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Create free accounthello and welcome to the Pocket Gamer Bears podcast my name is Rick Kelly I am the editor of our game hobbies and this is our second ever podcast and hopefully we'll be able to record this one because we are constantly beleaguered by tech issues because this is our first real time ever truly trying this we are going to be talking about mobile games as is our want and we will be discussing some of the bigger stories some of the lighter stories and our own thoughts and feelings on everything I am joined this week as always by Kaylee Parcells in hi and Matthew Ford hello how is everybody doing we all good have we all gone insane yet from being inside all the time I know I have I have very exciting news just about missed the outside I'll be honest it feels like the Oh feels like just a walk to a shop be able to buy something without having to stand in regimented lines I have gone so wild that I have got my web comes over there
I've got a new tattoo oh it's very damper it's a little bear can't connect how did you get this then it's a temporary tattoo ah it will come off in the shower all excited I know yes new mommy stick and poke with just a pen in the needle just jamming it into my arm it's impressive if that was true just just to feel something as the the meme it goes no is anyone else done anything particularly wild lately that you happy to share with the group I don't know temporary tattoo is up there I've been doing like still going for runs and stuff when I can finish Final Fantasy Final Fantasy is amazing I'd recommend that it's just really a wild thing to do is to sit down and play some video games which is what we do all the time as video games journalists
that's tournament Final Fantasy 7 it's the field 40 hours later here we are but that's not mobile games so we're gonna move swiftly on from all this nonsense I don't even know what a Final Fantasy is but I do know this is a great segue I do know a thing or two about animal crossing pocket camp sonic forces blasting through its download figures now 50 million what's big we've got cooking mama drama continues we got Epic Games that's they're doing a partnership with Travis Scott which starts now GDQ so much news to get through and hopefully we will without me crashing out and dying once again but we will we will start with Apple has started to roll out its app stores of 20 new countries so specifically its rolled out to Cameroon Democratic Republic of Congo the Ivory Coast cupon Libya Morocco Rwanda Zambia Afghanistan Iraq the Maldives Myanmar the Balkans Oceania
and a few more those last two were regions not countries so there'll be places within those so the app store is now available in 175 countries globally or it will be as they begin the rollout and I had no idea this was coming mmm did anyone they don't wake up the other day in the thing I think today is gonna be the day that Apple decides to roll out into Myanmar it was a bit of a surprise drops to be honest I don't think there was anything given ahead of time to indicate they were planning this but I guess it makes sense and this momentum as we're in the pandemic and everything they want more people playing games that's true but I mean like people have to go out and buy those phones so my assumption would be the iPhones aren't particularly you know huge in the places where they don't have the App Store because why would you buy one if you can't get access to the App Store that's the whole point of having an iPhone trollese other than the status symbol of owning one is to download all those great wonderful apps yeah I mean
they can all dream still Catalan there's still making them I think they were saying obviously productions delayed a bit it's just I don't know what going outside is like because I'm not allowed so right my sort of question to you to discuss on this further and cheer over a bit more and obviously like iPhones are expensive and I've had an expensive an app store this goes on both and these regions that there I don't want to make generalizations or anything but they're not exactly like known for being you know wealthy parts of the world is they do you think this is going to lead to like Apple pushing it's it's like iPhone essays and cheaper products are we just gonna see is this just for a very small subset of customers in these places who are still gonna be buying the more expensive like phones what do we think Kayla you you were nodding briefly call them I think that they could what they're gonna have to if they want to get their money's worth out of these countries you need
you need to at least give the cheaper option hmm cuz like you say don't want to generalize it but they are these countries are not as wealthy as other parts of the world and so to launch a thousand-pound phone when they have got 600 pound models it would be would be silly really yeah not many people I feel like by it I phones out right anyway a lot of them are you know subscription plans and everything you pay whatever it is 40 comes a month 50 dollars 60 whatever it is so I imagine dog start implementing similar offers and then you know tailor it as they see fit that's true i I don't know how much that take there's gonna be even on those though because like usually in these kinds of regions you see a lot more of the Android uptake and that's because those phones still commit it like $100 or less I let my I've got an Android phone that's $100 well you know hundred pounds and it's perfect and it is
