Is Destiny doomed? King on AI, layoffs and more, plus March's top games, data, soft launches, more

Hello and welcome to the mobile gamer.biz digest. I'm Neil Long and every week I go for a walk and tell you what's happening in the mobile games industry. Recorded on location in London this week. Here we go. Let's start with Destiny Ryan who is a hardcore Destiny lifer has covered this game for us before. The Destiny Rising obviously the mobile spin-off to Destiny and Destiny 2 developed by NetEase with the help of Bungie of course, but it's not looking good for this game if you look at the estimated revenue graphs. This latest update to Destiny Rising appears to be the last roll of the dice for this game. Long-term players are calling this latest update Destiny Rising 2.0. And what they have done is as Ryan puts it, smooth out the two most

controversial and blatantly monetized mechanics in the game. So there's a lot of detail in here about how that game monetizes and the changes that have been made, but I think the overall gist of this piece is that players actually really like these changes. Whether they will sink more money into this game as a result of liking those changes is yet to be seen. But there has been a decent bump in revenue when this update hit according to AppMagic. Whether that's enough for this game to last the course we will see, but it doesn't look good. The next piece might be a postmortem on Destiny Rising. That's where we are with this one. It seems to have missed the boat a little bit, but you know, a valiant attempt and certainly from Ryan's coverage of this game, it seems that the Destiny community do like this game a lot, but

that may not be enough for Destiny Rising to survive. Let's hope revenue does continue to improve and it does survive, but it's not looking good. On Wednesday, I finally got around to publishing an interview I did with King's Eva Riot at GDC, shortly after her talk about running a very large evergreen game like Candy Crush Saga. And it was the first time I spoke to King since various reports last summer that we ran about those 200 layoffs being partly down to AI and AI taking people's jobs. There was also a couple of follow-ups on sort of workplace culture, toxic atmosphere, management problems. And then a counterpoint to that was a secret

developer blog where someone who had worked there for a long time actually felt like there wasn't enough accountability and discipline within the King staff and they are quite sort of pampered and overly cautious. I think King came into the interview knowing I would ask about those reports and fair play to them for putting someone up to be interviewed about it and not just avoiding the issue entirely. I think it was worth getting on the record King's official response to those. And we started by talking about the role of AI within Candy Crush Saga and how these tools do help King identify levels that aren't functioning in the way they should both before they go out to players afterwards. They've got 21,000 levels to manage in Candy Crush Saga now, so it's a lot. And there are AI tools that help them do that. But, I think the meat of

it is Ewa's response to the allegations in those reports saying that some staff had been let go and were effectively replaced by AI tools that they helped train. Her response to that was, "No, it's not accurate. The way we use AI, especially in the level management processes, is as a supporting tool. We still very much believe in the combination of human creativity and these tools, etc., etc. And it helps players get the right levels served to them." I did push it a little bit and ask, you know, "You've got 200 fewer staff. Surely you are using AI tools to make up that shortfall." The response there is, "I can't really talk about those details because that's essentially strategy and how to go about organizing ourselves, which is not something that I can share. Obviously, it's a tough moment for employees and us when we have to go through the layoffs, but it's also something that as a business we need to stay relevant and stay competitive. And unfortunately, that means sometimes we have to adjust

the workforce to strategic needs." So, yeah, a fair enough response there. There's also I mean, I thought it was fairly unlikely they would respond to some of the workplace culture allegations, but I asked anyway, as is my role in this situation. And Ewa said she's really proud of the company culture. She actually left and went to work for Meta for a while and then came back, partly because of that friendly, supportive culture. And she loves working there. So, that is the on-the-record response to that. And then we finished off with a note on the competition. You know, Royal Match, Gossip Harbor, really gunning for some of that Candy Crush Saga audience and Eva said that yes, they have added this 2 by 2 matching mechanic in Candy Crush, which they didn't have until a year ago, which had become a match three market standard, she said.

