Games industry trends 2025 review | Week in Mobile Games podcast

Hello and welcome to the pocket gamerbiz podcast week in mobile games where we discuss the week's news and provide some insights. We're going to do a bit different this week though. We're going to we're going to discuss the year's trends. I'm Craig Chapel, head of content at pocketing.biz. With me as ever, our news editor, Aaron Assel. Aaron, how you doing?
Um,
excited for the rest of periods.
I am. I'm um getting into the spirit a bit now. The eagle-eyed viewers will see the the lovely decorations behind me, including the kind of flickering tree, which you can't really see at the minute, but it is behind me. I still haven't actually put up my proper tree yet, just to break the immersion. Everything Christmy is within frame.
You're running You're running late, Aaron. It's too late to put up the tree. Surely,
I've been um I've been very good, actually. I think I'm totally sorted on Christmas presents now. I've still got

wrapping to do, but I've bought everything that I need to get, but I've been so preoccupied on getting organized there that I haven't, you know, done all the decorations yet. But, you know, hopefully get a solid like 10 days out of the tree up.
Solid 10 days. Story for everyone. I have a real Christmas tree this year, but I had vowed never to do this ever again because two or three years ago, I had my first ever real Christmas tree in the house. I've always had a fake one or or none. And uh it was lovely. It was fire and put all the decorations on it. Best time. And then one day I'm laying down on the sofa and we noticed like this is horror. This is an absolute horror by the way. We noticed that there was like a couple bugs on the floor. They're like squirming under the tree. I was like, "What is that?" I didn't really know. So, I cleared them up and then it kind of happened again. And I was like, "This isn't right. Something's wrong here." On the tree, I didn't know

what they were at the time. On the tree were growing these just so many bugs. It was awful. I think they're called I don't know how to pronounce it apids or aphids. And so, they live on a tree and they live off the sap. So if they go off the tree, they die. But they were living off this tree that we had put in some water as well, this Christmas tree. It was the most horrifying thing I think I've ever witnessed in my life. And then I had to deal with it. So
I didn't really know how to deal with that. So what I did was I uh I took off I took off all the decorations, which is awful in itself. And I picked up this Christmas tree. I'd layered up with like a coat and gloves. I was very dramatic. And I walked outside. I felt like I was in the film Alien right at the end where Sigourney Weaver is like singing like a nursery ride to herself because she's so scared. I felt like that even though these bugs going to do absolutely nothing to me. And I picked it up and my garden is quite long and so I just put it at the end of the garden and left it there for like a month cuz I was like

I'm making sure that they're dead before I go anywhere near this tree and deal with it. But uh that was awful. So and then this year my friend was just like I was just like I'm never going to do it again. I was about to put up the fake one and then my friend was like, "Oh, my dad has some trees. Do you want one?" And very quickly, for some reason, I was like, "Yeah, all right."
So far so good. But I keep looking at it. Awful.
Yeah. Sounds
right. Before we really kick off, as ever, we got Pocket Gamer Connects coming back. Pocket Gamer Connects London, which is the big one, January 19th to 20th. We'll have an app business summit as well on the 19th and a Trans Media Summit on the 20th, which will also happen to be two industry trends that we might go into. And it's going to be it's going to be a fantastic show. Great. It'll be about 3,000 people or so in town. That's the aim. And it's the perfect place to network with other people in the mobile games industry and learn about the biggest trends. Kind of really kick off the year, right? So without further ado, firstly I'm going to kick off with some stats and New ZeU has as happily today. Would you believe they have released their recap and the

industry according to New Zu the games the global games market is expected to reach 197 billion in 2025. That's a plus 7.5% year-on-year growth. Then mobile is expected to generate $ 108 billion which is 7.7% year-on-year growth. Console $45 billion 4.2% year-on-year growth. PC 43 billion which is up 10.4%. 4% quite a lot. Interestingly, that doesn't include mobile ad revenue. That is consumer spending. That is like a very significant portion of revenue to leave out. So, I think when you see
the global games market is worth this, it's actually worth a lot more. So, those are some really cool stats there. And then from AppMagic, I took a very quick look at the top games, top grossing games, most downloaded games, and the top publishers of the year. So, I guess I'll go through the top five grossing games. Number one, Honor and Kings from Tencent. Number two, Last War Survival from First Fun/Funfly,

