How mobile devs use AI and Pikmin Bloom blossoms | Week in Mobile Games podcast E75

[music] [music] Hello and welcome to the pocket gamer.biz podcast week in mobile games where we discuss the week's news and provide some insights. I'm Craig Chapel, head of content at pocketgamer.biz. With me as always, our news editor, Aaron Asel. How you doing, Aaron? What you been up to?
Good, thank you. I I've mostly been getting myself hyped up for a big Fire Emblem Heroes update, which the the big trailer for it finally like dropped in the early hours of this morning, which but like we've known it's coming. So, it's like the big version 10.0 update tomorrow as of us recording this. Yeah, quite a milestone. Um kind of generally February 2017.
Wow. Really?
Yeah. Coming up on its 9th anniversary now. And um so basically they kind of they I guess they in retrospect speed ran through version one updates in its

first year and then you got like version 2.0 was kind of this time of year back in 2017 and then it's always kind of been near the end of the year you get the new big version update which kind of kicks off a new story campaign for the next year and introduces a bunch of new stuff. I've actually been quite excited for the story like update this time because it's version 10.0 it will be book 10 like the new story campaign and book nine kind of ended on a cliffhanger whereas previously they've all kind of wrapped up and it's just a new kind of story for the new book but this one actually ended things in quite a cool way that I've actually been like waiting weeks of like you know I actually want to see what happens next now.
Oh nice. which is a good position to to be in because I guess spoilers for anyone who plays this game and isn't caught up on the campaign. It takes a lot of inspiration from like Norse mythology and um book nine introduce a character called Alpha Thor who's kind

of basically like Odin from Norse stuff and he's kind of created like everything comes from him basically the whole world was created by him and like nine is a very significant number in Nordic mythology. So I'd kind of pres presumed like yeah it makes sense they've brought him in book nine rather than wait till book 10. It's a nice little Easter egg. But then the actual story revealed like that this guy isn't actually Alpha Thor and one of your companions who you've been looking after was secretly the god who basically created all of this and has basically like every problem that's been thrown your way, all the people that have died along the way has been like this little kid's fault because he's actually the god of everything. and he finds it interesting to see how you react and and now now he's decided for book 10 he's just going to end the world to see whether you can stop him and it's just quite a
I just enjoy the kind of nonchalon

attitude of like he's not I mean he is evil but he's not doing it because he wants to like dominate the world he's just I guess bored and like you're interesting and it's like you've stopped nine catastrophes before now can you actually stop the the apocalypse basically which is quite a You know,
that's great. That's great.
Yeah.
Nice of him, too.
Based on Odin, but he's called Thor.
Alpha Thor. Thor is in it as a different character, and there's Loki in it who is a woman instead of a guy. But yeah, like there's some of the references are quite niche. Like there's a character called like Boulder who in actual Norse mythology like gets killed and then a new god gets made to avenge them. So, in Heroes like Boulder has a little sister character whose mechanics are built around kind of getting stronger as she takes damage kind of I guess make a gameplay version of getting revenge. I usually find it quite interesting like how they [snorts] twist the mytho. So, yeah, I'm interested to see where the

story goes cuz it like it's never just kind of a copy of Norse mythology, but they just take kind of inspiration from it with their own twist on it. So anyway, that's quite a long- winded answer for what I've been up to, which isn't actually the new thing yet, but yeah, I've been getting quite excited to start it tomorrow.
That's really cool that uh that's really cool. They're still going and going strong. Yes. So, as for myself, I've started playing a Football Manager again, which is very dangerous for me cuz I was I played it far too much. Many thousands of hours have gone into Football Manager in my life. I took over Steven FC, which is sort of a localish team to me. Uh, it's not the one I actually support. I'm an Arsenal supporter for anyone that cares. But yeah, and uh, they're actually sponsored by Exola, weirdly. I can't believe how that all works out. And one of the directors is Stuart Denzy, who was the chairman at Curve Digital, which got bought by Nazara. Fun fact, used to be my boss when I was uh,

