Oakever Games shenanigans, King and the Xbox cuts, Hipster Whale, One State, Monopoly Go, more

Hello and welcome to the mobile gamer.biz digest. I'm Neil Long and every week I go for a walk and tell you what's happening in the mobile games business. Here we go. I did a story about Okv Games on Monday which is a story that's been in the works for quite a long time in classic style. It took a lot of work and not many people as I hoped have read it. So please do seek it out. The story is based on two copyright infringement cases that OKA games has been fighting. It has lost one to Block Blast maker Hungary Studio already and it is currently fighting off one from AIA games. The Block Blast case was to do with a game called Qblock. Hungry Studio accused OKA Games of basically ripping it off, even copying some of its sound effects. They won that case on April 15th this year and Qblock has now been rebranded as Woodblock Puzzle Games

which in itself looks similar to Triple Dots Woodoku. OKver is also currently fighting a copyright infringement lawsuit involving AIA games which has accused it of copying its user acquisition ads and pasting its own logos over the top of those original ads produced by Avia Games. This one is dragging on in the courts. O'keeva has not provided the relevant documents for the case to continue and Avia Games has been granted permission to continue that lawsuit through other means. And there's even a nugget in there from Apple which told us that yes, OKEver Games has changed some of its titles and even removed one due to complaints from developers that have come through its content dispute process. And just for context, I added in that Learnings

Games released a competitor to Mini Clip owned Les Mo's Arrows game in April called Arrows Go. By May, that game's title had changed to Amaze Go. And this story all started from a chat with a very anonymous mobile game CEO who alleges that O'keeva's entire strategy is to copy others work. That is a quote from them. They continue the ad networks aren't doing anything because Okv is plying them with cash. And he says more generally that developers are getting really alarmed by the speed at which O'keefee games are copying their titles and drowning them out by copying them and then spending loads on user acquisition. Even allegedly in the case of AIA games copying its user acquisition ads as well. I [snorts] contacted OKA games which as a company is also known as learnings and also Lexin Shenwen.

I contacted them for comment. They've not responded, but there's a little bit more context on who these guys are in the story. In short, the company was founded in February 2016 by Liu Yi and Lee Jong. They met when Ywayi was running ADM Mob at Google China. And the company now apparently has 200 to 300 employees. Yes, a tricky one because you have some quite tasty allegations in this one, but well worth reading to get the full nuance and context of what is going on with OKA games and some of its shenanigans. The headline here is Vita Marjong Amazego and Modoku maker. Okva Games fights cloning accusations. The big news of the week certainly for the console and PC part of Xbox is yet more job cuts. 268 jobs lost across first party studios, Xbox games studio

management and central functions. As we reported on Tuesday, King seems to have dodged most of the cuts and has actually expanded its remit to include Microsoft casual games, which makes Evergreen stuff like Solitaire Collection, Mind Sweeper, Mahjong for PC and mobile. In the official blog announcing the cuts and restructuring, Matt Booty, the Xbox exec, said that this latest stage of the cuts means that it's three quarters of the way through the restructure that was announced in July. So, there's another batch of job cuts and reorganization to come. As we say in the piece, we reported back in July that King escaped most of the cuts then as well as is covered all across the gaming press this week. Most of the moves and consolidation is taking place among PC and console game developers.

Activision will oversee Rare World's Edge, which makes Age of Empires, and develop the next Halo game. Bethesda will oversee Obsidian. Playground Games and Turn 10 will merge. Ninja [snorts] Theory will likely close. And Double Fine, Compulsion Games, and Undead Labs have each been divested. So, the mobile part of Xbox, which is mostly King, seems to be relatively safe. But there's also those looming strikes, as we have referenced in the piece. Kings, Stockholm, and Malmo staff may well be striking by the end of this week. More to come on that. But yeah, for now, King and mobile don't seem to be the biggest problem that Xbox has right now. It is more to do with its woes with console games, Game Pass, and so on. Xbox Game Studios and Halo Studios seem to have