whatever they're called now. Number three, Roblox from Roblox Corporation. Number four, White Out Survival from Century Games. Number five, Royal Match from Dream Games. And just as a quick breakdown of the top 10, four of the top publishers were from China, two from the US, and the rest Turkey, Sweden, Japan, and Israel. Of the top 10 most downloaded, they all had over 100 million downloads. Number one was Blockbust by Hungry Studio. Second was Roblox. Third was Freefire by Garina. Fourth was Subway Surface from Mini Clip. Five was Pizza Ready by Super. Top grossing publishers, Top Five, Tencent, 10 Century Games, Scope, Dream Games, and Funfly. There's a lot of Chinese companies in there, but it's quite a bit of a mix. Top download publishers, Azure Games, Mini Clip, Baby Bus, Voodoo, Say Games, which is quite a mix. Yeah, I thought that was all very interesting. I think the one that you can see which you'll go into in a second Aaron is how China in particular is doing very well for their top publishers and then you can see Turkey kind of in there, Israel

and Europe European studios doing pretty well. I think there was there was a surprising lack of at least headquartered companies in the US. Obviously you have your Roblox and your scope less but elsewhere it's kind of dominated really I think by others. So Aaron, you've got a big look at the new games of the year. What have you got?
Yeah, so um sort of similar um way to what you were saying with the kind of biggest games overall. Um yeah, very like Asia dominant. Um which similar to last year as well um I took a look at the biggest games of 2024 and um all the top 10 were from Asia. A bit more variety this year. Um but to go through select the winners. Uh so Century Games Kingshot was the biggest new mobile game this year um at almost 600 million. Team Jade's Delta Force came second at about 432 million. And Namco's

SD Gundam Generation Eternal was third at 300 million. So those top three are all from Asia, China, and Japan. Abby as well. that they ranked fourth with Archer 2 which made just over 175 million. And then we bent the rules slightly um and said that fifth place is Rolick's color block jam at 148.2 million. Technically this one did release in 2024 but at Magic estimates um suggest it only made about a quarter of a million last year and then this this year it's made you know nearly 150 million. So, it felt kind of like it, you know, it deserved to be here. It's really become um its own massive thing in 2025. And yes, those are the kind the top five. I guess looking at some of the broader trends across these new games. So, overall, the top 10 made less collective

revenue um than in 2024. So, it's 27% down. Top 10 made 2.2 billion versus last year's top 10 making 3 billion. Um, but at the same time, this year's list was a lot of closer the revenue that they achieve. Whereas last year was kind of carried by some heavy hitters like Dungeon and Fighter in China, Pokémon TCG Pocket, Love and Deep Space. Um, games like those kind of carried the list. Um, Dungeon and Fighter made over a billion within half a year. Basically, Pokemon Pocket skyrocketed up the charts. That didn't come out until the 30th of October. Whereas yeah like this year so the top five all released in H1. Uh so obviously they had more time to acrue revenue over the course of this year and yeah overall like across the top 10 they all kind of ranked closer all of them made at least 100 million. So I think there's an argument to be made that even though yeah those top 10

collectively made 27% less you could say that the result still kind of reflects a healthier industry in the kind of distribution of that revenue and say like the top 10 all made at least 100 million um and two of them were from outside of Asia um that being Disney solitaire and um color block jam whereas last list. All the top 10 were from Asia. Um, the highest game outside of Asia was 12. Um, and as I say, there were a few games that made, you know, crazy sums of money. Um, 100 million is still a crazy sum. You know, by mobile standards then, you know, the billion dollar games, there were some real like phenomenal successes in 2024. Yeah. whereas this year has been a little bit more fairly distributed I would say.
So I'm just trying to look at I was going to look at the the top games from last year

uh to see which ones are still around in the top 10. So did did they stick around to be like grow and be in the top 10 grossing this which is quite a tall order to be fair and out of those trading card game was one of the year's top grossing games. Azra fighter was not
interestingly. I mean, not to say that they're not still making a lot of money. I'm just saying in the top 10. And
I don't think any of the others,
some of the other big ones were like Love and Deep Space, Endless Zone Zero, AFK Journey, Weathering Waves.
Yeah, I mean, they're all doing really well, but they're not like top 10.
And then, but we did I'm just seeing like we did have some shout outs, right, last year. So, it's like other late comers that we did like this year. So 2023 Late comer Last War was this year's so far. This is December 18th the second top grossing game.
So I guess some of these like big releases actually fall away pretty quick which for the ones especially that rely on China revenue that seems to be quite