working on Develop magazine. He owned a media company called Intent Media, which also had MCV, which a big games brand. Yeah, some weird connections to that club. So, I thought I'd take it over in the game. So, back playing that new season, new game. I've been out of it for so long. Like, they have made some major changes. I'm not sure about the UI at the moment. It doesn't feel as clean as previous to be honest, but they there are so many features in it. Maybe it's difficult, but uh still hard. I'm still trying to work out the navigation. It's not clicked quite easily. And then the uh the other thing I did was yesterday I went to the Wigan Games Summit, which I'll talk about in a minute. I won't do a very long ramble like I usually do for events. Don't worry everyone. But I I I'll say some things that were mentioned there. It was really good. It's a great event. It's kind of like talking to people about it. is kind of the one of the ones that like kind of signals the end of the year [laughter] because it's full of very senior people, really interesting folks. Yeah, one of

the last big events of the industry calendar. Right, so we're going to move on to news. So, as always, a shout out first. Pocket Gamer Connects London takes place on January 19th and 20th. That's the biggest event of from us of the year. So, uh please do come along. Got a bit of extra venue this year at the barbecue just around the corner. We got the app business summit, the trans media summit and the usual tracks. We got loads more networking space which I'm sure people will be very happy to hear and and we got some great sessions great insight. So more on that soon as well. And also if you're in the UK games industry, if you want to recommend yourself or a company to be in our top 50 UK game makers list, please do fill out the form. I'll put a link in the description below. Anyway, we're going to jump into it. So what have we been up to? So went to the Wigan Game Summit which is great. They operate by Chattam House rules which means as I knew kind of knew what it meant which is like generally things that are said there you generally can't like report on or put on social media outside of the event.

That's cuz it's supposed to be like secretive but what chat house rules actually means apparently is you can do that. You're not allowed to say who said it. So I've got this I guess a weird article might show up for one where it's like I don't know person says this people are saying this rather than actually know but a couple quick takeaways I guess there was a really good talk about kind of how we define well one of the parts of the talk was how we define the games industry and I actually thought it was quite interesting that I think a lot of the time the games industry just gets put in this kind of monolithic term of just that whereas actually if you look deeper into it and they split it into AAA console forever games, mobile and indie. One of the reasons that is is because they actually operate really with different kind of business models, right? So AAA is high high value premium games like like in in this definition they do cross over indie small games like so you get indie games on mobile right but this is a different way of defining indie so we do kind of

different categorization from the business model one for mobile and then forever games which I thought was interesting and they mentioned like we don't call it the screen industry we call it the film sector or the the TV industry or short form video but like a Tik Tok or long form etc. A long form video. Those are very well like their own thing. So for mobile, the term casual was questioned like like do we call them casual players? And they're kind of anything but. So for example, we'd probably we'd probably call Royal Match or Candy Crush Saga players casual. It makes sense to do that. That's just easier to categorize these things. So, this is kind of a I don't know, stretching a point a bit, but like if if you've got users that are playing 5,000 levels waiting for the next hundred or the next thousand, like are they really casual game players? Not really. You call them hardcore players that play all the time. So, I thought that was I thought that was an interesting point. When they were looking at the business model, they said

like the budget for game for mobile games like and how difficult it is really to be a success. So, it was said to be like $1 million, but increasingly $5 million plus. Budgets can be bigger than that, right? For the really really top top top games. But the main thing was now marketing, and we all know this, but it's just interesting when people say it aloud. And that marketing was described as a kind of the key driver for for mobile titles rather than gameplay innovation. Uh, so you got these like vast advertising budgets which are also noted as a risk factor for games and they can range from like $50 million plus just to compete and they said there was no innovation really in mobile but then they they rolled that back a bit and said that's exaggerated but it's a very difficult place to be innovative which is what we see right we always see kind of building upon what's gone on before rather than here's a completely new idea and on mobile I thought I'd actually mention as well a monetiz which I put in our story on Yes, a monetization expert recently told me how Chinese publishers have excelled in

