PGC takeaways, the UK's social media ban and Fortnite vs Roblox | Week in Mobile Games podcast

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Hello, welcome to the Pocket Gamer.biz Podcast Week in Mobile Games where we chat about the week's news and provide some insights. I'm Craig Chapple, head of content at Pocket Gamer.biz. With me today is our editorial director for events, Maria Mamat, and our features and data editor, Aaron Astle. How are you both doing? Maria, what you been up to?
I have been barbecuing a lot, actually, and I think that is very I was saying this to Aaron the other week, I think. I can't remember, but it's very Americano of me. I have learned how to barbecue officially. So, I can do all the steps and I can make pretty good barbecue chicken.
Is this like an immediate thing after you moved to the US?
I think so. Like, it just naturally happens because you obviously weather permitting, the weather's pretty great where I am. So, and we've got a barbecue, so it's kind of like it's way quicker, it's way easier, and it just feels like the last final step into becoming a real American.

All right, that's pretty awesome. Thanks for that, Maria. Aaron, what you been up to?
Um, on the barbecue theme, actually, yeah, I had one at the weekend, or I went to one, rather. I didn't host it. Uh, but, yeah, that was quite nice. Saw some extended family, load of us went. Yeah, had a had a big barbecue. They're always interesting as a So, I'm vegetarian, as a revelation for today's podcast. It's not that's not new news, but I just don't think it's ever been relevant to say. That always makes barbecues a bit of a kind of middling affair for me. Uh, tend to bring my own stuff. Like, I have to bring my own food for it, and then kind of have this little bit of like corn sat in the corner of the barbecue, watching it to make sure nothing else touches it. And then, yeah, just have yeah, like a couple of corn sausages, some French bread. And it's fine, but, you know, everyone else is, you know, eating whatever elaborate things they're eating, and I'm just out with a little plate with like I could have just put these sausages in the air

fryer and it would have been a lot quicker. But, it was nice. It's more about the social thing, I guess, for me than the the food.
Yeah. All right. Thanks to Aaron, that sounds good. So, I haven't been to any barbecues, but I have been to sunny Barcelona, which is weirdly probably about the same temperature as back in the UK. But, I always love going there. It's really awesome. It actually has like the perfect breeze, by the way, as well. So, it's really really lovely city. And they finished the Sagrada Familia, which I didn't get to see this time, but I did see it a couple months ago. It's pretty It's pretty incredible. Although, I imagine it looks better now with presumably without like a big crane, scaffolding, covers all over it. Hopefully, it's just without that unless they've started repairs after 140 years. So, yeah, my my week's basically been taken up by PC Barcelona. Before we get into that and all the news, as usual, a few shout-outs for upcoming events. We just did Barcelona. It was great. We had about 1,000 people attend the show. So, thank you everyone that came. And upcoming next, we've got Pocket Gamer Connect Savannah, Shanghai on July 29th.

And later in later this year, we'll be at PGC Nordics in Helsinki, October 20th to 21st. we've got Bangkok later this year, Jordan, and Gran Canaria. More details on that coming soon. And we, of course, have the Mobile Games Awards, which we've been discussing this week. We should be announcing that hopefully next week, the finalists for that. So, keep your eyes peeled. And that will be during Gamescom. All right, so we're going to jump into things. So, a few takeaways from Pocket Gamer Connect Barcelona. I always do these after the show. I'll have these in the in the newsletter as well. So, by the time this comes out, you you might have seen that. If not, please sign up. You get those every Friday. As I said, we had over 1,000 people there. It was a really fantastic show. It's become one of our biggest events. And I did like six I had like six talks to cover. I actually won one of my own for like the first time in going to do years, first time while I've been at Pocket Gamer. I was at one of the sessions there. So, one of the takeaways, and we actually discussed it last week, so I won't go into too much detail, but it was uh direct to

consumer, and people basically talking about that. And there were a few interesting takeaways, some more obvious than others, but I think one of the things on one of the panels, which had Breeze, Exola, and Worldline, representatives from those. That was That was a really good chat, and obviously I tried to get out of them, you know, "What do you think supported with the Google deal?" And they were actually pretty open, that the Google and Epic deal, which saw basically Google set up a 20% store fee, plus an optional 5% fee if you use its payment services. And then there's loads of other, like you could pay less for certain things, I think if you use certain Google services, I think, or more, etc. It gets a bit more complicated after that. They said that they were pretty disappointed in that. I tried to get out of them, "Okay, that's not good. What What would percentages would you like?" And they They refused to answer. So, I I guess fair enough, on stage don't want to put yourself out there. But I guess what would be a good fee? I remember I was speaking to the Epic Games Store GM, Steve Allison, a few months ago, you know, "Was Was 20%