common that games have a massive launch and then they kind of disappear quite quickly.
It's quite rare to stick around for a long for a long time uh in China. and the others at least not breaking through yet necessarily to the to the top 10. So I guess when you see these we don't know necessarily that these are going to be the ones that stick around. I actually as much as people say the charts charts don't change I think they've changed gradually over the years a bit. We see I think Kingshot has as it were has a good shot of uh of breaking the top 10. It might have actually been very close looking at it but then like Century Games already has white out survival as the number four top grosser. I think King Shot's even better. Delta Force was an interesting one. Uh Tencent has really kind of cracked that part. I mean, they already have with PUBG Mobile, right? Kind of cracked a new hit at least with um with that one. So, in the shooter genre as well, which is pretty tough.
So, congrats to them. And then obviously, as we've got on here as well, mobile there, which I think you said was

the 10 claims like the top new release in China.
Yeah, in China. Yeah.
Really interesting article. Definitely everyone should check it out. The top news.
Thank you. And I guess as well another one that's kind of made the honorable mentions two years in a row now is Royal Kingdom. That was another kind of late 2024 game. So we mentioned in last year's article that it hadn't made the top 10, but you know it was off to a reasonable start and then yeah, so we kind of mentioned it again in this article because it was a 2024 game but you know it has had a big year in 2025 over 300 million. So, it's a bigger launch year than Royal Match had and without really cannibalizing Royal Match revenue. Yeah, there's certainly like newer games that are sticking around. I think
I feel like with Royal Kingdom, I don't know. I'm just waiting to see like how that looks UA versus revenue
because they spent a lot on the like a lot on the celebrity marketing campaign and then they're obviously spending a

tremendous amount on user acquisition. So, we'll see. All right. Thanks, Aaron. So, um, to kind of go with one of those themes, we're going to go through a few other trends now. And one of those trends this year, which is sometimes these trends are just the same every year, but one of the trends from this year is is basically kind of the growth of China's games industry and Asia overall. There's also the emergence of some Southeast Asian companies particularly in Vietnam because I think one of the top new games was Scrudom by I want to say I Cami. I came he came and they uh was what did that make over 100 mil or something from 50 gun and then um so that's a that's a Vietnamese publisher if just an idea there that they're on the rise and I think there's two maybe in the top 10 most downloaded publishers. So yeah if you look at the top grossing most downloaded games and publishers another come from China. You've got your 10 cent, your netis, your mihoyo, your funfly, your sentry games and others uh below that tier that'll be around like Lilith games

and they are dominating some of their categories. Century games and first fun/first fly first sorry first funfly but they dominate the 4X strategy genre. Now we mentioned their Kingshot Last War and White Out Survival kind of some of the most top grossing games in the world. And they've actually really managed, they've not just dominated the category, right? They've actually managed to propel a what is a mature genre that used to be dominated a long time ago by AMZ, then you had like a Game of Thrones, etc. come in, Star Trek, Fleet Command, and they've just like grown that significantly, that genre by revenue. Um, and they've kind of done that through the integration of, amongst other things, casual gameplay. And we'll go into one of the main reasons for China's success in a minute potentially. And then you've got your micro fun which is now dominating the merge space. So they've got gossip harbor which does really well. Uh that was pre that was a space previously led by Finnish studio metacore. And I think merge was basically created by well okay

there's a long history and I forget which one it is. I'm really sorry. It's 2048 and 10 or 10. I can't remember. And one of them came first but I forget. But I had this conversation recently and everyone's like, "Yeah, everyone remembers the like the clone basically, not the original, which is very true." But yeah, and then Grab Games kind of made that a bigger thing as well with Merge Dragons at one point. When I spoke to an industry expert during roia and slush week, they said that they were concerned how Western studios could compete with Chinese companies. They said that Chinese companies have yet to crack match free where regions like Turkey are dominating. And we mentioned Dream Games a couple times there for example. And I think I want to say good games is is a kind of emerging one with match villains, but they warn it's only a matter of time before Chinese publishers do crack that market. And someone else told me the same thing. And they said these companies will continue to grow and could kill the western games industry over the next few years. They suggested I feel like that's extreme because just because one's doing well doesn't mean another can't. But there is

a concern, right, that how to compete on that level. So one of the advantages that Chinese companies have is their size. hundreds to thousands of employees across the top companies and marketing in particular can see hundreds of staff supported by supported by AI techch uh building creatives. So, one expert told me that a studio, one studio had like hundreds of people just building creatives and I think that was more than were actually making the game in the marketing team and and they said that marketing is even more respected than game design who just want an idea and so they have a lot of money to throw at user acquisition and creatives and I think that is one of the reasons you're seeing that they are dominating the mobile games industry because what is the one thing we all know about it? It's not so much about innovation though that I think that can have an impact even if it's small little innovations which it's really I know if he's into UA but uh the casual element of forex strategy but the whole industry is built off of user acquisition rate and I'll round this out with so I think what's changed over the

