Game Awards 2025: Major Releases Missing From the Nominee List

Yeah. All right. Here we go. It is game awards season. So, let's talk about the game awards. It's happening in LA on December 11th. So, I wanted to just check in on the game of the year and then the mobile game of the year and get everyone's take. So, here are the nominations. Claire Obscure, Expedition 33, Death Stranding 2, Crest's Favorite, Donkey Kong Bonanza, or maybe this is Laura's favorite. That's from the Switch, Hades 2, Hollow Knight, Silkong, and Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2. We were going to do this last week when Adam was on. So I pulled up this slide which is copy sold on Steam and console from Alenia just showing that you know these are not like World on Fire copies sold except for Hil Silkong. I think Hollow Knight does you know really really well when that thing came out. I remember it was it was huge. And just the other thing to note is that the cuto off is I

think November 21st for the eligibility inclusion. So you're not going to get a lot of the shooter madness that happens after that. Although technically Call of Duty Black Ops 7, you know, would have been because I think it launched on November 17th or something like like that. So Mishka, it looks like they're missing a lot of the big names. What did you see when you looked at the list?
Uh yeah, Battlefield 6, Arc Raiders, Escape from Duck, Duck Duck,
Duck Off, Duck Off,
Duck Off. My favorite from Ubisoft, Ano Rome just came out. That was [ __ ] amazing.
Get the [ __ ] out of here with ano [ __ ] dude. No shutins in Germany. No one gives a [ __ ] about
deserves all the credits for this amazing simulator. The Sim City with Ro.
Why do you keep bringing up Ano, dude? Ano? It's [laughter] like the dirtiest
because I love all strategy games. And also
have no friends
and [laughter] no life.
Ubisoft deserves W's. Ano is one. Anyways, Ghost of to Cotay, Split Fiction, Dispatch. There's a lot of

games that that weren't here, especially Battlefield 6 and Arc Raiders. Like those should be here, right?
Yeah. I I think they just came so late in the voting system and that what was, you know, I mean, it gets worse. So, well, I guess most anticipating game is not worse. So, let's take a look at these really quick. 007 First Light, the James Bond game, Grand Theft Auto. I mean, come on. No [ __ ] That's like stupid. Marvel's Wolverine, Resident Evil, Reququum, and the next Witcher, Witcher 4.
The Wolverine game is really exciting. I can't wait to see what that is, but obviously Grand Theft Auto is the one that everyone's cares about.
The Wolverine game did look good. Like I think I've seen some takes of him fighting and it's like kind of old school. It reminds me of old school the Brawlers. It looks really cool.
[ __ ] that.
Rest in peace, my sweet child.
All right. most nominated Death Stranding 2 and Claire Obscure. I mean, that one expedition 33 is all over the place. And then in the indie dominance

in all throughout all of the categories, Hollow Knight, Hades 2, you know, is just really everywhere.
I have no issues with the indies this year. I think the indies really did take the world by storm and they deserve all the credit they get. The Death Stranding 2 is the one that bothers me all the time. No one gives a [ __ ] about that game except like super hardcore Kjima fans. And I'm like I know why it gets nominated so much, but it's just it's just noise like in the space in my opinion.
It's always like a Kajjima fest every time I turn this
this award show on. It it's like they're the biggest fanboys, you know. So, actually, I wanted to talk about who actually nominates these things. Um, the game awards are chosen by an international jury of over 100 global media and influencer outlets selected for their history of critical video game evaluation. I would like to interview these hundred people and ask them are they actually talking about what's going on in the real world?
I think the only thing that missing should have been Battlefield 6 and Arc Raiders in particular, right? should

have been but on they should have definitely been on this list versus Donkey Kong and Death Stranding I think were the ones I would take off but the rest made sense but given the success of both games it seems like these are the ones that are really going to have actually meaningful impact on the the game space
that makes sense and so best mobile game oh my god this is just awful Destiny Rising
Sonic Rumble Persona 5 the Usamame, Pretty Derby, the horse horse girl one, and Wthering Waves. Um, Crest, just please [ __ ] on this for me.
Actually, this list is not that bad this year. [laughter] I mean, it's far better than last year. Last year was stupid, right? I think Destiny Rising has no business being on this list. I mean, unless it's a list of the most failed games in the in of the year, it should not be on this list at all. I mean, it's a beautiful game. It's really well done, but it was such a big failure financially that just an