enough?" And I think there was almost an air of disappointment as well, although I think they just wanted to get that court case over with. And I think Epic on its own store is a 12% fee in general for games. And so, he said like 10%, 12% that would be good, but we lads were we'd like to uh of course, but we lads were we lads, and that was the end of that. So, I I guess that's what people prefer. In my own talk, I just I basically went through the stuff we discussed last week, you know, still front gets like 44% uh of its revenue, or its bookings, can't remember which, I think it's bookings actually, through D2C, and 44% also through at the App Store and Google Play, so they're approximately the same, and 12% from ads. And then other companies making lots of money, strategic priority I think it was for 10 Square Games and someone else can't remember. And but the one interesting thing I did find was I think it was in the MTG financials was that I looked I compared

D2C earnings to UA cost UA expenditure. And interestingly the UA expenditure went up every quarter in tandem with the growth of D2C. Basically to me it kind of looked like what some people say is it's great that you get this D2C but it's not really going to grow the market and how much does it grow your business? Maybe still up in the air. It's great that you can get access to this extra money obviously to reinvest. And then hopefully make more money. But it is getting sucked up by your kind of new overlords of app loving etc. So I thought that was really interesting. And then the D2C is always a big takeaway. One of the others I think I mentioned last week is just the number of international companies in Spain is is actually crazy. You've got uh You've got your Rovios, your Scope Plays, your Ubisoft, your Gameloft, your Zynga, Bandai Namco. It's basically every who's who of the world's mobile games companies are all in Spain at least. A lot of them in Barcelona. And there are

Miniclip itself is actually has a massive office in Portugal. And so even like across the Iberian region it's become very attractive. We I was speaking with a couple of leaders there asking like why do you think so many have set up in Spain and specifically Barcelona like what is it that's happened? And I think there there wasn't really like a proper answer but my I guess my thought was that it sounded a bit like I think Gameloft has been there since 2000 I want to say. It's a massive business there. And then I think over time a couple have set up. Then you've got your homegrown ones like Social Point, Digital Legends. And from that talent's gradually built up around those and then everyone's flocked there and then also doesn't it doesn't hurt that Spain and Barcelona are very nice places to be. So, I think that's kind of part of the reason for that. And then some other takeaways was that I think building IP is a Again, I think I said this last week. Building new IP is a big thing for Spain at the moment. It's one thing having all these international companies there, but you really I think they really want to build like their own IP that is from

Spain that maybe even stays in Spain. That's a big issue, I guess, for a lot of especially emerging markets like Brazil. Even in the UK, a very established market, because of all the sales that we've done of of companies over the years, it's like how much of that IP actually sticks in the country. So, that was kind of a a bit of a talking point as well. We spoke with Maya Rogers from Tetris on stage about brands that last. That was a a really interesting chat. I think the weirdest one was the And I still don't really I can't actually visualize it in my head still was the McDonald's partnership where it was like chicken McNuggets is Tetris.
I thought the opposite. I was like Googling it like how do I still get it? Is it still available? And it is actually a collectible on eBay.
I I I I haven't actually What is it? Can you explain it?
It's an It's literally what it sounds like. So, it's a chicken nugget, a McDonald's chicken nugget where you can play with Tetris on it with all the sort of controls. You can play Tetris on the chicken nugget. That is what it is. And it's a collectible on eBay and it's sold out and continues to sell out, which is

crazy.
So, that was cool. She's really She had a lot to say was of course about kind of the beginnings of Tetris. And the one thing that I one of the things that I found interesting was And I had forgotten. They actually announced the Tetris movie initially as a sci-fi movie. And then I believe she said it was a director that basically got attached and said, "That's cool, but what if you actually did it about this?" Which was the origins kind of going into the Soviet Union and getting this game out to the world. And so, they ended up making that. And it it sounds like they're not going to make the sci-fi movie that they actually originally announced. So, that was kind of that was a cool takeaway. And then some other general things that people are talking about. Obviously, UA is a big topic, the expense of it. That came up a few times, like in the D2C chats as well. AI is a big big thing. People are talking about that. An interesting conversation with someone. One of the concerns that they had was, on the one hand, it can potentially empower people to make stuff. Like at the moment in the UK, we have this game called 38 nil nil, which