last past couple of years for Chinese companies and why people are talking about it Chinese companies can build global hits from China and there was obviously a period where there was a lot of investment overseas and I think that's why we've seen companies like Net roll back internationally from investments and studios in the west. I think they just realized they don't really need to do that. They can have they have like all that capacity at home. it probably costs less and then some other reasons I guess but and over the past couple years we've had black myth Wuk Kong Marvel rivals where winds meet just sort of broader not just mobile and then we've got honor of king's world coming up and then just to round this out one but one of our is that western studios do have and this is something the construction funds Mishka Katov mentioned at roiocom is that western companies do have IP and that is what Chinese companies often try to tap so Marvel rivals was an example there age of empires has been used by Tencent. I think Harry Potter, Magic Awaken, was used by Netis and and a bunch of others. We'll I think we'll see how much that

matters matters in 5 years. I know IP is a good way to get your game marketed and and more people interested, but I think because China's cracked user acquisition, I guess we'll see how much that matters in the Western. Any thoughts on China, Asia dominance, Aaron, other than what you've said already?
Yeah, other than what I've said. So you speaking about like IP stuff there is um reminded me as well that in terms of the kind of potential blend of I guess eastern development and western IPs and that this summer the government announced um in China like a program to treat like foreign funded studios as domestic titles if they're developed in Shanghai. I think it was in July. I'm not sure if it started then or was announced then but it was certainly this summer. So obviously um it it's been on the mend but we did have that period of kind of Chinese licenses being quite a tumultuous thing. So perhaps this is also going to be a sign of in a way more you know even more successful Chinese

games developers move their development to Shanghai you know from other countries. Um also yeah potentially just a continuation of say like western IPs getting used by Chinese developers. I think for me just I could be wrong here but like it I think the China market the problem is that I think company publishers there don't feel the need to invest internationally into international companies as much as they maybe once did but the problem is is that new new new regulations and laws could come in at literally any moment the past 10 years I think at least when I've been covering it has proven that suddenly there could be license there could be license freezes suddenly There could be uh regulations around how much time children can spend on games or there could be another tech crackdown like randomly you know CEO suddenly disappearing. Anything could happen and while it feels at any moment like oh maybe they're easing up on on tech in

general and games but it could it could just change on a dime. So I think Chinese companies are very much one they want their global international success especially the top ones that have kind of peaked maybe current in China and two it's so tremendously difficult for international companies to operate in China and even if they're saying oh we'll treat it like a domestic game. It's like maybe you have to give up like your IP to a local partner who has a majority stake in that company. One thing that happened this was it this year or last year I think unity basically left China but its engine I believe has been forked and is now available in China can't remember the name of it just oper it's like unity is in China but it's a different name a different team that's the kind of the risks I think are involved from that side as well so yeah when I hear stuff like that I'm like oh interesting opportunity but unless you have like a really strong partner it's just I don't think it's very very difficult to to find any success there. Um, yeah, and also where you're saying about, you

know, basically anything can happen at any time. I think it was two Christmases ago, basically like late December 23, China kind of casually decided, you know, oh, we we might ban basically every mechanic that mobile games have, you know, like the daily login bonuses and loot boxes and the encouragement to want to play the game regularly. And then suddenly like 10 cents shares and stuff crashed if I'm remembering rightly. And then in January the government was like, "Oh, we're not going to do it actually." And then everyone has to kind of recover again.
See, it can happen.
That actually leads us on nicely to the next trend I was going to talk about, which is regulation. So the big ones, hopefully I can remember all these topics, but the big ones obviously this year were for the West actually and the world, sorry, outside of China was the kind of app store being cracked open. So that longrunning epic the Apple case kind of came to a head and the judge was so infuriated with Apple and Apple trying to do it in the EU really and

just ignore uh kind of all rulings and say all right this should be fine right uh because it was going to I think the first ruling if I remember correctly everyone was celebrating yes epics won the case and Apple was just like cool 27% fee on linkouts like what you didn't even do that before the hell Uh, oh, I guess you couldn't, but still it's that's kind of crazy. And and then later, yeah, the judge furious, so cracked it open. You could do links for free. And just this past week or two, it's now been ruled, but they're still deciding that actually Apple can charge a reasonable commission on those linkouts on purchases made through linkouts. So, we'll see what that is. I believe it's that's going to be negotiated with the court. I wonder if Epic also gets to have it say. Um, which then brings us nicely to the Google Play stuff where Google Play and Epic were kind of at war. And then it was all agreed. It was almost kind of fairly