UA with some companies employing hundreds of people just to build ad creatives and that's on top of using AI tools to help make them. They can kind of just flood the market and marketing was seen by some in that in China as even more important than development roles which which I thought was interesting. Elsewhere there was a so a couple other quick things to wrap up but like AI was a big topic of discussion and I think generally all the panelists and you know it depends who you get right but generally the panelists were were keen on using AI in different ways but the general thing was I guess what we always hear in some ways which is you know it's not to replace people it's to make better games or that's how it should be. So, one studio is using it kind of in a really interesting way. Small new startup. They are experienced game developers and they said like without AI they they would one wouldn't be able to make the game that they're making and wouldn't be able to do with their budget and size team. Uh which is

fascinating. And I think they did say the difference between the AI buzz and the web free buzz is that and you still do get the same thing but I think there are more like actual game developers using AI whereas web free again there are some game developers using it but I think as we all know there was a lot of people like never worked in games saying how they're going to like change the games industry with this this new web free blockchain innovation whatever and it never really happened. Obviously, we had like an Axi Infinity, but long term, it's it's not really stuck yet. Not to say that that tech will never find a use. I think AI is is much more here and now, and most most studios are using it, even if they're public or not. Yeah, it was a good show. Well worth going to, and you always learn a lot of that. And the main thing is the networking, which which was great. So, yeah, thanks to Wigan for hosting that again. It's really good. So, Aaron, what have you got? Yes. So I um wanted to talk a bit about Pikmin Balloon which has hit 100

million in lifetime player spending between App Store and Google Play. It hit this milestone on the 1st of December which is one month after its 4th anniversary according to AppMagic estimates. Um really those estimates show that the game blossomed in 2023 which is when like revenue really started to pick up. Um, and to the point where I think you fairly say this is a a successful game now, 100 million still obviously significantly smaller than Pokémon Go. Um, and it's made about a third of the revenue that Monster Hunter Now has. These are all like AR locationbased what were Niantic games. But yeah, like Pikmin Bloom has um sort of picked up steam over time and like now it's monthly revenue is getting up close to what Monster Monster now does every month. Yeah. So, so Bloom launched in late 2021 and like looking slightly

ahead to 2022 that first full year it made 8.4 4 million based on the estimates. And in 2023, this increased 148% but made another nearly 21 million. In 2024, it went up even further to 33.4 million. Um, and then this year it's already made 34.8 million. So 2025 is its best year yet with another month to go. And in August 24, um, Niantic launched a web shop for, um, Living and Bloom. So, obviously the the real revenue for this year is likely even higher still, like DTC uh, playing a role. So, yeah, I kind of took a look into like why um, why this game has grown the way it has over time. And obviously, like looking at 2023 was, you know, the obvious kind of starting point. That's when things really took off. For any fellow Pikmin fans who

might be listening, obviously 2023 um was the year Pikmin 4 released, which was the first mainline game in 10 years. So obviously you could point to that as being like a factor for it growing. You know, Pikmin Bloom growing the same year. Monthly installs did more than double when when four released. So they went from about 107,000 uh in June 23 to 247,000 in July, which was the month for came out. So yeah, it's possible or likely even that had kind of a knock-on marketing impact on Bloom. Um but I think there is more to it than that. Sierra took kind of a deeper dive into into the mobile game. uh because monthly installs have stayed up since before launch, even like two years later. Obviously, part of that could be there are new Pikmin fans, but yeah, I think there have been some notable changes to the game that I was able to find. So yeah, like in Pitman Bloom in 2023,

um an event premium pass was introduced as kind of a new standard uh offering where you that you can buy kind of every event really to to get like extra rewards and things during the period. And they also ramped up mystery boxes, which are effectively loot boxes with a range of items inside. You get those for completing battles, I think, more so than like buying them. But obviously that encourages you to play more. And you need Pikmin to battle with. So I guess you know the more you play the more you're going to be able to get these mystery boxes. And Bloom also has community days like I guess most well known from Pokémon Go out of these kind of games. Those have been in since launch and they kind of give players a limited time to to buy tickets to kind of get extra rewards during them and things. But Pikmin Bloom also started doing real world paid events in the last year or so which I think show obviously the confidence that it had scaled up enough I guess to be worth doing a real