is a football game that's kind of gone viral, doing very well. It's made by someone just using AI. So, you could do that. But, on the other hand, it's that if you have some of these tools within your company, they were like, "Well, if some of that replaces some of the junior devs or some of the work that junior devs would do." So, previously, your senior might go, "Can you do this for me?" And then, the junior dev developer might ask like, "Yes, have some questions." And then, kind of get on with it, learn their trade. Do you just get rid Does that just You just lose that now? And how do you train up the next generation of coders to actually code, not just rely on on AI? And so, that was a that was pretty interesting one. So, yeah. There was lots to talk about. And there's a bunch of articles on the site. Thanks to Marian for for legendary work in in writing up a a bunch of those talks so far. It was great. And one last takeaway, actually, was uh there's a great quote from Katy Hanna, who was Game Founders Game Founders CEO with Game Founders was investing a lot of companies. She said that, to quote sort of quote, can't

remember the exact one, "There has never been more money in the history of games." I think she actually said in history for games than there is right now. So, people worrying about there's not much investment, which is a very real thing, by the way, that people have been very excited about. But, she was like, "You get all these government support initiatives." She talks about like in Turkey and now in the UK, some of them. There are some big investors out there. There's other avenues, UA financing you can get." So, interesting take on a very on a very hot topic. So, yeah. It's been a great week at PGC Boston. Right. We'll move on from PTC Barcelona. We've got a bunch of other topics to get through. Aaron, what have you got? There's been a big launch.
It has. So, Pokémon Champions is finally out on mobile. I've talked about it a couple of times on the podcast, I think. It came out on Switch back in April, and I got quite invested in working my way up through the the tiers at the time. So, yeah, I've been sort of quite looking forward to this mobile release. Um and yeah, so June 17th it came out

and there's kind of cross-play, so you can you can battle as someone who only plays on mobile against someone who has it on the Switch. And you can transfer your save back and forth. You can have it all synced up so that obviously the Switch is portable anyway, but if you don't want to take the Switch out, you can still play on your phone while you're out, which is convenient. It's also the mobile launch has coincided with a new like season starting in the game. As this is the like third season, so everyone's set back to Poké Ball tier, which is like the base level, meaning that new people starting on mobile aren't, you know, all immediately bottom tier while all the Switch people are up in the higher tiers. Like everyone's put back to the same baseline. Um so obviously makes sense they would time the mobile launch so that when this new season started. And it's it's been a fairly big update actually cuz they've also brought the first batch of new Pokémon to Champions. It launched with about 180 Pokémon. And

this new update's added another 20-plus, so it's got over 200 now. And it's mostly like final evolution. In the context of there being like a thousand Pokémon, 200 isn't that many, but because it's a competitive battler, obviously you're really only going to use the final evolutions. As a very rough rough estimate, you could kind of cut that thousand number down to a third cuz a lot of Pokémon have evolved twice. So, like there's a lot of kind of options in the game and, you know, I believe the plan is to eventually have all the Pokémon added. You can also, um, connect like your Pokémon from Go and put them into Champions. So, if you kind of want to carry on with that team and you're a mobile player, you can do that equally on the Switch. Since it came out on the Switch, you've been able to move them from main series games in but it's just cool it feels like more of like a melting pot now of just loads of different possibilities, which is just quite fun to see.
So, you have some stats as well on how
I do. Thanks for reminding me. Yes. Um,

yes, indeed.
Yeah, we've not even, um, put this article out at the time of recording. So, on its first day, so yesterday, based on installs from Sensor Tower figures, um, Pokémon Champions was the most downloaded apps in 13 countries, including the US and Japan. Um, it it was mostly in Asia. So, there was like South Korea, Hong Kong, Singapore, Taiwan, and then there were a couple of Western countries like the US, Spain, Italy, yeah, a couple of others. Um, so that's just App Store, um, kind of performance. We don't really have an indication for Google Play as yet. Um, we're recording this on day two and on the App Store currently, uh, Champions has stayed on top in nine out of those 13 countries. Uh, so it's still still the most downloaded game in like Japan and there's like quite a lot of Asia. I think in general, I'm kind of curious to see how it actually does on mobile because I imagine a lot of people