similar to to what happened with Apple. And then Epic, Epic, and Google came up with another arrangement that would roll out globally instead of just the US. And it would basically judge games by the way that they monetize, which is the the most odd outcome possible that could be. There's going to be a hearing in January. As a total guess, I think it's the 22nd, the 21st, something like that. There's going to be a hearing about that. The judge seemed very skeptical that there was just like you the only thing that's changed I think they said was you were fierce fierce enemies and now your best mates. So, and because those changes to the monetization, it was what was the fees Aaron? It was like 20% I think if well sorry 5%
Google's fee if you
if there's an advantage basically in making the
Yeah. And it was 10% if you didn't have that I think or less
nine or 10 I think.
Yeah. So it was less. So it was it was ridiculous. So, some of that's still rumbling on, but a lot of that came to a head this year. And so, that's really

kind of really interesting time for the industry. The UK's own rules will come out maybe next year. Uh, but obviously there'll be a lot of appeals by Apple, although that difference with that is it's not a legal case. It's a regulatory thing. Digital Markets Act also kind of forcing kind of Apple and Google to to open up their stores more. that's been kind of rumbling on because Apple has kept changing its rules and the latest ones that are just hella confusing was reported that Apple was that the European Commission was going to accept this bizarre new rules about linkouts and still charging fees for whatever it ultimately was going to be a bit lower but very very confusing than it used to be. But actually the European Commission hasn't come out yet. Um, I wonder if it's because they're worried about Donald Trump in the US and the reaction that they'll have because every time, no matter what administration's in, every time regulators do something around the world, they get very angry if it's against one of their tech companies. And this time, it's because they'll probably

just slap ridiculous tariffs, right? So, the European Commission has been suspiciously quiet, I would say. We'll see if something comes out soon. And then, I guess there been what else Aaron? There've been some other things. So in Australia, just really random, but uh just in the last few weeks, the last week or two, there's a total social media ban. And so that was interesting. Total social media banned for children over 16, just to be clear. And then uh in the US, there's also, you know, actions being taken against uh that kind of thing and and just in general trying to protect children online, which is I think something we'll see more of around the world if I was to predict in 2026. So while years ago people saying to go back to China where people are like oh these these restrictions are crazy in China you know how typical of China all these regulations to protect children etc and it's like impossible markets are working and then you start seeing that happen around the rest of the world I thought that was
because we um we was it the online safety act
came in a few months ago here and just to kind of springboard on more regulatory stuff there was like India

banned the uh real money games
absolutely target out of nowhere
that wipes billions off the market immediately.
And then they've recently changed the kind of data protection law which we covered the impacts that could have for game makers. The digital fairness act as well. I guess we'll probably hear more about that next year. But yeah, certainly regulations are an emerging trend.
And actually on the D on the on the DFA, yeah, thanks Aaron. that Il Kapana had that open basically had that open letter encouraging people to submit their thoughts to the European Commission calling it crazy because it would impact the way that game mobile games monetize kind of completely and when you hear I've heard a lot of people talk about it uh and the general gist I get is people are angry about this legislation and I've heard a lot there's some kind of experts in the field of regula of regulation and they were saying like it was very unusual the way

it was announced this whole thing. So when they're asking for feedback, they announced it while everyone was at in March at GDC. Perhaps one reason why people caught off guard and they felt it seems like a lot of people feel that there's more of a a moral um slightly political bent to it rather than a practical like oh this we think this is actually affecting children. I mean all these things are politics really. It's interesting how angry the industry is and I don't think any the thing that gets me is I don't think anyone's willing to accept that maybe some sort of changes or the industry should take a bit more responsibility. Um, I'll be looking into this more. Like I think there's surely a bit more place for self-regulation. Although as there was the Wigan Wigan games event recently, I think people were like actually companies do self-regulate a lot, but it's in like a lot of different ways in different sectors that have been regulated, but games specifically. Uh, I don't think enough action is taken and I don't think trade bodies made them