everything I need it to and I just wonder if like even like six times that amount is gonna be out of the reach for a lot of people I'm just wondering if people are even getting like once a stump up for that kind of subscription otherwise you say like people do anywhere in in countries that are considered wealthy so yeah a be interesting to see I mean it's you know it's just expand it you know expansion isn't it you know that you know you make it more available in more countries more chance you get someone products and that's true no it's all about revenue at the end of the day hmm yes and and all the money that they're really gonna make is from well they make most of their money from from the vices but as we move into these pandemic times and number of devices start falling and they're not gonna be able to sell as many services are going to be even more valuable that's why you've got Apple music joining it as well as well as the App Store so I think it's yeah it's definitely our going to be continuing to to focus more of their efforts on the digital offerings that
they can and taking their percentage cuts from that to try and keep their profits yeah I mean Apple did chip I think it's something like 2.5 million iPhones in China last month so people are still buying stuff yeah I guess the the yeah I guess in China or that's sort of behind where the rest of the world is in terms of well ahead rather in terms of the pandemic curve so yeah interesting to see anyway like where this all goes yeah it's really one my room just just one a window and can't open a window because people outside are always shouting thank you sure I think absolutely not as not while this podcast is about and eg BAE's after dark what you to do in your own streams no this is very much PG biz but during the day very much safe for work moving swiftly on we are going
to talk about animal crossing pocket cam now I know me and Matthew are huge Animal Crossing fans fairly certain we spoke about it on the last podcast even if it wasn't what we were supposed to be talking about any any excuse at all which is why we will be discussing the fact that we go in touch with our friends at sensor tower to find out more about how Animal Crossing pocket camp is doing and we found that in terms of downloads downloads who've risen by nearly 800 percent since New Horizons launched that launched on March 20th and the game has now seen eight point seven million downloads between March 20th and April 12th which is pretty staggering for a game that was doing okay but not exactly fantastically I did have a question for this and are people actually going to sticker to keep playing it though is the question because I know the main the main sort of thing I thought process I
have here is that Nintendo is doing a lot of pushing for if you download the game and then you do this quick signup thing you will get exclusive items in pot in new horizons that you are that you can't get otherwise so you unlock a whole new menu of new items are people just gonna log on and download it or are they gonna stick around for a bit and play the game I don't know if anybody's still even playing pocket camp here I I think potentially both I mean because for one I am one of them people and I downloaded it again and went on I mean I'm telling a slight lie here me my apartment all downloads it Jim Tom she got on got all the rewards when you link the two switch version you get some extra and products and in-game and I couldn't get past the main menu because it just kept crashing I am on an iPhone 7s so it's like I feel it's not massively old well it's not the most modern good work yeah yeah but I think
I'll say it just entices people to go back which is obviously shown by these download figures the popularity of I'm crossing everybody's talking about it everyone on the web's either you know stuck inside playing it so therefore you know you will get your fix and the other way you can then people will jump into it play for a bit maybe just get the rewards and they go oh let's play this for a bit see if I like it and then maybe stick around but I think a lot of people did that on launch and do the stick around so I can't really see it happening this time either I guess it's interesting because it could even act as like a side game for people who are playing not new horizons as like power players and they reach a point where it's like okay I played for like three hours or something deaf like that there's nothing really more I can do here I'm gonna stop and then they go or I can kind of keep want to play on or crossing so they'll just pick up the phone and start playing that some more I guess that's part of the reason why if they're trying to encourage people to go back I mean it Kaylee if you did you play Pocket cam but all is it shown any
interest it's all into the game I've never played any Animal Crossing game I've not even played hockey camp I've not played anything well would this okay that's a new question then if you did have the switch game would dis encourage you to download the game would you be part of these statistics to get some extra items oh yeah to get the extra items yeah but I would also be one of the ones that got the items and then ran yeah I think that's fair but like III view I played it quite a bit when it first came out so I'm kind of curious I don't know how the the onboarding process has changed if it like if they're just sort of like aware of the fact that people are just kind of download it for the first time get the rewards and move on or if like they're gonna you gonna have to get stuck into the tutorial first and get through a load of the content and then it sort of like drags you wouldn't you just say oh I've got to get the rewards I'm gonna get the rewards actually I'm enjoying the game and why stick around for a bit longer yeah I think the main difference