who are like serious Pokémon battlers are going to be on Switch anyway, but clearly clearly they thought it's worth putting on mobile or they wouldn't have done it. Yeah, see what happens, I suppose.
I think it could do pretty well. We we spoke in before you don't think it's going to do as well as the trading card game. Probably not.
Yeah, I don't think.
This is also one of those games I I that people get a lot of nostalgia for and there's definitely a competitive space for it, right?
Mhm. Yeah.
Right. Uh, thanks for that, Aaron. And, Marion, what have you got?
What have I got this week? So, what stood out to me, and we covered this on our site, and I thought this was really interesting cuz, well, I'll say the headline first. So, Epic put out this sort of flashy number, uh, which they announced that the Unreal Fest in Chicago. And the piece of news is that over a billion dollars has been paid to creatives through Unreal Edit Editor for Fortnite since 2023. Now, when I first read, as I'm sure a lot of people listening to this and then the games industry also had the same experience, but when I first read this, I thought a billion sounds huge. That goes without saying, but I think there's another

layer to this story here, and I think they're coming directly for Roblox and the sort of and they're kind of pushing for that walled garden effect. Now, I'm going to pull up some stats here. So, nearly half of all Fortnite playtime, which is 47%, is now spent on stuff creators made. So, creators aren't even playing on Epic's own game, essentially. Now, a year ago that was 35. So, anyone with eyes and ears can kind of tell that Fortnite is quietly stopping being a Battle Royale and is turning into a platform. And I think, obviously, this is Epic's answer to Roblox. That's the first thing. The second thing is I think that Epic actually has a real edge over over Roblox. And the reason I say that is because they have the sort of serious developer pool with their walled garden. So, I think they're telling you what this news is actually telling us is that Fortnite's becoming a creator platform, and they're clearly coming for Roblox. That's the thing that I sort of read from that $1 billion headline. And I wanted to know you guys' thoughts on that, too, cuz obviously we covered this. So, yeah, what did you guys think

about this? I thought this was such an interesting piece of news.
So, I I am the other way.
Really?
I think a billion is is an incredible amount of money, but that is over like a few years since it's launched in 2023. And it's 50% of users engaging with other games, but that is as Fortnite becomes less popular, according to themselves.
Mhm.
At least that was like the last big review. That's why they did the thousand layoffs. It's because people aren't spending as much money as that they used to spend it in Fortnite. And I still believe that Roblox has grown so big, and Fortnite basically or Epic made this decision to pull effectively get Fortnite pulled from mobile stores, which is great for eventually when you have your own store. You You don't want to give revenue share to anyone else. Like, it's potentially great for that. But, I think what's happened is they have lost They've just lost the race with Roblox for something very similar.

So, what Roblox has been trying to do, rather than only is is to get users that are older, which is effectively what people were saying is Fortnite's users. And I think they've probably been succeeding in that. And I don't think Fortnite and Fortnite hasn't been seemingly hasn't been growing. It's It's kind of shrinking. So, now it's back on mobile properly. Maybe that Maybe, you know, there's room to grow. And then, you know, that's not to say they haven't been putting loads of work in it. Also, like you were saying, like UE5 is very, very powerful powerful tool. But, I uh and I think you can put Unity games on there now.
You can, yeah.
So, I mean, there's there's obviously there's room for them to like grow even substantially. But, I think they've they've got such a a higher hill to climb. And it's self-inflicted.
I should rephrase what I said and think and say this was an interesting headline, but I don't I agree with you, Craig. I don't think that this will necessarily produce the results that they want because at the end of the day they are playing catch-up. I think the stat was for Roblox that the amount was a day paid creators one one and a half billion in 2020 25. So, they're not

necessarily like leading the race. They might This This is sort of after effect, like you mentioned. But, that being said as well, I wonder how Unreal Engine, this really powerful sort of engine with pro-grade tools, is going to be versus Roblox as a sort of walled garden. Like I wonder if that will have anything of an effect or if it will just fall by the wayside.
I think the I don't know I don't have the terms in front of me and I can't remember how it works. I just know they made a big announcement. Was that I think Epic changed their revenue What it all comes really down to me is the revenue share terms really. And Roblox has historically been very unfavorable for developers is kind of the problem
Yeah.
to some degree of attracting of developers. Maybe they don't need to because it's already doing well enough anyway. I can't remember what Fortnite's shares were. It's going to change like every year over the next few years. It I remember it as being against worse for developers but I could be wrong.
Well, it's like you said, it's like Roblox has a famously not dev favored because they're a walled garden. And I wonder if this pitch is going to be the