taken the heat here. But yeah, if you want to read more, the headline here is King seemingly escapes major layoffs in latest round of Xbox cuts. This story has been sitting on my desktop for some time. So, apologies to Hipster Whale and co-founder Matt Hall. I spoke to Matt not long after Atari bought Hipster Whale for an initial $29.3 million. And it seems Hipster Whale, the maker of Crossy Road, of course, now has complete access to Atari's deep archive of retro games and old school arcade titles. Matt Hall is a big retro and arcade game fan himself, as you can probably tell from Crossy Road, and he singles out Pong, Breakout Centipede, Missile Command. Those games are kind of around today, but not really. they might be spruced up and put

on mobile via Hipster Whale. He says, quote, "I can't wait to bring some of these classic titles back, even if they're just preserved, but also update them and make them exciting, a modern take even." He also says that a load of Atari IP will soon be arriving in Crossy Road and retro collections like Atari 50, which has been on consoles and PC for a little while. That would be good to take to mobile as well. And there's also a bit in here about how when Crossy Road arrived in 2014, the studio was fending off acquisition offers pretty much since launch day. So 14 years later, they sold up to Atari and now co-founder Matt Hall may well be overseeing some Atari revival and reimaginings on mobile in his new role. The headline, if you want to read it, hipster whale could revive or reimagine a range of retro classics after Atari

acquisition. Exola connects developers with the resources they need to build, fund, launch, and monetize their mobile games globally with Exola web shop. Sell virtual items, in-game [music] 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 solution, Exola provides the tools for developers [music] to focus on what's most important, creating great games. Visit exola.com [music] to learn more. That's xsol.com. With GTA 6 looming large, I have been wondering who's making money out of these GTA like games on mobile. And it turns out that this developer, Chillbase, is doing pretty well. It makes a game called One State. And the developer likes to call it a a role- playinging game, but it does look a lot like a GTA for mobile. And we spoke to the company's founder, Metvey Leatnikov,

and pulled some numbers on it from AppMagic. The estimate suggests this game, One State, has earned $85.6 million in at purchase revenue in the sort of roughly four years it's been out. It makes about 5 million a month based on the last few months, according to those figures. Leatnikov did not confirm or deny how accurate they are, but he did say the game does also make money through web stores. So, make of that what you will. Those estimates are likely a little bit low. And further into the feature, we go into how the studio started. It started with 20 people and how it's grown. It's now in the hundreds in terms of staff. And those staff are according to Jillbase's website at least spread across Cypress, Dubai, Kazakhstan, Armenia, and Georgia. A lot of them work remotely as well. And yeah, lots of detail on this game and how the studio operates in the feature.

Up to 900 players can exist on one server at once. They claim, and I guess the interesting part about the monetization of the game is that the developer says it's more like how real life luxury goods work than typical mobile game standards. Like a luxury watch is bought in game for the status it carries rather than its gameplay functionality. and gangs in one state can also collectively buy items to show their status in the game. A little bit in there about the unglamorous backend work that keeps a game with 900 players playing simultaneously running. And actually, Leatnikov says with GTA 6 looming, that may well work out quite well for this game because it will open up this kind of experience to more and

more players. And if they can't get a console, which are increasingly expensive, of course, maybe they'll head to one state. He also makes out that the intention was not to make a GTA for mobile, but yeah, really interesting stuff. I think the headline here, if you want to look it up, is one state maker Chillbase is quietly making millions by meeting the demand for GTA likes. This one has been surprisingly popular. Monopoly Go has a crossover with K-pop Demon Hunters and Ghostbusters coming up for the Halloween season. Google really seems to like this one and has been serving it up to thousands of readers at the time of writing. But yeah, it's a fairly straightforward brand crossover for Scopely and Monopoly Go. Obviously, K-pop Demon Hunters is still one of the hottest properties out