is it's not as fun as switch and I'm a crossing just because it's a lot of how to put it it's a lot of just don't ask because the person I'm not crossing he obviously the whole game we solved all tasks in a way you know chopping wooden on that but all the what are the tickets you had in potty camp the what new commands there switch yeah no there was there was no tickets no new tickets yeah and yet because there was a whole system behind that and then there was lots of people that weren't happy with how that system was working how the amount of work he had to do to get them and everything and I seem to cross over a little bit into the recent Easter event that happened in our bunny event for legal purposes so yes delays in animal crossing on switch which many people hate it you know there was outrage on the web which I realized it's very common but you know people were really unhappy you know the tasks and
everything very repetitive it took over the whole of a whole daily experience and that is what pocket camp is to some extent so not the best thing I I am I'm a polka camp apologist through and through I saw a lot of people you know there is a lot of like mainstream plaint but you actually sort of dig into the people who are still playing it they are playing it and they are spending a bunch of money I mean what was what was the revenue figures of it recently like revenue jumped eight million dollars over the past that does 2020 revenue so far is eight million dollars and it's accumulates it 149 million dollars overall I mean that's probably I don't know I was gonna say that's probably more money than New Horizons will ever make but that is not true because New Horizons says we make that already yeah New Horizons reportedly saw five million copies digitally it's has seen its biggest ever it's like the third ever third biggest Nintendo launch physically
in the US outsold everything else in the UK and Japan so yeah that's maybe not true but that's what was the crazy stuff from super data but they're like it's the biggest launch ever is was the is the highest number of sales for a game in a month yeah yeah yeah digitally so it's not five million copies which is out selling like to call of duty games which is pretty wild so yeah okay I I take I take back the pocket camp for make more money in there New Horizons although it has the potential because it has free to play mechanics and can get there and that's why the intend Oh sticks with it and it is the second best performing mobile game they have in their catalog and that's all we're gonna say on the matter because it is proof that the game is not as bad as everyone likes to complain about and people do like the fortune cookies I don't care what you say it's
not true moving on to other staggering figures recently we learned that sonic forces the mobile version not the console version has got 50 million downloads globally currently standing at 4.2 million dollars in lifetime revenue that's not a lot from 50 million downloads that's I can't do math can anyone do maths not on the spot no spot well yes it's a nice little success story I feel like the downloads and everything and I know the revenue is not highest but it does seem to have quite a passionate fan base from everything I've seen and you know and the sonic forces Brown from the start was pretty um not great let's say yeah you know I I'm urine and of course a pocket camp apologies I'm a sonic apologist so a so a sonic apologist is just a crossing and I played sonic
forces on console like it was just terrible like it's superb I believe you mean superb it was like three hours I was a full game or anything and I love so many something games unleashed colors generations but the mobile game they've seemed to have just grown it over time and put a lot of love into it so it's nice to see they are getting you know strong feedback I mean especially if you look on the App Store and it's a like that reviews are a decent number where as opposed to you know force is on Metacritic I think such as 57 out of 100 on Metacritic according to our school yeah no I actually quite like sonic forces it was originally called slowing forces speed battle which makes it less confusing when you talk about it but now I guess it's just called sonic forces yeah it's it's quite a fun little endless runner but they did it they did enough with it to make it like an interesting almost mid core multiplayer game while still having very casual mechanics that they were used to
developing from Sonic - although Sonic - continues to be like perform better says here it's ten point four million dollars for Sonic - I mean it does it was released four years early as like a game tonight nearly six years old at this point but sitting still continues to drag in people ok game yeah yeah yeah it's great and it's a good hard light they actually have a big arcade machine of Sonic - in the front room and they let me they let me play on it and it was great Kaleigh I'm afraid to ask but have you ever played Sonic forces on mobile what did you think I much preferred it to the console version of the game because you have good taste yes I love Sonic for years anything sonic I will try it at some point you can guarantee that fair enough you know when people are always like how does Sonic keep selling like were them people it's just us three buying it over