accountable like for their actions basically, which I don't think helps anyone. Right, that was regulation. And then a couple other very quick things kind of wanted to go through. So the first thing I want to talk about was quickly I guess was the trans media trend that is kind of running through again this year that people are talking about. Over the last few years we've had some big films and TV shows like the Super Mario Brothers movie in 2023. $1.36 billion at the box office. Very very well. Super Mario Galaxy movie is coming out now on April 3rd, 2026. And we got the Legend of Zelda movie coming up. Uh, we've had a Minecraft movie. We've got the new Angry Birds movie coming out. I think it's next year. Um, we've had Five Nights at Freddy's 2 just come out. A Minecraft movie too, I think, has already been green lit. A new Sonic the Hedgehog movie has already been green lit.
Yeah, there's two Sonic films.
That's two crazy. And that the Last of Us, I think season 2, I think was this year. There's a new Twisted Metal series maybe that came out. There's just a lot

a lot going on in that space and it's really just interesting to see. Now, how worth it is it and for for who? So, I think for movie studios, production companies, I guess it's potentially great for them because they're looking for something outside probably of the superhero space, which I think is it's not died, but it's just not as popular as it used to be, right? And so, they're looking for other IPs as well with established audiences. So, that it looks pretty good for games companies. What are the benefits? I guess the it's how you look at it, I guess. But one of the benefits obviously is, oh, hey, it's a film now. You can potentially kind of grab new audiences and maybe maybe they'll buy the games. And while there's data that comes out that suggests that does happen, like how much of the upshot from a film or TV show coming out really matters. Like if you're generating like it's not nothing, but if you generate a few hundred,000 from your game because the film came out and then that's kind of it. Like if that was the jump you're

looking for. These films cost so much money to make tens of millions 100 million a few hundred thousand doesn't really matter. Even a couple million probably wouldn't really matter at that point. So I guess it's just audience engagement and how much money do you make from that licensing deal which I think is quite an interesting thing to look at. And we'll obviously be looking at that uh the trans media summit pocket game connects London that'll be on January 20th. We've got Roio there. We've got the BBC there. We've got a bunch of really cool uh people and companies at the show. Any thoughts on T Media, Eron?
Mainly I'm excited for the Zelda movie. That's 27 though. A little bit more of a wait for that one. Um no, since cuz they released um you know some stills I guess of the actors um the Lincoln Zelda and that's you know there's a little bit of hype bubbling away cautiously now. Um, and yeah, it's English cast being filmed in New Zealand. That can be a a good combination with certain fantasy

franchises. Not saying it will be the next Lord of the Rings, but you know, who knows, maybe in 2 years time we'll be saying about how this is, you know, pioneered a new trend, but and yeah, I guess more generally, as you say, it's certainly become more of a thing. I've uh whether it's just being a Pokemon fan, but to me it felt like game movies had kind of died away until like Detective Pikachu and then Sonic followed like the following year and since then there just seems to be this kind of almost constant stream of new game spin-offs into TV shows or movies. Not saying it's necessarily because of Pikachu or Sonic, although Sonic did very well, but um yeah, it's certainly become more of a thing. I think
I would say those films I would say those films definitely helped. I think you're right. If you see examples of success, then it breeds more of that, right? Other companies, whether it's the games companies or the film companies, then reaching out, right? It's like, oh, there's something here. Let's let's see how the most popular games IPs do or which ones can we adapt the best.

Doesn't always work. You got Assassin's Creed film. You've got Border Lads films that didn't really do very well. The Uncharted film was very okay. Yeah, it doesn't always work out, but I think yeah, does it does bring a bit more of that. I wanted to say one more thing on that which I nearly forgot was I saw a really interesting post from Philip Black and and he actually made a good point that again it was that that incremental revenue uplift from a film. How much is it worth it? But he says everyone ignores again I hate saying sorry when I say sorry after I say everyone it's because it's that stupid thing where people go everyone said this. It's like not everyone said that. A couple people you saw said it and now you've attributed it German. So
figuratively
figuratively but yeah not even that really is it? So he just pointed out that while some people are like oh the amazing like world of trans media it's all going great it's just like well actually that incremental revenue doesn't matter. And then secondly like if you were to look at anime in Japan and you mentioned Pokémon there like it's already been done