thing that pulls developers over or if it's going to be just, you know, like the headlines or what I took from the headlines is they're just trying to play catch-up. Like I I think it would be interesting to see because like you said, devs are kind of frustrated with the Roblox in a lot of ways. It is a walled garden at the end of the day. So, will this be an answer to that or will it just be a flop? I'm not really sure.
Yeah, really interesting but UGC spaces is absolutely fascinating. All right, thank you for that, Mary. So, we're going to move on to big news in the UK this week and I was actually quite surprised cuz the UK is generally very slow moving on things and I made a joke about it in my in my DTC talk about regulation around the platform holders. But the UK is set to ban social media for under 16s in a as as they put it themselves in their own press release, a landmark government move to give kids their childhood back. And it's a very interesting marketing terminology for that. So, I guess what does that mean? They are banning I think there's going to be more to to come like more

specifics later this year. But there's a few right now. So, the decisive action allegedly backed by nine in 10 parents who I think responded to the initial kind of call for like comments, feedback on the on the proposals, is expected to be brought to Parliament before Christmas with protections expected to come into force in spring 2027. The ban will include platforms like Snapchat, TikTok, YouTube, Instagram, Facebook, and X. It said, "We do not intend for messaging services like WhatsApp and Signal to be included in the social media ban." There's questions about what it really means for games. I believe that's not intended for multiplayer games, but I I guess there's potential there, and I I I don't I don't really know what they're going to do about Roblox, which is obviously a massive kind of issue that's there. But, there's a lot of differing opinion on whether this is good or bad. And I think it's a good thing that this is happening, but that's

with some caveat. I question the YouTube bit. That seems not great to me, but I don't know the specifics of what that means. Like, will YouTube Kids stay, for example? Um cuz that seems kind of like do you You could learn a lot also more so on YouTube than anywhere else. Also, content creation for that, I don't know, seems quite seems like a good thing. But, you know, anecdotally, I know parents that are like get really frustrated with YouTube, and then it just cycles onto the next video that that they're no longer watching their kids watching whatever the next videos are, so they don't know what they're consuming until their kids feed it back to them. But, I think the issue I think stems from, and I've said this before, is that when industries don't self-regulate, and these tech social media companies have spent years just not caring at all about what they do. It's move fast, break stuff, but unfortunately, the break stuff is people in these scenarios. And there's only so much you can take of, "Can you fix this?" Yeah, yeah, sure, we'll we'll do this.

So, eventually, the hammer the regulatory hammer comes down hard and it always comes down hard because it kind of has to. And so, I think this is kind of a starting block I would say I would hope it's more of a starting block like, "Okay, we've had enough of these companies not respecting parents, children, and and and inflicting harms." I'll get to that in a sec. But, I think we've just had enough of taking their word for it. So, you have to start from, "Okay, you're just banned. Now now what are you going to do?" And maybe if if it's now the other way round. You don't have to respond to tech companies and what they do. Tech companies have to respond to government and say, "Oh, okay, like like maybe we could do this. Maybe we could get back in." Maybe that's not how you're thinking. Maybe they're just completely banned now. But, I would hope that it's more eventually it's more progressive. But, I think something had to be done. And the reason I say that is it came out a few years ago and this is what the new movie about the social reckoning film, which is follow-up to the social network film about Facebook's origins, is going to be about is that Facebook had its own

research into the harms that Instagram was doing to teenagers. That it did itself and then it just didn't tell anyone or it spun it into like a positive. And I'll read you some of this stuff. This is BBC's reporting of the Wall Street Journal. And this was a report in 2021. And this is from Facebook's own presentation. A 2019 presentation slide said, "We make This is from Facebook. We make body image issues worse for one in three teenage girls." Another slide said, "Teenagers blame Face blame Instagram for increased levels of anxiety and depression." In 2020 research found 32% of teenage girls surveyed said, "When they felt bad about their bodies, Instagram made them feel worse." Some 13% of UK teenagers and 6% of US users surveyed traced a desire to kill themselves to Instagram. I think you just can't let these tech companies just get away with it and and then like we react and then they react and we react and then they do something. Like I I think the time has come to be like, "Look, you've you've had your chance.