there. Ghostbusters very much second billing here. But yeah, details on the new season, some new features being added to Monopoly go in that story. And it follows on from a Star Wars crossover in 2025, a Simpsons one earlier this year. And K-pop Demon Hunters and Ghostbusters will be taking over from the Looney Tunes season that is live in Monopoly Go right now. So yeah, K-pop Demon Hunters, Ghostbusters are the latest crossovers to be happening in Monopoly Go. In other crossover news, Supercell and Duolingo are doing quite a fun crossover event, Brawl Stars Fighter Spike and the language learning apps mascot Duo will be appearing in each other's apps for the next month or so. There's a very high production value trailer in that story if you want to take a look. And the connective tissue here I guess is

that Simon Hay once of Space Ape acquired by Supercell is now obviously working at Duolingo. So I would imagine some phone calls have been made there between the two parties. But yeah, have a look at the very lush trailer in that story which is headlined Supercell and Duolingo reveal new Brawl Stars crossover. More from late last week. Dockkey Literature Club is returning to Android through the Epic Games Store. This is another story that I have been chasing for some time. I learned about this over the summer, but only just was able to verify and publish. This is a game that caused a bit of controversy earlier this year when it was removed from the Google Play Store over its depiction of sensitive themes. It looks like a cutesy anime visual novel, but actually turns into quite a troubling horror experience

once you're a little way in. So, I'd imagine someone at Google flagged that and removed it from the store.
[snorts]
Some people got quite upset, particularly in the US, about the apparent censorship of this kind of content. And then, as I say in the story, I understand that Epic Games Store were straight on the case trying to bring this game back to their store on Android through developer Serenity Forge. So, that game is now live on Epic Games Store on Android after a short spell of being away, having been pulled from the Google Play Store. This one was surprisingly popular given it's about EU legislation. So, some new proposals have been floated. Some of them involve sort of age limits on downloads, mandatory age assurance tools for app stores, and even some restrictions on game features like push notifications and streak mechanics. This has worried video games Europe which

obviously represents a large number of video game companies across Europe. They broadly support some of the measures but also warned against effectively government overreach or EU overreach. The key quote here is, "We caution against sweeping age assurance measures applicable to every game and player in Europe." And they stressed that parents should really be the ones responsible for managing game time and what games their children play, which I think is fair. VGE also called for a public consultation process and pledged to engage constructively with the EC as the legislation develops. So, we'll see if anything comes of that, which is what I say about every one of these legislation stories. We'll see if this just quietly goes away or actually makes any

difference. But if you want to read more, the headline is video games Europe warns against sweeping restrictions proposed in the EU Kids Act. In Data Digest, we have a load of info from Sensor Tower based on August's top performing and fastest growing games. The highlights here, Gossip Harbor hitting number two in the top grossing charts for revenue. The top growth charts are dominated by Fate Grand Order, Japanese game, but also lots of Chinese-made games. TFT, Valerant, PUBG Mobile, Gossip Harbor, Wild Rift, and so on. Downloads Gangstar Mirage City, 10 cents GTA like game. Top of the growth charts there. And there's also a really interesting breakdown of the growth charts by market from a good newsletter called attention economy. There's also some stats about the China market which could hit nearly 60 billion in value by

2030. Submissions to the app stores have nearly trebled according to some stats put out there by a Google Play executive which reflects the number of AI made apps being submitted to the stores. Embracer has a $26 million credit facility and there's yet more stats from Top App Games Ludus in this week's data digest. For all the graphs, stats, and figures in full, have a look at the website every Wednesday. In Jobs Digest, we have moves and promotions at King, Scopely, Loom, Funday, Tactile, Zingga, and more. New Game Digest features Dave the Diver, which is out now, Animo, which will be out this week. New Game Freak, Moon Active, and Noodle Cake games, and a couple of other bits and bobs. And that's it for this week. Thanks for listening. Goodbye.