and over okay that is true I did pick up sonic forces in the PS Plus thing and get it downloaded again not mobile we just keep straying off mobile we're very bad at this yeah I just said would say following the mobile vision you know the marketing has been strong and the Italians and one of the most recent ones with the sonic movie coming out and which was a massive I feel like own goal missed well open goal missed by Sega was they had no brand new Sonic game to go alongside hmm the release of the movie so like one thing that they tied in the movie version of Sonic the Hedgehog and made him playable in the game which was a nice little thing yeah and he looks grotesque still terrifying I did also do some Matson's is probably wrong I can't do math it looks like they made about eight cents of every download yeah
unless I've done my math wrong I'm gonna do this reversed how do you calculate maths it's always one of the things that you always have you people that you know you top 10% all over that will spend ten to fifteen dollars or whatever and then most people will play it for free yeah and I think it is only supported by IPs there's no ads or anything in the game so it is fair that they would be making I mean you know 4.2 million dollars still isn't to be sniffed at that's that's gonna keep it's only going so it's not exactly a small amount that still I would say not quite what they would be hoping for from a big Sonic game critical reception it's all positive which yeah it's true for a change more than likely speaking of games that have bad reviews yes a segue that works and cooking mama cook star I think we talked about this in the last podcast we
did because it is one of my favorite stories of them it's giving me such joy and happiness so there is all sorts of legal drama going on around cooking mama at this point in time and we've now had official so this has all happened last week but we missed a podcast so we're going to talk about it now because it makes me happy the official IP owner of cooking office create came out and said that they had never authorized the launch of cooking mobile cook star because they didn't think it was up to par they had never said that there was a ps4 version of the game allowed to be made and they will be looking into every legal angle to try and stop this game from being released or continued to be released because the publisher Planet Entertainment is still selling the game and retail copies are still available is just no longer on the eShop Planet Entertainment is now fought back and said that the office Korea actually did go the give the go-ahead for several detailed game designs in 2019 which is not today so however much
that sticks in court to be seen and yeah they claim that they have every right to be selling the game I mean does anyone care at this point is this dragging on too long it's wild this story is it just keeps going there I am running yeah it's true is it's a nice distraction from the pains of the world is to watch because I think we talked about this on on the pocket game of the calm podcast with James and his kind of point was you know this this kind of legal action probably does happen a bit behind the scenes we just don't see it so it's always fun and interesting when it spills out into the real world and everyone has to starve watches people air their dirty laundry especially when it's the game so low stakes as cooking mama cook stuff a game that nobody knew was coming out until developers tried to stop it from coming
out yeah a day called see behind the curtain for a change and I mean it's interesting that you know cooking mama was going to come out and in my soul reasonably well it was quite popular and well now it's become this massive collector's edition where scouring the web and eBay and whatnot just to get a copy because people think in like a decade or so it's gonna be worth you know it is remarkably easy to get a coffee actually which makes me worry because I picked it up thinking maybe this is gonna be a highly requested item in the future oh no it's temporarily out of stock on Amazon now hey go you're rich I got that I got in beforehand there is a fantastic review on Amazon it gives it two stars and it just says not the best but an investment not the greatest game but first just a thought it might be rare one day which is exactly my thoughts on the game as well having having played it for about 20 minutes the other day it is awful and
you nobody should be playing it I I was sat there thinking the whole time yeah I can understand why off is create wanted block this this is not is it similar to of it to the other releases yes so I don't remember the other cooking moments particularly well but it is that kind of like structured minigames as you build up to end a recipe but like the artwork is really weird and it feels really cheap and mamma is some of the things she says just make me feel uncomfortable she really regularly says to flow you should have your own game and it's like yeah probably be better than this you know but the cool thing is that you can take photos of your creations and then share them on Twitter and that's that's like the only good thing about the game is because you can also like draw things on it out of source and I like that because you can do inappropriate things and they can't stop you because I am a base human speaking of inappropriate where are we going with this where we go