world event. I guess it's also um noteworthy that the amount of coins you can get in bundles has been reduced over time. So I guess maybe people are spending more just you know to get the same amount of currency. But overall, I'd say like while none of this has kind of totally overhauled the game to like trigger a big um increase in spending, clearly spending is going up. And I think the fact that like monthly installs have approximately doubled uh between like 2022 and 2025, whereas revenues more than quadrupled in the same time frame. Yeah, I think it's that all kind of points towards um they are kind of doing something right with the changes they're making to the game. Obviously, I say previously with Niantic now scopely and yeah, it seems like whatever they're they're doing is moving things in the right direction.
It's pretty cool. Like it's Yes, it's it's done really well. You know, it is not the blockbuster success. So, if that's your bar, then you could say it was a fail, but like I think it's Yeah,

it's done really well, right? And as you say, it's been growing. Yeah,
really interesting insights into like why why that's the case and 100 mil like everyone most studios would love that
yeah I think it's pretty cool like where where does 9 go from here is always the big question and the money it took to get to find that like success cuz they had so many licenses that they've tried in the past obviously Harry Potter I think they had an NBA license um what else did they have Transformers katan Marvel maybe at one point crazy but yeah that's pretty good
yeah Another thing I guess worth mentioning, obviously, you know, Pikmin is a Nintendo IP, so that undoubtedly helps. Uh, but it, you know, it is kind of on the the smaller side, especially, you know, if you're going to compare it to Pokémon Go, like there isn't really any comparison between like Pikmin and Pokémon IPs. Like I think Pikmin 4, I think it sold somewhere between two and three million units on the Switch, which is very good for the Pikmin series, but

you compare that to like Pokémon, which consistently has been hitting like over 20 million per game like every year. you know, the one new Switch game in a decade did like three million, which is very good for Pikmin, but yeah, like the IPs aren't really on the same level. So, I I think, yeah, it's quite quite a good success story that they made a hit of it on mobile
and nearly as successful as Monster Hunter Now at this point.
Yeah. Right. Thanks for that, Aaron. Moving on. I had another random thing I guess I wanted to talk about. So, but it's all based around a couple things. So, I did this interview with a guy called Ali Farah. It's like a bit of it's like a bit or a bit of he's one of the biggest LinkedIn influencers at the moment. He's used to work at Star Stable. Now he's joined Behold Ventures. So I had a chat with him about kind of his journey into games. He started out in another industry. Decided he wanted to move into games. Spent like a few years learning Unreal and Unity and then got his job at Star Stable. Done various

things ever since. it's like a bit bit of a yes man in terms of always takes all the opportunities that kind of come his way which was really interesting and he made it his kind of goal to have a prominent voice in the industry. So he's always posting and so the article goes into a bit about that and kind of how it how as he put it how games changed his life but also writing about it and he thinks everyone should be doing it. He says like most people like despite what you might see on LinkedIn and you think everyone does it. He says most people don't still do that because I think he said like most people think it's kind of like bragging but actually you could you you could be helping people right was his point. And just as an aside like for for like when you're a journalist writing particularly I think in B2B if you're out there you're out there putting stories out people see you as like an industry voice as well right and that helps with opportunities. So I guess the point the general point I'm trying to make now is so the kind of how important LinkedIn I think has become for a lot of people in the industry and how important it is actually for B2B

media and then the importance of building communities like for example kind of going back to what I was saying about the importance of LinkedIn and building your network. So I was out of a job a few years ago and the support I got was incredible. So air savat uh works for tens but as many people will know he's like an LinkedIn influencer and his main one of his kind of goals has been to help the th thousands of people that have been laid off from the games industry find new jobs. They're so good at it that him and and his network, they're so good at it that like when I finally posted on LinkedIn about it, I think I took like a month away from anything social media. But I went back on and then like they helped they they saw it helped immediately. People were like flagging, oh, please help. And it was great. And then also the contacts that I've made over the years, had them on LinkedIn and and they all just kind of coming up. I haven't sp spoken to some people for years, right?