And they realized that players expect it nowadays because they play other match three games and this is what all the other games have. That was really through player insights and player research understanding, she says. So, yeah, a long time coming this story, but I think some fair responses to some of the reports from last summer about King, the layoffs, the role of AI, and some of the toxic workplace culture allegations. I think [snorts] it's good that companies are out there responding to difficult questions because the alternative is these guys kind of get away with stuff, so it's taking a little while to get this article out, but a month later we finally got there. Have a look at the full text on the site if you want more on that one. Xsolla connects developers with the resources they need to build, fund, launch, and monetize their mobile games globally. With Xsolla Web Shop, [music] sell virtual items, in-game currency,

subscriptions, and custom offers directly to players while driving up to five times the revenue growth. With the industry's number one Web Shop [music] solution, Xsolla provides the tools for developers to focus on what's most important, creating great games. Visit xsolla.com [music] to learn more. That's xsolla.com. It's the start of the month, so I ran through the Appmagic data to look at the top downloads and top earners by in-app purchase revenue from March. Block Blast is of course top of the downloads chart, but only about 4 million above Free Fire. Block Blast was way ahead of practically every other game the last few months, but that gap has tightened a little bit. Free Fire has been doing really well, about 20 million-ish downloads every month in the last 6 months. Roblox downloads are about the same as they were in February. Nowhere near the huge spikes we saw

last summer and over the Christmas period, but still 18 million downloads in March, not bad at all. Ludo King, this is a big one in India. That seems to have recovered from a little wobble at the end of 2025. I think there were a few competitors arriving around that time, but that's back in the top five. Miniclip and Sybo will be pretty pleased with this downloads ranking. Subway Surfers, 13.5 million, pretty typical month for that game. But also there's Subway Surfers City in at number eight, 11.9 million installs for that game. And that is important and impressive because it doesn't seem to have affected Subway Surfers at all. You'd think two pretty similar Subway Surfers branded runners might cannibalize each other, but that doesn't appear to be the case, certainly in terms of downloads. Revenue is a little hard to figure out

for these ones because they're ad-driven as well as, you know, in-app purchase-driven, but good start for Subway Surfers City. Also in that top 10, Beatstar Young flattened out a little bit. Pizza Ready having a little bit of a wobble. Voodoo's Paper.io 2 had a wobble last month, but is back over 11 million for March. Tile Explorer, a little bit up and down for that one, but has settled in at getting about 10 million installs a month. In the top grossing charts, Hero Wars is very up and down. Down to just 133 million earned in March. That is compared to 150 million ish in February and 188 million in January. Still top though, even though it has dropped from 188 to 130 million in a couple of months. Last War in second is a little bit closer to Honor of Kings than usual. 125 million for

that game. That is really consistent now, about 120 million every month since August 2024. Sometimes it goes up to 150 million and sometimes it overtakes Honor of Kings. But these two seem pretty settled in at the top of the top grossing charts. White Out Survival leapfrogged PUBG Mobile in March earning over 112 million. It took a little bit of a dip at the end of last year, but it's back earning about 110-115 million a month. PUBG Mobile dropped off a bit from a big February, 129 million plus. 110 million for that game in March. Pretty typical stuff. Dream Games Royal Match back over 100 million. It took a little wobble in February. Dipped under 100 million mark the first time since November 2023. Microfun's Gossip Harbor passed [snorts] 100 million in estimated

monthly in-app purchase revenue for the first time in March. A big jump up from February's total of 82.5 million. It is growing every month effectively and if that pattern continues, it'll soon be overtaking Royal Match having overtaken Candy Crush Saga. So, could even be the top grossing puzzle game in mobile by in-app purchase fairly soon. Roblox recovered from a big drop in in-app purchase revenue since December. March's earnings 95 million up from February's 80 million total. Nowhere near a good month for Roblox though. December 113 million. Last time it was closer to 150 million. Candy Crush Saga had a little wobble February but it's back to about 90 million which is pretty typical for that game. Monopoly Go's sudden in app purchase revenue drop is an interesting one.

It posted 78 million in in app purchases in February. It's up a little bit on that in March to 89 million but it's nowhere near the 128 million it was earning in January. It was regularly over 110 120 million every month so potentially some web shop business going on there for Scopely. King Shot Century Games other hit. Another month earning 80 million pretty consistent this one now and looks like it could be staying in the top 10 for a little while so well done Century Games. Outside of that top 10 MapleStory Idle RPG seems to be dropping off after a really good launch. Delta Force very spiky. It pulled in about 60 million in February but down to about 36 million in March and Supercell has worked a bit of magic with Brawl Stars it seems. There was a bit of a dip for this game at the back end of 2025.