You didn't You didn't do enough and this is the response." Is heavy-handed? Yes. Is it Is it completely fantastic way to do things? No. But something had to be done. And I don't think we can wait for the perfect response. Those are some of my thoughts. I don't know how how you both feel about that. It's quite a big topic at the moment.
I agree with you. I think it's well and due time that something happened. I mean, there's been I don't know if you guys watched that you mentioned a documentary that created another one about Facebook and Cambridge Analytica and how they I mean, it's all not new information to everyone. They've got literal data sets on people and they can then see what you like and then all this very invasive sort of technology and ways of looking into people. And this is just It's like you said, this had to be done. I remember talking to someone from the advertising authority in the UK at a previous event, Jessica Zucker, I think she did a lot of work into looking at fake and harmful ads on mobile games. And one of the conversations that they were talking about and I wonder if they were part of this initiative was looking at banning or limiting social media for under 16s. And the YouTube thing is actually an interesting question cuz

there is I wonder cuz there are parental controls that are quite enforceable on YouTube. And a lot of children get there and it's like Miss Rachel. I can think of like a few YouTube channels that are have taken the place essentially of TV for children. So I wonder how that's going to play out. But clunky, yes. Heavy-handed, definitely. But it had to be done. I mean, if you look at the net negative and the net positive, I'm sure this will be a net positive.
What do you think, Aaron?
I think it's a complicated one. Most of the people I've spoken to about it think it's a bad thing. As you say, obviously there are, you know, just objectively harms to children from social media. Like I'm not particularly a fan of social media in general anyway. But like YouTube, as you say, I think YouTube's a bit of a silly one to ban. Found a lot of benefits from YouTube like through school with like learning stuff. Um so I think, you know, I probably would have done worse at school if I couldn't have accessed YouTube. Um I've never been on the YouTube kids thing, but I imagine that's more like for

you know, much younger children rather than people making like educational content. So, for me that would be the main one that I would kind of rally behind getting taken off the list, I suppose, of things getting banned. I think also I'll say like it is just really complicated. Like I grew up like people had Facebook while I was at primary school, which I didn't. Um but sort of got it early in secondary school. At least back then it wasn't really a thing of like, you know, getting ostracized or anything for not having social media. Just some people did. And then it was a way to communicate with people like outside of school. Obviously, it sounds like like, you know, kids could still do that on WhatsApp or whatever, but, you know, then that means exchanging phone numbers and stuff rather than just finding each other. I mean, I don't think kids use Facebook anyway anymore, but um whatever, Instagram. Yeah. I think as well potentially, like I I'm a bit reluctant and I think a lot of like my friends and some people are of like if

you have to give your like ID or credit card information or whatever to prove you're over 16 or 18 to access these things going forward. Just like, you know, we've had years of people being quite anti like data collection. And now suddenly it's going to be like, okay, so people, you know, the government or whoever and not necessarily later, but just in the future as this is a, you know, going to be a thing. It's like, okay, so they'll be able to look at like everything I watch on YouTube, everything on like on Facebook, everything on like Instagram, like TikTok, whatever you're on. And just that's a lot of data if you're having to like prove with, you know, something that's, you know, not even say not anything dodgy, obviously, but just being able to track all that back to you. Like there's such a been such a big thing of like being able to opt out of like data collection and then it's like suddenly everyone's going to be forced into it. That's sort of one of the main criticisms I've seen from the adult side of it, although obviously it is kind of better for children not to be on these things.
I well I think though on that though

it's not it's not the government taking your data, it's for better or worse it's these companies that have to set up the stuff and I don't want to butcher his opinions on on this stuff. I well I know Oscar Clark I believe is is is against the implementation of this ban be in the past kind of different things. He he's mentioned that maybe the owners shouldn't just be on the the even the tech companies. You can actually just put the owners a bit on the platform holders to actually do this up front. At least if you're using online mobile so I have to take your ID or even banks because they also have all this infrastructure kind of in place to take your your details.
That is that is an interesting caveat there Aaron and it's interesting you bring up because it's you're essentially giving the power back to the people that a number of documentaries have been made of and it's well sort of established knowledge at this point that they collect our data. So how are they going to implement this? The only way I can think about it or the only way I can think they will do it is by putting in a piece of ID that proves that you're over 16 and the government isn't doing it but these companies these tech companies are doing it that love to mine and use our