unmititigated disaster. They should have Kingshot on this list. I mean, Kingshot's been like absolute monster, right? Sonic Rumble, I I can have, but Persona 5, Uma, whatever the [ __ ] that game is, Withering Waves, all of them were relatively successful games and they were, you know, beautiful. So, I I'm not I'm not hating it. I'm not hating it at all.
All right. How about you hate it, Mishka?
Yeah. I to me this makes very little sense. It feels like the nominees for the mobile game of the year awards went to some pub in in pub I don't know in a bar in Tokyo or Beijing and just threw darts because here's the thing there's only five games like they couldn't come for the sixth. Anyways um one game has failed badly and that's Destiny. One game is still in test marketing which is actually Sonic Rumble. There's three titles that almost entirely monetized from East Asia and all five games have been made either in China or Japan

non-meaning represent western mobile m gaming markets or has any success in the western mobile markets. So just like breaking it down like Destiny Rising, I mean, yes, Crest said it all. It's downloads didn't materialize, revenue collapsed immediately. Live ops evaporated and I don't know the the criteria could be like the most expensive, most cinematic because definitely it's not best performing. Then you got Sonic Rumble, which is still in soft launch. So we're now like nominating test marketing builds. Like what's next? Like the pre-production art bible gets nominated. Dude, you're funny today. I love it. [laughter]
Actually, I got corrected on the Sonic Rumble thing because I posted this on LinkedIn today. And um turns out that game has been launched globally. It's made $300,000 with 3.3 million downloads. So, it's not in soft launch. It looked based on KPS. [laughter] It's actually just dead on arrival. So, that's better. We got Uma

Uma Musumu Muma like whatever. It launched in 2021. It peaked in Japan. 90% of the revenues lifetime come from Japan and it has been actually declining for years. It is an amazing game. Huge cultural moment in 2021. But I don't know why they're nominated today. Like somebody discovered Horse Girls and they're like, "Yes, let's put this one on the list." Withering Waves again. Beautiful game. Saw it launch. 80% of revenue coming in from China, Japan, Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong. like big in Asia, which is great. It's Asia with subtitles. It qualifies. You got Persona 5, never heard about this again, 85% Asian revenue. So, all I want to say is there are a ton of games that are missing like Kingshot, like Royal Kingdom, and you know, they why didn't they put Clash Royale? Because they put the the Horse Girl game that that made a huge
that game ages ago. This is supposed to be year was 2021.
Yeah, not in the West. They relaunched it in the west. I think that's that's

what but I I hear your point on it was already out. Is that really the right way to look at that category?
Yeah, exactly. Then we had Disney solitire that was I think really solid game as well. How we brought the Disney IP to mobile.
These are actually market shaping games across revenue, across downloads, across creative innovation, across geographies and across all audiences. And they're not just games that are aimed exclusively for Asian markets where Western developers are simply not welcome. We can't go out and launch a game in in Japan. I mean, we can't. It won't do anything. We can't do it in Korea either. And we're banned from doing it in China. Just give them your source code and shut the [ __ ] up. That's the model.
Okay. But okay, let's just be clear here though. The biggest fundamental problem is there weren't that many big releases this year. That's the problem, right? In the West, right? So, I think you're right. Kingshot, Archer 2, Disney Solitaire are the top three that I could see. DC Dark Legion as well.
When did Pokemon launch? Pokemon TCG.
I think it it won something last year, I

think, if I'm not mistaken. But um anyway, the point is it's like it's been a really tough year for
they just shouldn't do mobile because mobile is mostly free to play and it's really hard to give these awards to a free-to-play game because essentially the game kind of like launches and just grows from there. It's rare that we get a game that is big out of out of the gate. So
now moving from one east to a another east [laughter]
just do a middle east. Let's let's meet in the middle.
Yeah.
All right. So there's an article I forgot what this oh popper pocket gamer but I think it came from New York Times, right? um about the fact that Prince Muhammad bin Saman has pledged a trillion dollars investment in the US but however there the the PIP is facing some liquidity challenges because of these enormous projects that they've been funding over the years particularly this the city neol which is ridiculous right by the way
oh yeah that's a failure right
yeah so anyway so they have these budget deficits internally as a country but also like they have all these huge