right Pokemon a tremendous success. It was a game that launched how many like a thousand movies?
Yeah, I think it's 23 24 something like that.
Exactly. A thousand and then uh that did that. Well, there's other examples. I mean, it's a slightly different way happened. Um, I think it was Uma. I think it came out as anime first, but I think it was conceived as a game and an anime the same time,
but the game took longer to come out, I think, if I remember right. Um, and then I think there's there's other examples as well. It's kind of already happened and that's a really interesting case study that I think people ignore because I guess western versus versus Japan. I thought that was really interesting.
And I guess just as an extra point, it kind of in a way is maybe an evolution of you used to get TV shows that existed purely to try and sell toys.
Yeah.
But I'm pretty sure like Thundercats as an example. Obviously, these are all before mine,
Transformers time, but Yeah. And

obviously um you know people found these things through the TV shows. Um this Bakagon is an example that I kind of grew up with. So I thought the TV show was great and then that made me go and buy the toys and then it was weird growing up and realizing like this great kids TV show that's more fun than the toys existed to sell the toys like it wasn't the other way around.
Yeah.
Um but yeah so I guess like games have done a similar thing in a way. That's that's a really interesting point cuz like even uh even Star Wars they made tremendous amount of money but like I I'm pretty sure someone correct me that actually they made most their money through like toys and other sort of merchandise because obviously there was many years gaps between a lot of the films but yeah that was like actually kind of became the main money dropping. So, a couple other quick trends. So, AI was obviously one of the big ones this year. Everyone's talking about particularly generative AI in

particular. There's been a lot of controversy around it. And so, there's like outrage sometimes when you hear about So, Arc Raiders was one example. And I think Call of Duty Black Ops 7 was the other example of people caught wind. Oh, there's like some AI assets used here. So, I think Call of Duty I think it was AI assets or assets in the game. And then with outrages it was some of the voice acting that's AI generated. some consumers are getting like very angry about that and it's reported a lot in in the media and then so sometimes companies have to come out and defend that why they do it and then when you talk to people in the industry I think it's a bit of a mix of some people are still trying to wait for the use cases but I think a lot are actually already finding the use cases whether that is in pre-production or production or we talked about earlier uh user acquisition making creatives kind of a really big game changer for for that and at PGC we've heard like a lot of experts with Claire Zane talked about it kind of how useful user acquisition is sorry how useful generative AI is for creating for

making creatives use the UA Lancer on two and a half games talks about that a lot so it is making a big impact and I think we are I think some company some people are open about it like Crafton hugely open about what they want to do with AI that have been for a long time you were the one that caught that Aaron and no one was talking about it like this was a year or two ago when they were saying oh we want to yeah we want replace voice actors and stuff. It's like what the why you're just being open with this. Wow.
They were like, "Oh, they can the AI can do a better range of emotion and stuff." Oh, that's really harsh thing to say.
And and then they're basically saying they want to replace developers and that. And then is it I think it's craft as well now that they basically got an open like res uh you can resign like voluntary resignation process. If you don't want to get on board with this AI, you can voluntarily resign and you get like a package to leave. They're so all in on it. It's crazy. but they're open about it and how they're using it in production development and I think a lot of other companies uh even when they're not talking about it or being open about

it they're using it is is the ultimate fact of the matter now obviously consumers it's up to them they'll vote with their feet how they feel about it and so I guess if it comes to asset creation how that was made and if you're costing jobs people might get concerned about it but the fact of the matter is is that companies are using it even signed a deal with I forget company's name now, but they signed a big AI deal as well to like at least explore it. Uh it it's here already and this year was a big year and I think we'll just see more of it next year. It I don't it's not AI will make your games. It's not that. But it will if I was to predict because you always get people saying, you know, it's you can do more of what you've got through that. I think a lot a lot of people sorry through that I think there are some executives that obviously like yeah we can just lay off a bunch of people now and make more money and make smaller games sorry make bigger games for smaller teams but we'll see we'll see how that rolls out and then any force in AI
I think you've covered all the the main

things I guess um even outside of games I feel like this year I've just encountered a lot more people who are just using it daytoday like who use chat GPT rather than like Google something even if you do Google something you get the Google AI result at the top now which I think a lot of people just read that so I think um you know that's maybe acclimatizing people to it anyway but may then have a knock on effect for games hearing that they're using AI if people are using it themselves anyway maybe won't be such a like red flag in a year or so
yeah I think you're right actually like my friends a lot of my friends use chat on a couple other subscriptions and we used it to organize our going to holiday to Canada next year and one of the ways we helped organize that was one of my friends was using chat GPT I don't trust it so I was like you know googling looking it up myself but I feel like that the problem with AI is it just can be very inaccurate like my sister used it when she was traveling and it just