And then they all kind of come and help. So, it's really just important. I know people know this, but I guess I'll bag the drum cuz we've been talking about these kind of things a lot internally. It's just how useful building those connections are. And I think there is a big perception and I I know why of like if you write stuff online and you try and be a thought leader in quotes for people not on video, uh, which is kind of a weird term, but it is it's correct term. It's kind of weird at this point. It's like it could be a bit cringy writing stuff right on LinkedIn, especially when you see them sometimes and there are posts that people make that just one aren't very good. Uh two, yeah, very cringy or they try and make absurd points. Uh we've all seen those. We've all cringe laugh. But actually, I have some respect for people that put themselves out there. Don't you don't always get right like myself, right? I've put loads of rubbish out over the years. I don't mean to. hopefully some good stuff as well. But uh it's just I

think actually getting yourself out there is only ever going to be great for you and it teaches you so much like I learned so much from going doing events. So bit outside of LinkedIn. I'll try and keep this short. I won't ramble too much but uh like uh my first ever so we with Alifar also talked about the opportunities he had from going to events and speaking and that is another way kind of build up my network built up my network. So, anyone out there that's thinking like, "Oh, I don't know if I should speak at events or oh, I have nothing to say, etc." I I would seriously consider it. And just remember that if you think you're rubbish, like chances are like the first one, this this probably this will probably make people not do it, but you probably will be rubbish your first time, but you'll only get better, right? Or you might be amazing the first time, right? And you're just an absolute natural. My first talk at was at GDC. I took part in a it was a is I think it was a Zingga run talk or something like that and it I was the moderator and there were hundreds of people in this room and I've

never done this before. Zingga, Facebook, Google and another company whose name I can't remember like really senior people like um Leo Alibbe was one one of the I don't know where he is now. He was at Meta. He's I think he's been at Games for Change. is doing something else now alongside that I think. And I was getting really stressed. I had all my questions, but people like running through them really quickly. I was like, "Oh my god, oh my god." And then um I just wasn't very good at like responding to what they were saying, etc. The feedback I got was awful afterwards. It was crushing. But then I, you know, what can you do but do it again? [laughter] And actually, I mean, I'm not saying I'm amazing at it, obviously, but like I do I do an okay job now. And I don't get as nervous as I used to. and doing that helps build your profile which is kind of good for you and and the business you're working for. So I think it's really important. Yeah, there's a bit of rambling but it's a really interesting interview. I think people should check it out and uh if I could be so bold as to give people advice if they haven't

done it as honestly I think it's worth putting your voice out there. You don't have to do it all the time every day, right? But like if you think you got something to share, it is worth doing and you'll learn a lot through doing it. like even just writing stuff, you actually put all your thoughts together. Anyway, I guess that's my soap box. What's your next story?
Uh, okay. Yeah. Next from me is apparently there's yet another Sonic movie um on its way. So, this will be the the fifth like film in the the franchise and like the fourth film isn't out yet. I I still need to get around to actually watching these. Sonic the Hedgehog 3 look quite good from the trailer. possibly because just because I like Shadow. But yeah, apparently um the this fifth film is going to be like a spin-off of something. This is according to Variety. So Sonic the Hedgehog 4 is coming out in 2027 and then there's going to be a spin-off film in 2028 in cinemas. It's currently currently

expected to release on December 22nd. So we're we're still like 3 years away. But it goes to show, you know, that frightening first look of CGI Sonic the Hedgehog with the original film and then they went back and delayed it and changed the design. Um, like clearly that's worked out cuz now they've got, you know, a multifilm franchise that, you know, they're already planning multiple sequels for obviously there was a a Knuckles TV series last year. like it's really become quite a a big success space I guess for like games doing the trans media thing and really building its own kind of franchise in the movie world you know outside of the games that it's that it's based on me it's quite noteworthy yeah for for a game film adaptation to already have like two more sequels in the works
yeah obviously trans media is the trend that won't really go away at the moment I guess for games not I'm not saying it should I'm just saying it won't It's like actually became a thing. I think I said before like over 10 years

ago. I was invited on a press trip to Canada all about trans media and it was just a very different idea of what it was. But now games are actually being adapted well to to film. I'm very glad that they changed the look of Sonic like made him his iconic look, not this obscure horrible horror that they
It was the teeth I think that did it for me.
The eyes, the teeth was everything really. And didn't even have his iconic shoes. like what's the point? Presume that was some deal with Nike or Adidas, but yeah, was not was not the one. But they changed it and uh the films are I think I think I watched the first one. I need to watch the others. But it was good. I enjoyed it. Jim Car's amazing [gasps] uh as as ever. I I've been creating a list which will be on the site soon. There's just so many. And actually like Mario has obviously got did very well about a billion a bit$ 1.3 billion dollars I think off top of my head at the box office. and it made uh so they're doing the Super Mario Brothers Galaxy movie now and I think am I