investments that they need to keep keep going, right? And so there's a notion that they really only have like $60 billion left in the trillion dollar fund that they have. So perhaps now with that kind of information that maybe that makes sense why they put debt in on this deal with EA rather than paying cash because 20 billion out of the 60 billion would be a significant amount of of their cash reserves that they have right now. They talk about this article and this was my experience when I lived in Saudi was that they have these resorts that they built up that they spent I can't even imagine how much money they spent in the in where I lived in Jedha that sit completely idle and no one's actually using so totally unprofitable but maintenance on those type of things is tremendous and then then obviously this huge city that they're planning on building which just seems absurd um is the other project that they have to continue to fund so there is some risk here um from the perspect risk and opportunity from the perspective of EA from my perspective anyway is that the risk is that if they need the funds then

they may have to sell assets right if they need to fund some of these other projects it's possible that they have to sell I don't think that will happen I think what's more likely is they'll be more pushed to try to you know bring this thing back public in the next two to three years to actually cash out and show some returns on these investments that they are making that actually could be good for the space but having said all that I still think, you know, they are pumping oil out [laughter] and and they have like an endless supply of cash, right? So, while they seem overextended at this point and the New York Times really wants to make point of that, I still think that they likely will be fine.
Yeah. In Saudi Arabia, the revenue comes from the ground. It's all good. [laughter]
Whenever you say they have unlimited cash, like the economist, the economist in me just dies a little bit inside. No, no, no. We have unlimited needs and wants and limited means to fulfill them. Eric, this is the counter thesis to the thing you keep saying. They clearly don't have unlimited cash. That's the whole reason behind this, right? They

have to ration what they have. This is the whole point of the 2030 vision.
Again, like this is the New York Times, right? This is not like a unbiased source. I don't want to get political on this. I know
reasonably certainly that these guys have almost unlimited funds.
I don't think they're suffering. I I don't think they're suffering. I think that's fair to say. But here's here's what I don't understand, Eric, is they've made all these investments. Scopely has been purchased. EA, I haven't seen any of the talent being brought back to Saudi. Like, I don't see anyone opening Saudi studios. If you remember, there was, what was it? It was Sandsoft, one of the studios that did get spun up there that recently shut down because of basically one finick key investor. And like, we know how economic growth happens and all these hubs around the world. Like, DICE is what grew the Swedish games industry. We could talk about Texas where a lot of the original first person shooters came from. Like we can go through the list of things and I just don't understand what their strategy is to actually grow homegrown talent. They don't have the education ecosystem. Where are the pieces to

fulfill this vision? It just feels like they're buying random financial assets.
I've made the same argument. I totally agree. There's no evidence whatsoever besides Brian Ward talking out of his ass about making investments in [ __ ] Riad where no one in the world wants to live, right? Like I'm I'm with you on this. I'm with you. There's no indication whatsoever that they're building up infrastructure that's outside of oil, right? They're using their oil wealth to buy assets. Period. End of sentence. Right. All that other stuff is lip lipstick on a pig. Dude, I'm with you. I'm totally with you on this.
I think you're talking about two different topics. Yes, Phil, you're absolutely correct that there is the investments that are going in into building a local ecosystem, but Savvy is not part of that. Savvy is in the end a private equity vehicle.
Yeah.
Right. I think what Philip's point is is that it shouldn't be it should be.
Yeah, but there are other vehicles there that are doing Phil what you're saying.
You're going to tell me you're going to buy two of the biggest financial gaming assets ever and you're not going to use any of it to grow homegrow vision 2030.

I mean that's asinine. I mean it's pretty obvious that one of the easy plays here say Scopely. You're setting up a support studio for Pokémon Go and for Monopoly Go in Saudi.
But that's a bad business decision.
This is what we call investment. You have to start the ecosystem somewhere. And now you start put money in colleges. You need those acclamation effects.
I I think you're talking two different things. On one hand, you're criticizing them of of poorly using their funds and you know this and that and then you're criticizing the investment because it's not like a strategic type of investment that builds the ecosystem. I think those are two different things. What's going to happen here is is they're going to acquire at least one more gem into that gemstone of five top companies. Like they do have now EA as the big gemstone. They got the Scopi as a huge gemstone. They got Niantic. I think it's missing one or two. They like League of Legends. I think Riot is going to be one of the gemstones and I think it's going to be put back into the market once they have completed the gauntlet and that's going to be a nice little exit for them.

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