data. So was there conversations about how that's going to work? I haven't actually looked into the deep details of it but [clears throat] are we just giving handing over more data to these tech companies?
What Discord I think had to do it was a it was known as a poor implementation though but I think they they they take it for verification but then I think it all gets deleted.
So they say.
In theory, yeah.
As there was a from from that there was a couple of other things that I should have mentioned as well. So obviously like we're saying about YouTube but I now I feel like I sound old so like TikTok like is is also potentially good good for learning and I think hopefully over time maybe there's an implementation that can happen where for example Roblox is implementing and I think I saw I want to say George Osborne talking about this, not the politician, the journalist. And he was and it's like so Roblox has rolled out the new account system where and I forget the age ranges. So under nines get have a certain account, under 16s have a certain account. So basically it's levels levels of access to social

socializing and what content you see and then 16 and above I think gets to access to other stuff. So you're gated in what you can see. I even I didn't agree with some of the gating that Roblox did. And I think the the problem is is if you if you engage before you do if you engage without a ban with these tech companies, there's going to be so much back and forth that last years and Microsoft already ended up in court. It's like it's not worth it. I think I think and I think this is not even me to say though. I I would hope that this is actually gives you a position of strength to negotiate with tech companies to say you're banned, but maybe you maybe you come and present a useful I don't know sorry not useful, a version of your product that alleviates all the key issues that we've cited as the reasons for the ban and those are like mainly around communications with like adults, but also, you know, I hate to use the word, but like making them addictive and like doom scrolling, endless scrolling, etc. And then maybe we can we'll just have better apps for for kids and apps

that stop kids from frankly feeling suicidal. And the last thing sorry is is that was one of the issues that people have said against this is that well people will still get around it. You you can just have a VPN on your phone which is exceptionally easy to do. I'm sure a lot of kids do it. I I don't think that's a good reason to not have a ban. I think it just creates a tiny bit of friction and I think as we all know in like the free to play gaming space, a tiny bit of friction is actually a massive hill to climb. And if you read productivity books by the way, it's like if you add a bit of friction into habits that you don't like, it actually makes things your brain doesn't like it anymore. And it gives you that split second to say like, "Oh, actually maybe I shouldn't do that." And whereas when things are really easy, it's just like, especially with social media, you just like turn it on all the time on your phone, just have a look. A bit of friction stops them. Right. Sorry, I was going to say something there. So, we'll move on to the next topic. We've got a couple more left. So, Aaron, what what else have you got?
Uh yes, so my other story this week is

about Wuthering Waves, which has been out for 6 months now on mobile outside of China. Uh so, it released on the 12th of December 2025. And over the half year since, so it's generated almost 100 million according to AppMagic estimates. Um but with a bit of a caveat, I would say. So, between Google Play and the App Store, it's made 94 million since December. But it is worth noting the game was already out in China last year. So, it's, you know, it already had an established audience there, which is the vast majority of the player base. So, if you were to discount Chinese spending, it's made 22 million in 6 months. Um so, China's obviously led spending. It's done 72 million in 6 months. The US has done 9 million. South Korea is about 2 million. Um so, yeah, quite clearly, you know, this is a a massive game in China that is making money elsewhere, but um mainly, I guess, in its home country,

which I think makes sense uh to some extent. Like there's a lot Like it's very like heavily culturally inspired by China. Um it takes place in 10th century China. Um there's a lot of like martial arts and like just weapons from the period. Actually, to celebrate 6 months, people could get a panda costume, which is obviously um like the national animal of China. Um so, it makes sense, I think, that between the kind of cultural influence and its home country anyway and being out there longer that it's like so much bigger over there. Um equally I'd say like 22 million overseas in 6 months is I know we talk about some games you know making hundreds of millions in that time but most of them don't like it is still doing well like it was one of the biggest games last year like maybe top five just from its China launch if I'm remembering correctly. So you know I'm sure it will be a kind of constant presence overseas but yeah thus far it's

not kind of doing uh record breaking numbers shall we say but I would take 22 million so
One thing I I wanted to mention on this that would really fascinate me is I talked to the team earlier this year and what surprised me so it's a NetEase subsidiary that makes the game and the team that basically came up came up with the idea and developed this massive kind of Genshin Impact-ish style game was it's like a really young team it's not like a team full of or even led by like some experienced I don't know older like 30 40s there's a really young team at the core of this game which I just fascinated me. Now obviously that's like that was like the core of the people that I spoke with in some certainly subsystems there's probably hundreds and hundreds of people that make this game of all ages for it but I I just fascinated me that the I guess the it seemed like the leadership team behind it were were very young so kudos to them for making a a really bold ambitious and successful game.
Right thanks Aaron so Marion round us out what have you got?
Well rounding our chat out I have a bit