correct there's a Donkey Kong spin-off right so that is underway so that is another one that also has like multiple projects in the works so we've got a lo I think there's loads of other stuff at Freddy's is getting the treatment I think the latest film is is out or about to come out so it's just a really exciting time for game IP in particular that's Hollywood's big thing still I think at the moment at last
yeah I'm surprised there hasn't been another Pokémon film yet. It's like Detective Pikachu was 2019. Certainly been wanting to get another one.
I think they're making a sequel right there.
Yeah, I don't know whether the sequel still happening. I know they said that they were going to do one.
It's been so long.
It was a bit weird how they would do a second one given the end of the first one.
Yeah. Like,
how do you how do you put Ry Ryan Goss? How do you put Ryan Reynolds back in to Pikachu? Like, how do you how do you do this? Sorry, spoilers. It's an old film now. It's okay to do spoilers, but uh I weren't they going to make I should

know. It was probably I thought they were going to make also a proper Sorry, a proper Pokémon film. That was
Yeah, I can't remember at this point because it's all so long ago whether that was rumor or official. They were going to do something. So obviously Detective Pikachu is kind of a realworld
Pokemon story, but yeah, I thought they were going to do something that was a bit more traditional fantastical in Kanto or wherever.
It's not the biggest IP in the world. You think they if Sonic's getting all these films, you think Pokemon will be
like slammed on, not just the anime movies that they put out. Maybe it's a cost to returns thing. 50 million budget 143 433 million box office for Detective Pikachu. I don't think the budget includes marketing and I think the rule of thumb is you double it.
I could be speaking brothers. So I mean it's still made a lot of money but maybe the more maybe it's not worth it. Interesting. Yeah, really interesting. And obviously we'll be doing the trans media summit at Pocket Games London. So do check that out. So, the last thing I

wanted to cover quickly was that Discord now lets you buy and gift video game skins, and you can do that directly within the platform. So, you'll be able to search, buy, wish list, and give cosmetics without leaving it. The first game to do this is they're starting it with Marvel Rivals. Um, that's it. I think it's a genuinely really interesting thing to do. Games companies obviously build are building communities on on Discord. Been doing it for a long time. It's a key way to engage with your audience, especially when like historically both for mobile. Apple and Google don't really let you do that easily. Discord has become like an interesting place for that. Uh some context that they tried to sell they tried to basically make it a sort of a steam many moons ago and and sell games through Discord. That didn't actually work at the time. Personally, I was I thought it was a good idea, but that's just not how people were using Discord at the time anyway. And Steam is obviously very hard to get people away from from using that. Um, so they've

tried that kind of thing before. So, I think it's a really great idea. I can imagine this being expanded. For example, what if Discord was actually your web shop? So you not only do you engage with your community there, publishers already do, but you don't even like those users don't have to make another step to leave Discord to go to the web shop. You can still have your web shop, but you could also have it in Discord. I thought that would be potentially really interesting idea. Obviously with the new rules for Apple and Google, depending on where you are in the world, you could probably just do direct links within the app now. But like it's just another really interesting kind of I guess a touch point with your users potentially. And I think it's just a nice quite simple addition to to Discord that could be really really useful for for publishers like if they want to use that. The only thing I was thinking is it's like I guess we'll see I guess we'll see what Discord does in terms of what it wants to take from publishers for these things. Um you know it's nice to do it. I don't know what the revenue share is from that. And also this Discord wants

to go public. So at some point may the penny may drop on you know Discord wants to make all the make its money back grow its revenue grow its profit to grow its share price. So what what is Discord ultimately going to ask from publishers because I think they get a lot at the moment but not very much. Curious what happens in the future. Yeah that's cool idea. Right. That's everything. So that brings us to the end of the week in mobile games. Thanks as always Aaron for your insights.
Yeah no thank you. Thank you everyone for tuning in as always and we'll see you again next week. Have a great weekend. We'll see you soon.
Goodbye.