market conditions and a tighter focus on the Angry Birds franchise. The decision was not made lightly, said Roio and all of the employees impacted are offered outplacement support to help them with the transition. So 20 jobs going at Roioowned Ruby Games, the maker of various hybrid casual hits. And that follows on from the closure of Roio Copenhagen this summer. 36 staff leaving in October 2025 and a general refocusing of the business after its acquisition by Sega. Google's Play Store is as ever swamped with clones. in particular this game Fart Together which was a bit of a hit during Steam Nextfest. The developers

behind the game took to LinkedIn a couple of weeks after the game was revealed to say that 15 maybe even more lookalike listings have gone live on Google Play. The Steam game itself is not even available yet. It was just a demo. The co-founder and CEO of Fart Together developer Gamesmarked Embra Isle said, "I think we may have broken a record for the most clones in the shortest time for a game that hasn't even launched yet." He continued, "Whenever we publish a game on Android or iOS, we go through multiple rounds of revisions. How do these clones get approved so easily?" Which is a question that we all have. I think this one did strike a nerve. Maybe because cloning is getting worse and worse. Maybe because this game is called Fart Together. But if you want to read more, the headline is Google's Play Store is already

hosting multiple clones of unreleased Steam game Fart Together. At the end of last week, Reuters sources suggested that Saudi Arabia's public investment fund could swoop for unity. This follows on from Piff and Silverlakes acquisition of EA for the cut down price of $55 billion and also follows on from some speculation from industry analyst Just Vanrunan that UT could get snapped up by Google in the next year to two years. So, Unity perhaps putting out some feelers with the view of getting acquired if these apparent leaks are to be taken as a whole. The potential deal could be worth up to $25 billion. Although that price was quoted before Unity's last round of financials in which it made a profit for

the first time, that was mostly down to its adtech vector platform. So yes, we shall see what happens here. But Saudi Arabia getting in on not just game publishers and developers, but also apparently game engine and adtech, too. Let's try and summarize all of this EU regulation stuff, shall we? So, first of all, the EU's digital fairness act leaked and then was confirmed. This is a series of proposals that could, if adopted, stop games from selling loot boxes and pay to- win mechanics to miners across Europe. It also proposes the prohibition of paid for virtual currencies, pay to progress mechanics, and other features that quote encourage compulsive or excessive use for players under 18 unless a parent approves. These measures have been roundly criticized by anyone with any understanding of the mobile game business or indeed the games

business in general. Video Games Europe and the European Game Developers Federation were first out of the traps with their criticism of these proposals. They said they are unworkable, unjustified, and disproportionate. They also said it would be game over for the European games industry and various other industry figures and trade bodies have come out to criticize these proposals as well. I would imagine these proposals will get severely watered down or maybe not even make it through to become law, but we shall see. The EU Digital Fairness Act, not a huge success by all accounts. There's two stories on the site this week about this, but the second I think is the more interesting. The headline, unworkable, unjustified, and disproportionate trade bodies slammed the EU's digital fairness act. It is financial season. So, let's start

with one of the biggest of them all. Take two. Mobile bookings fell at the Zingga owner by 13% yearonear with another decline forecast for Q3. In the earlings call, take 2 boss Strauss Zelnik obviously answered a lot of questions about GTA, but he did also address other parts of the business saying mobile performed in line with our expectations. Net bookings for Color Block Jam decreased double digits compared to its peak performance during last year's second quarter. That seems to be the title mostly to blame for this year decline. Toon Blast was up 4%, Words with Friends up 6%. But yeah, Take 2 does expect mobile to decline again in Q3 and across the full year, which CFO Laney Goldstein put down to last year's success of Color Block Jam and our assumption that trends will moderate for several of Zinga's mature mobile titles.

Um, mobile as a proportion of Take 2's business is also down to under 50% where previously it was over half compared to console and PC combined. Sonic wouldn't say how much it take 2's mobile bookings come through its direct to consumer channels but he did say in general direct to consumer is significant and it is growing and it obviously has a very meaningful margin and bottom line impact. Advertising revenue fell 9% yearon year. You would assume this is also down to color block jams decline. There's a load more stats, figures and quotes from the take two execs in the story. The headline, if you want to take a look, is take two mobile bookings fall 13% with another decline forecast for Q3.
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closed it down. There have been layoffs and a retraction and retreat from mobile since then. But it does have some mobile hits in Japan. But yeah, we will not be seeing Ratchet and Clank on mobile anytime soon as that game has been closed. As teased last week, Anorak, the generative interactive video startup led by former Hutch boss Sha Rutland, has raised $5 million from Supercell, Play Ventures, backed VC, MTG, and angel investors, including Zingga co-founder Justin Walrren. This studio has staff in China and across Europe, and now they have 5 million in funding. Let's see what they can do in generative interactive video. Playa is no longer for sale. It launched a strategic review some time ago. There