It's been steadily growing again and now it's big spike in March saw it leap up from earning about 23 million in February to over 34 million last month. More hard numbers analysis in the articles on the site. Have a read. Data digest has some really good stuff in it this week as ever. There's a load of Q1 data from AppMagic on mid-core games, casual games, and publishers, all top 10s, based on their Q1 data. So, top mid-core game, Honor of Kings, of course. Below that, Last War: Survival, PUBG Mobile, Whiteout Survival, Roblox. In casual, Royal Match is top, followed by Monopoly Go, Gossip Harbor, Candy Crush, and Coin Master. And then, top 10 publishers, guess who's top? It is, of course, Tencent,

followed up by Century Games, Whiteout Survival and King Shop combined doing the business there. Third is Dream Games, actually, followed by Playrix and Fun Plus, makers of Last War: Survival, Scopely, Microphone King, NetEase, and Roblox make up the top 10 publishers in Q1 by estimated in-app purchase revenue. Sensor Tower put out some good stuff about Pokémon TCG Pocket. That has earned nearly $1.5 billion since it launched from 100 million downloads. That launched in October 2024, so about a year and a half to earn $1.5 billion. There's also some milestones for Hartopia, a cozy Animal Crossing type game, 30 million downloads for that one from publisher XD Games, which seems to bring out an awful lot of games, or at least I get a lot of press releases from them. There's also Sensor Tower's rankings of

top earning and top downloads for March. They don't actually offer figures, but they estimate that Last War was top earning game for March with Professional Baseball Spirits rising through the growth rankings significantly. Similarly, Uma Musume Pretty Derby, Brawl Stars, Stone Age also rising through the revenue rankings for March.
eFootball Konami's free-to-play football game. That's got a billion downloads now across all platforms. And it also has one of the worst app icons I've ever seen. That is on the site for you to recall in horror from. And then there's another Sensor Tower report breaking out the 135 games topping 100 million in in-app purchase revenue over the last 12 months. Strategy and puzzle took up basically half of that total

by revenue. So, plenty more juicy stats and graphs and figures in that article as ever. Have a look every Wednesday on mobilegamer.biz. The latest soft launch update article. The notable newbies are Plants vs. Zombies 3 Evolved, the latest attempt to bring that game back from EA. There's also the addition of Borderlands Mobile, which popped up slightly randomly the end of last week. Loads of other stuff in there. Payday Match from Playrix, the Supercell assisted game. Maybe worth mentioning here that there is six or seven Playrix games in that article which have been in soft launch effectively since I started doing that article, which is probably three or four years ago. So, I don't know what's going on with Playrix, but no new launches coming out anytime soon,

by the looks of it. Have a look on the website for more. And let's finish up by talking about the brief madness I encountered on Monday where I posted a story about Dream Games. You might have to search a little bit to find the story on the site now, but the original headline was Is School Go House the next game from Royal Matchmaker Dream Games? Question mark. So, framed as a question, it wasn't a story saying this is definitely Dream Games' next game because it is absolutely not what Dream Games would make. But, frankly, I was in a slightly odd headspace on Monday. I had just been to a relative's funeral and was thinking quite deeply about things, life, my career, etc. And

when this dropped in, for some reason, I figured this is worth covering in a slightly mischievous way. But, I think this is literally just a Google Play Store error. They have let this through under the label of Dream Games. App Magic has also confused the two developer accounts and that game it was, at the time of writing, under the Dream Games account. So, I went back and deleted the social posts around this story, kind of hid the story from the website and also posted a clarification on LinkedIn to say this story had caused a little bit of confusion if the comments on that LinkedIn post were to be believed. So, no harm done, I don't think, but seeing as you're here, right at the end of the podcast, I thought I'd tell you that little story to show that, you know, running a website by yourself is quite tough and I don't have anyone

to kind of sense check things with. That isn't a problem most of the time, but sometimes it is. With that, let's leave it there, shall we? It's a lovely London day, by which I mean it's raining. Not a great deal of mobile stuff happening for London Games Festival this week, which is a special government-backed week of games events. But, I'm here anyway. Ilkka Paananen is, of course, getting a BAFTA Fellowship at the end of the week, so that'll be good. But, yeah. More thoughts to come on London Games Festival and mobile's role in it, perhaps next week, but also perhaps not. We'll see how we go. Thanks for listening. Bye-bye.