I've got to work on my segues and well so I mean yeah Epic Games has partnered with the u.s. rapper Travis Scott first of all do any of us if any of us ever listen to Travis Scott just know I never heard of him before this yeah so I'm aware of his his output but never actually listened to his stuff but like looking back over his catalogue a lot of it has some fun language in it particularly the titles which I'm very excited by is Travis Scott really the person they should be going with unless no I wouldn't I said I don't know his back catalogue at all I have no idea what his works like but and I can't really comment that but he sounds very popular and it's you know it's a parody
it's a good get for an epic games that he's going to be releasing a brand new song within fault night and so he's got a debute it there which is you know it's again epic and for like doing stuff that nobody else is doing in games that is true but he does have a song called houston fornication hmm and I don't you know I'm not a prude but for tonight is technically like a you know a children's game pre yes it's for it's for everybody and it just feels weird to me that like they're getting a rapper who is not hugely mainstream as far as I'm aware but still well-known but still doesn't have some sort of dodgy lyrical content yeah I imagine the work we put in that particular song front and center you know I think they'll be he's like any any like celebrities these days they've all got their like skeletons in the closet it's just one of them things business isn't at the wane so I just
think there's other artists even rappers that they could have picked that like I've heard the Travis Scott and nothing against him if another game that was all that was adults was doing this by all means you'd be the perfect pick but for a game that's um let's face it a lot of kids play it because you in an art style and everything but then they also had Deadpool in there and Deadpool is definitely not for kids so who even is the fallout for anymore and anyway so as a wider topic to get off the fat they were all old and don't know what music is anymore um is this the future of concerts because we will all have to face it like large gatherings are not going to happen for the neck for the foreseeable future and so concerts and events like that just a kind of out the window is this gonna be something that we see more and more people going into and signing up for and are we interested in going to
these concerts so kayla is this something that you would if if if fortnight had a band or singer on or whatever that you particularly looked would you download it and go check that out probably not on fortnight like site web cyberpunk coming out as an example singer Grimes it's gonna be in it like I would um yeah I would check out come on so if she was doing that specifically a cyberpunk it's interesting so it's not like for you it's you wouldn't be drawn to a game because of the artists in it you still need to be interested in the game yeah I've got a little East a bit of an interest in the game I'm a lot more likely to do it and I also like Grimes as well so for me that's like perfect so yeah she did a concert because she's a character in the game by all means I'd watch it if not if Grimes was turning up in fortnight no there's nothing wrong with for Mikey I just I
avoid fortnight like the plague like fortnight and my problem with it is whenever after redownload it's like 100 gigabytes yeah I mean on the phone as well you know I've already mentioned the trouble I've up in everyone with hockey camp so I imagine my phone will explode if I don't but I give concerts ago I think it's cool you know the dude DJ marshmallow last year yeah which you know it's more the event and everything everyone's talking about it being part of that experience especially in times like this it's cool to have a social and things like this you know it goes a long way but strewing is a good idea I do think it's a good idea I think for me like I would actually go into fortnight and download for night if there was a band I really wanted to see because American football did a gig in Minecraft recently and I would have killed to have gotten to that but it was a 4:00 in the morning where is this the fault no thing that they've done which i think is really great is that they are doing like
multiple events force everybody to join in so there's America there's one date in the Americas there's two for the EU and Middle East and there's no tuna two Americas in the Middle East and then Asia and Oceania have all got there are times and I think that's really great I think that's that's possibly if again if if you can agree to get like an artist to do multiple concerts I think that's good that that's a smart move I think that's what's gonna draw people in yeah I was gonna ask them because they would DJ marshmallow did it he was like hooked in and I think they put loves technology on amen and like what's it called like portrayed him in the game like was it called lace candymen there we go is that what they're gonna do for Travis Scott like five times they're gonna Scout him every time or is it one concert and then there's coming yeah I must um you have to assume it's gonna be pre-recorded and then in that case you're probably gonna get a lot of people like streaming yet and unless they can have like five different