of a fun analysis that came up on our site as well and that is feel like we've been talking about this game for ages just waiting in anticipation but I feel like it's got to be talked about and that is of course GTA 6 mobile spending. So there was a survey that went out this week First Look ran it. They asked 2,000 players based in the UK and the US about GTA 6 and the number that immediately jumped out to me was almost a third of them which is around 29% say they're going to spend less on other games when GTA 6 supposedly drops in November. So, I thought this story was really interesting because it's looking at the sort of reverberations of this massive game release. But, the funny part is of that 94% are still buying GTA. So, it's not that people are actually spending less on games. It's just like they're funneling everything, or so they say, towards this one game. But, this is the part that I think is really interesting and it's looking at the mobile games of it all. So, I think the easy take here is to just kind of say, "Oh, no. GTA is going to crush mobile." You might think that. Because gamers will say what they say. But, I don't think that's it. I think the first like guy made a smart

point. He said it's going to be very sort of dependent. So, your casual stuff like your Monopoly Goes, your Royal Matches, I think those are the people that we can all say with confidence aren't going to sit down for a game of 40-hour game of GTA anyway. But, I think it's the mid-core games and I think that will be interesting to see the mid-core game players, to the strategies, the RPGs, the shooters, when GTA shows up. I It's going to be really interesting to see where the intention and the money walks out the door, I guess, if I could put it in one way. And how that will have an effect on people that play those sort of games. And to top it off, to top that discussion off, I think it's really interesting to see how all these console and PC studios are moving their games out of November in anticipation of GTA 6. So, yeah. I think it's an interesting story and another fun one to kind of watch and what will it look like for those for those people that play those games.
Yeah, I I when I saw this, I was a bit like, I just can't imagine any any mobile game suffering from this launch. Like, I I don't even think it's data could even track. It'd be so negligible. But,

maybe. I I think there's crossover with all kinds of games like casual games as well. I don't like I think people that play GTA, like I as a survey of one, like I I I love like my casual mobile games. But, then I'll still like go deep into a a GTA 6. I don't think it would affect my personal like my spending plans from from mobile. It would just be like like in the survey. I just wouldn't spend it on X console game.
Mhm. You say that, and I agree with you cuz I'm with you there. It wouldn't really affect me. But then these 2,000 players that they asked, so is the 29% number just cuz surveys aren't always the most reliable cuz I found it a bit silly, too. But then they're obviously saying they're going to spend less on other games. So, is it just that they're just saying that in anticipation and excitement, or is it they actually intend to put these other games aside, albeit maybe for a little bit, to concentrate on GTA 6 or whatever it might be?
But that was 29% of all games, isn't it? It's not just mobile, that particular stat.
I think it's 29% of this of those surveyed.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. But I mean like so I think that

it sounds like it makes sense expect to spend less on games, but I on console PC, I would say. I don't think
You think mobile's safe?
I think mobile's safe. Cuz cuz mobile is quite a prediction. I'd be I'd be shocked if uh there's like a report come out that like year-over-year revenue's substantially down on mobile. I think that would
Or it's down by the exact amount that um be funny if it goes down the exact amount that the GTA 6 might.
Yeah.
But um I think I agree like if there may be like a negligible change cuz there probably are people who like budget a certain amount they can spend on games a month and obviously there's been talks for it must be years at this point of like is GTA 6 going to be $100 or pounds or whatever like if it does end up being really expensive, I'm sure there will be people who then think like well okay, I'm not going to buy this in-game currency this month because I've just spent however much GTA 6 ends up being. But yeah, I can't imagine it kind

of causing long-term issues or anything.
I think it's just the way you interact with mobile game. It's like something you've probably been playing for a while that is like built into your routine. And I'll just be surprised if GTA breaks that routine. We'll see. We'll see. All right, that brings us to the end. So basically now that brings us to the end of of the Pocket Gamer dot biz week in mobile games. So, thank you every Thank you very much everyone for tuning in and listen to this one. And thank you very much Maryam, Aaron for all your insights today. That was great.
Yeah, thank you.
Yeah, thank you so much, guys.
And yeah, we'll we'll see you all on the next one. So, have a great weekend. See you soon. Goodbye.
Bye.