was a rumor several months ago now that it would be selling off Superplay, the maker of Dice Dreams, Domino Dreams, and Disney Solitaire to 10 cent. But that doesn't seem to have materialized. Its revenue was flat year on year. $ 673.8 million in the 3 months to September 30th down 7.8% 8% on Q2 adjusted a bit hit a record $252.1 million up 16% yearonear this was because play ticker stepped down its marketing spend particularly on Disney Solitaire as it discussed in its previous earnings call DTC revenue grew 31% to $275.1 million or 41% of its total revenue but its audience is shrinking King daily active users down 13% monthly active users dropped from 26.4 million to 21.5

million Disney Solitaire made $ 111.2 $2 million in the quarter, up 88% yearonear, down 22% sequentially. Lots of other stats and facts and figures in that article. If you want to take a look, the headline is Playa calls off sale search as Q3 revenue holds flat at $674 million. Apploving posted record revenues in its Q3, $2.2 $2 billion, up 55% yearonear. Another set of crazy financials for this company, adjusted EIDA, was up 59% to 1.8 billion, an 84% profit margin. Speaking on the company's earnings call, CEO Adam Farugi said Apploven's gaming business grew nearly 50% year-over-year, reacelerating right alongside the roll out of a new

generation of ad models. And he says that's just the beginning for this new set of models. They've only partially been deployed so far. It's also involved in some fun legal action with Unity and its lawyers in general are quite busy. But if you want to look at the raw financials, the story on the site is headlined apploving post record revenue of 2.2 billion in Q3, up 55%. LEGO Digital Play has acquired Fourth Star. This is the Manchester UK based studio set up by Paul Guj and Alex Riby, the guys who set up Play Demick. FourstStar will now add around 30 people to the LEGO Digital Play team, which currently has about 100 staff, mostly in London and Denmark. Guj is now LEGO Digital Plays head of games, and Riby will be staying on to lead Fourth Start from Manchester. The terms of the deal were not disclosed.

So, this obviously follows LEGO Digital Plays acquisition of the team behind Chrome Valley Customs, Off-Road Games. So, LEGO building a really, really good team full of UK mobile game talent. Interested to see where this goes next and hopefully we will have more on this for you soon. Embracer Group reported their financials. It is a complicated company, but as ever, we aim to serve. So we have pulled out the mobile relevant parts of its financials and in short it said sled surfers was the main driver of a 42% year-on-year rise in mobile net sales in the last quarter and that pushed net sales to around 76.5 million in the last 3 months. The Swedish rollup firm also said it has improved profitability in its mobile arm

due to successful balance scaling of user acquisition costs. Alongside Sled surfers, it also name checked Glow Fashion Idol as a durable performer with strong potential. Its subsidiary Deca Games also acquired Island Hoppers from Gdev owned Nexters during the quarter. That deal is worth about $4.5 million up front with a half a million earnout. Deca will continue to look for add-on acquisitions. It said full numbers in the article. Have a look. MTG, the owner of Rage, Shadow Legends, and many other midcore games, Forge of Empires, Warhammer, Tacticus, and more, posted flat revenues in Q3. D2C is 42% of its sales. Entity did say that Google's new rules on alternative billing has reduced some of the cost advantages of DTOC. For players in the

US though, Rage Shadow Legends grew 1%. But there were declines for Forge of Empires 13% down. Warhammer 40,000, Tacticus down 10%. It also confirmed that its casual gaming arm which is mostly players in India that is called Play Simple. The IPO for that part of its business has also been postponed. Balloons Blitz and Star Trek Warp are both entering soft launch. It said elsewhere in the call, but yes, check out the story in the site for more facts and figures about MTG. Quick one about my games. This company's sole shareholder Alexander Chachava has been bought out by the management team led by CEO Elena Gregorian and COO Dennis Sevuta. The MBO was backed by Georgie Nuris Slamoff, a United Arab Emirates-based private investor. The

financial terms of the deal were not disclosed and this is expected to be final by the end of the year. In data digest this week, learnings tops Q3 ad revenue charts from Sensor Tower. It is way ahead of the competition there. Second and third being Voodoo and Easy Brain. China's government has reportedly cleared Savvy Games Group's $6 billion Moonton acquisition. Honor of Kings has dominated a list of the top grossing games from each of the last 10 years according to App Magic. Craft and mobile revenue is up a little bit. Digimon Alishion that has passed 200,000 pre-registrations in the short time that game has been open for pre-rege. Fun graphs and other bits and bobs in data digest every Wednesday. In soft launch, we added a new game from Century, a cooking themed merge game

called Sizzleton. There's also a new Moon Active game, which looks like their take on Pixel Flow, as well as the usual contenders from the likes of EA, Zingga, Supercell, Playicks, and many, many more. Soft launch every other Monday. In the latest new games digest, we got Hongkey Nexus Anima, the next game from Hoyverse, Warner Brothers Allstar Mayhem, Kabam's new game that appears to be a squad RPG with a load of Warner characters. Crossy Road Rush is now out on Apple Arcade. Red Dead Redemption has been removed from Netflix. Vampirio is the makers of Talking Tom Outfit 7, their attempt at Midcore. There's another mention for Silver Palace, which looks like a Genchin Impact contender, and a load more indie games and other bits and bobs in that article. And that's it for this week. Thanks for listening. Bye-bye.