started making up locations
it was like yeah do this do that and then you look up you you actually look it up it's like it doesn't exist uh so there's always that risk but then I also sound very old saying oh you I don't want to use it essentially in some form. I think a lot of the companies and tools that exist now uh will will go away but in some form like this technology will probably change like some of the way you work whether you like it or not really. Um I have a lot of disagreements about I think the total theft of humanity's history of copyrighted materials is insane that that has been allowed with no like remediation. But uh fine. I guess it's happened now annoyingly
and it's been allowed to blow my mind.
Yeah. Um I don't mean this um I was just going to say, yeah, I don't mean this to like toot my own horn either, but occasionally I've tried to look something up to do with something I've written. Like I want to check, you know, one of the articles that we've got on the site. So I'll Google, you know, some keywords to bring that result up. And

then obviously it gives me the AI overview and I have to scroll down to our article. And it's like the AI overview basically looks like I wrote it because like we are the source that it's used and it's like but I didn't write that. It's just the AI basically
and we get nothing from that.
Yeah.
We get no benefit from that. That's just to Google's own benefit. Crazy. All right. But um some of that is is like different from the use that studios would use. So like studios could use generative AI because they'll be worried about the legal aspects as well cuz that's often sold. So they can use this tech internally on their own art assets, on their own creatives, etc., right? So where do where do people get angry and not angry in in that scenario, right? Like I I I wouldn't necessarily complain about using those assets, but then if you're replacing jobs, especially in voice acting, like it feels wrong. So yeah, it's a it's a one that'll rumble again next year even more. So and then the last quick few non- gaming's rise, everyone's talking about it. We're going to do the apps Business Summit at Pocket Gamer Connects London. uh that'll be on

January 19th. Uh so Dualingo is the be example uh there getting into gamification as it were uh turning into a learning platform. So it's not just language now. They're doing like chess for example, music. So it's really interesting just using kind of the techniques that games developers have been using for a long time and putting that into non- gaming. Mishka Car say is basically like the the the return if you're just looking to exit a company eventually like the return you get from non-gaming currently is much greater than gaming just the way it is I guess uh M&A it's been another big year for M&A obviously the whole Netflix Warner Brothers thing is kind of crazy at the moment we'll see how that goes but even I guess even bigger for games specifically is obviously the Saudi le takeover of EA for $55 billion and private equities involvement in that as well. Presumably that will go through, but we'll see. We don't know. And yeah, the Netflix Warner thing where I guess we'll run and run into the new year of Paramount bidding as well. And the other thing I just wanted to quickly point out

was web gaming. So last year it was like a big thing, especially because of Telegram mini games. It was more like HTML 5. This year not really hearing so much about it. I feel like that I feel like that's faltered a bit in terms of growth at least. and it doesn't feel like it had the potential that necessarily people were thinking it had last year. There's not as much buzz around it. Sometimes that just means the hype's gone. People are just hard at work, right? Could be the case. But I think it's uh it's a bit more challenging because I think in my personal opinion the the challenge is really ultimately the app store on Google Play where people go to get stuff and and that that's a fixed marketplace whereas to get someone to go randomly on the web and get your thing is very difficult challenge. Right. Any other trends? sort of mentioned earlier direct consumer web shops that's very big and actually we saw in the last quarter that uh direct consumer revenue is is actually growing quite substantially I think in part off the back of app store being cracked open but uh that's another kind of trend that was there last year

one of those trends that will be every year really getting bigger we'll see if what the app store does with commission next year in the US and if the Google Play Epic thing goes through maybe things won't be quite as rosy but obviously publishers done very well leading players away from the store anyway regardless.
Right, so yeah, that brings us to the ends of the of the week in mobile games, the year in mobile games, I guess this week. Nice festive episode. Thank you everyone for listening. Thank you Aaron for being on the podcast this year. I think you said 77 episodes.
Yeah, this is episode 77 today, which is a nice number. It's not exactly a milestone, but you know, there's some some nice siblance there.
Yes. Yeah, it's been great.
Yeah. Yeah. Thank you. Looking forward to carrying on. Hopefully, I think this January was a bit of a rocky start. Um hopefully we'll have a better one in 2026.
Yes, my year has been kind of crazy for more less dramatic 2026. And yeah,

hopefully I won't be ill suddenly for the conference. Looking forward to that. Got to kick it off with a fireside chat with Aken Babby. So, I'm very much looking forward to that. So, uh, yeah, please do come along to PTC London. Be a great show. Right, everyone. Aaron, merry Christmas. Have a great new year. We'll see you again in the in the new year. And have a good one. Enjoy the holidays. Goodbye.