Playtika for sale, data nuggets, Ilkka's BAFTA, Netflix Playground, game writers on mobile, 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. Here we go. Slightly different week this week. So, we're going to do the podcast a little bit different. We're going to do the hard industry news up front taken from the data, jobs, and new games digest that we run every Monday, Wednesday, Friday. And then the second half will be a review of the stuff we are publishing as part of critics' week, which is a special week of content in which I have commissioned five really good game writers to talk about the mobile games they play every day but never really get to write about. So, we have Christian Donlan, Chris Scullion, Lewis Gordon, Alice Bell, and Matthew Reynolds. All terrific writers who never really get to write about mobile stuff. So, this is their week to

shine. And I'm going to talk about those articles in the second half of this podcast. But for now, let's get into data, jobs, and new games. The big industry news story of the week is really Playtika and it's strategic review, which effectively means it is up for sale again. So, this is not the first time as I note in the data digest article, Playtika [snorts] has announced a strategic review with a view to a sale or some other form of transaction. They basically put out the same press release back in February 2022. In the intervening years, it tried to buy Rovio, if you remember that. Did not succeed, but it did end up buying Di Streams maker Superplay and InPlay Labs makers of Animals and Coins, but despite all that, it appears to be up

for sale. Stock-analysis.com estimates that Playtika would have an estimated enterprise value of 2.7 to 2.9 billion dollars based on its latest financials. Market cap is about a billion, but that is down dramatically. The same website says that since January 15th, 2021, Playtika's market cap has decreased from basically 13 billion to 1.17 billion, a 91% drop in value. Morgan Stanley has been appointed to act as financial advisor for any potential transaction. So, anyone with a few billion knocking around could buy Playtika. Its various casual games, including Best Fiends, June's Journey, Pearl's Peril, etc., etc., as well as a few pretty successful

social casino games, which we you would assume are probably the crown jewel in the portfolio. Those Superplay games are doing pretty well, too. So, Dice Dreams, Domino Dreams, Disney Solitaire, of course, in that portfolio, as well. So, we shall see what happens with Playtika, but, yes, very much seems to be up for sale. AppMagic has released its Q1 estimates for the top earning games by in-app purchase. Honor of Kings, of course, top with 471 million dollars in in-app purchases for the first 3 months of the year. Last War: Survival, PUBG Mobile, Whiteout Survival, Royal Match make up the top five. Monopoly Go, Roblox, Gossip Harbor, Candy Crush Saga King Shot make up the top 10. The notable risers and fallers include Monopoly Go. That is down a few

spots. Gossip Harbor continues to rise. Candy Crush Saga and King Shot are down. PUBG Mobile is the biggest winner in the first 3 months of 2026. Up nine spots compared to the previous quarter. There's also a very detailed Q1 report from Areem, the M&A advisory firm that says IAP earnings are basically flat for Q1 2026 compared to last year, 20.5 billion estimated in-app purchase earnings for the first 3 months of this year. Loads more data in there, including some estimates on the top games, Last War Survival leading there ahead of Whiteout Survival, Honor of Kings, and Monopoly Go. I think perhaps most intriguingly publishers headquartered in China accounted for the greatest share of in-app purchase revenue during the 12-month period up to March

31st. Not a surprise, but still interesting to note. US-based publishers followed with 10.9 billion spent in that period, but that is down 14% year-on-year. Japan, flat. Singapore, up 22%. Turkey is also up 28% year-on-year. So, as you would imagine, Turkey and China grabbing the headlines there. There's also some data on M&A activity in Q1 2026 taking in Savvy's 6 billion acquisition of Moonton. Scopely's purchase of Loom for 1 billion. Elsewhere in Data Digest, there's Easy Brain topping 2.5 billion lifetime downloads. Misplay has completed its 5.3 million-ish acquisition of the gaming rewards platform Connected Rewards from Mobivity. UA startup Set,

with two Ts, has raised 30 million. That is on top of 27 million it raised in its Series A. Mag Interactive net sales fell 4%. Last Asylum, the new game from 37 Games, is performing pretty well. Released on February 28th, it's earned 7.4 million from 6.5 million downloads since launch, according to AppMagic. And another AppMagic slice of data, MapleStory earned $160 million since since launch in November and is the top-grossing RPG of 2026 so far. More granular detail to enjoy and some lovely graphs in this week's data digest on the site. That runs every Wednesday. Have a look. Couple of other little news nuggets that

I didn't write up for the site because they're already covered elsewhere. I have nothing to add. But, Ilkka Paananen, CEO and co-founder of Supercell, is getting the BAFTA Fellowship. This is effectively BAFTA's highest cultural honor. You know, the likes of Miyamoto, Kojima have got this one in the past. And it does kind of explain why Google Play is sponsoring this year's BAFTA Game Awards a little bit. I thought that was an odd choice of sponsor when that was announced, but now a mobile guy is getting the top award, that kind of makes more sense. And the The bit of news, which will be in the new game digest on Friday. But those of you in the UK may have missed cuz it was announced on Monday, a bank holiday. Is that Netflix has launched its own dedicated kids gaming app, Netflix Playground. That is out now on iOS and Android.

And I think is a smart move. Kids market does not get as much press as all the other bits of the market and it's actually a really valuable part of the games ecosystem. So Netflix making a play to be the trusted source of kids games, I think it's pretty smart and with the subscription element to it, too. Considering most people are already Netflix members, this seems like a no-brainer for a lot of parents including myself. So yeah, good move from Netflix, I think. Xsolla connects developers with the resources they [music] need to build, fund, launch, and monetize their mobile games globally. With Xsolla 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, Xsolla provides the tools [music] for developers to focus on what's most important, creating great games. Visit xsolla.com [music] to learn more. That's xsolla.com. What's going on in the jobs digest this week? Moves at Scopely, Google, Crazy Labs, Small Giant, Griffin, Funday, Stillfront, Lude, Miniclip, King, Activision Blizzard, and Supercell. It would be quite tedious for me to read all of this out here on the podcast. Have a look at the website. A quick look at the new game digest from last Friday. Couple of things worth mentioning in here. Scopely has launched Monopoly Go Chat, a new sort of companion app for Monopoly Go that allows players to chat and probably access some web shop action. A Rec Room has closed, which was one of the early VR {slash} metaverse contenders that didn't quite make it. Monster

Hunter Outlanders, a Timi Studio and Capcom collab, is [snorts] edging closer to launch. There's a second beta coming up for that one. The Division Resurgence is out now. Petite Planet, higher versus crack at the Animal Crossing market. There's a new closed beta coming for that um later this month for iOS, Android, and PC. And a deep cut for more mature listeners, Chucky Egg. Might be just a British thing, but this is a retro classic platformer. This is even before my time, but I think [snorts] it was on the Spectrum or something. That is launching soon on Apple devices. There's a lot of Apple Arcade games coming as well, and there's also news of Elder Scrolls Blades and Marvel Mystic Mayhem closing, which is fun. Let's do a quick bit on Critics Week as well, shall we? I did one of these in

January, and people seemed to like it. It also gives lots of game critics that I like the excuse to write about mobile games that they do play practically every day, but never get to actually write about. You've got Donlan, one of the great game critics, saying that Brawl Stars Showdown mode is better than Fortnite. I think that's notable. I tend to agree, actually. When Brawl Stars came out, I was working at Apple and was responsible for lot of the editorial side of that launch. And when I was playing it before launch and afterwards, Showdown did strike me as the most compelling bit of the game, actually. The other parts of it do take a little bit more explaining. But Battle Royale, as Donlan says in that article, doesn't need explaining at all. It's just kill or be killed. Last one standing. And I too like the

simplicity of that. That's where you got Matthew Reynolds who says, "Monster Hunter Go is actually better than Pokémon Go and is arguably Niantic's best game." This got picked up on Reddit a little bit by that game's community and clearly, because Monster Hunter is naturally a slightly more hardcore franchise, you can see that Niantic's had the chance to add some slightly more complex mechanics into the game and Matthew does a good job of explaining why this makes it a superior game for people who are more inclined to play slightly deeper monster collecting games compared to Pokémon Go. Alice Bell writes really nicely about a Picross game that she plays sometimes over 3 hours a day. This is exactly what I mean by mobile games played by game critics that are

never written about. I'd never heard of this game before, but she plays it practically every day for hours and it's an interesting piece about ADHD and self-medicating. And there's also my old colleague and friend Chris Scullion who is a games media legend and Nintendo legend. He writes really nicely about Pocket Card Jockey I and why that game is so compelling, although he is worried it's going to disappear from Apple Arcade like so many other games have in the last few years. I think that he's even got an interesting stat in that article about how many Apple Arcade games have left. I think it's over 170 from memory. And then you got Lewis Gordon, a culture and games writer. He's got bylines everywhere, New York Times, The Verge,

etc., etc. And he talks about New York Times games and why after spending hours hooked on the likes of Candy Crush Saga, Pokémon Go, Super Mario Run, Grindstone, which is a deep cut on Apple Arcade and is absolutely fantastic.
[snorts]
He's moved on from mobile gaming and writes really nicely about the mixed emotions that come with mobile games and their ability to suck you in and keep you playing. So, really good stuff Critics Week. You know, obviously a big reason I do these special weeks is also to take a little bit of time off and look after my children. And actually I'm on my way back to do some babysitting right now. So, let's call it a day there. Thank you for listening. Normal service resumes next week. Bye-bye.