concerts with different songs and different performances and all that kind of thing I think a lot of this obviously is going to be lost in people streaming on Twitch and everybody just watching that and watching the play backs of that rather than actually joining in the game I didn't see yeah you've raised an interesting point about like you have to provide enough variety in the in the performances to actually make people want to join them because just being there is isn't enough for people these days because you can just stream stuff 100 percent yeah yeah give me Foo Fighters I don't have a segue for this next story but we are running close to time on zoom so danganronpa one of my favorite game series of all time is finally coming to mobile it's skipping every other console it's only been available on PS Vita and up until recently when it's released on ps4 all three games are going to be released worldwide on mobile with new options including event galleries and all this kind of stuff to encourage
people to go back and download again there's also going to be a crossover event with identity V which is horror game by Nettie's it's like an asymmetric 4v1 thing does anyone care about danganronpa I've never played one Kaylie tell me more about why you care my dad Rompin of the reason that Matt just said I've not actually played it but I've heard of it and I've wanted to play it for ages and coming to mobile yay yeah I think is I think it's a great idea it's gonna hit like a huge audience and it is a fairly slow paced visual novel and that seems to work quite well on on mobile like visual novels on mobile are just a huge genre as we've seen with episode and all that kind of stuff so I think it's interesting to you know be skipping other consoles and just making the jump to mobile although I guess in because it's it's mostly it's very Japanese so that kind of audience which regularly plays a lot more get hardcore games on mobile is gonna really dig into this I
think I'm also excited about what else they're going to announce cuz they've got more that was their first announcement for their 10th anniversary they're gonna announce more stuff on future streams starting from May and I'm super excited to see what comes from that I'm just going to quickly move on to our final story and we're going to look at one of our soft launch games because we do maintain a regular list of all the games that are in soft launch or all the big games at least I'm sure there's some we miss frog mind the supercell own developer of games like Rumble stars are back with Rumble hockey which has been soft launch I can't remember where Matthew you added this to the list please do tell me about Rumble hockey and where it is lodged I don't remember what my words last I think it was a Philippines to be honest it's normally Philippines and everything's laughter wrong actually it was first launched in Canada Finland Australia Spain Romania and France on both iOS and Android I do have I was just testing you
and you failed so you know no it's perfect they are fun games and it just seems like a it's they started rumble stars a few years ago and it's basically you play these loads of animals and the pain football and it's a it's just a very quick fast-paced game lots of them lots fun I I played quite a bit of it I know a few staff members are here and I've tried it as well and just seems like know that they found a formula that works and you know it's smart going to slight spot market at times like this again and going into hockey doesn't you know there's not that many hockey games I feel like either especially or with animals no none that like spring to memory at least I don't know if the NHL has really made it to mobile yet although I'm sure that that would be just a matter of time really yeah the big one I can remember is the one enough arcade and recently remember name of it no idea what it's called but
I know exactly what you're talking yeah this rumble hockey does actually look fun though I've looked at the trailer obviously can't get my hands on it yet because it's not available here but the trailer looks really interesting it is very fast-paced you're sort of flinging your team around to pick up the puck and then shoot it into the opponent's goals so they'll be very short matches very high-energy very colorful always good a sort of question like does this mean are we gonna see like even more Rumble games I think Rumble is as a brand isn't great but I think they're building sort of an aesthetic that I think could be really interesting I don't know what if anybody else has made any opinions on is Rumble is Rumble gonna be the next big thing well why do you think Rumble as brands not great cuz I mean you've got Rumble stars and you've got Rumble hockey and then you can go our rumble basketball or whatever like that but you couldn't just refer to it as the Rumble series because Rumble is just doesn't work as a name for me let's get ready to rumble ready to
rumbles already as a game on the ps2 and it was boxing it was bad whereas so the other thing as well as like as much as they have animals and it's cute it was a similar thing with crossroad where it's across your road obviously it was a hugely popular game and then they didn't they tried to sort of turn it into a franchise recently by making like a weird like platforming sequel I think it's Crossley Tower across zero towers than like that and it just had like characters but it was literally just chicken and cow and unicorn and all those kind of stuff and there's no like as much as you've got Tigers and hippos and bears and stuff like you can't turn those into people unless they've given them names and character masks and everything yeah it's like with the Angry Birds the Angry Birds recognize that very Rovia very early on redbone choking session exactly and they've all got names and characteristics and personalities now whereas I think any other sort of animal based brand really needs to start focusing on its characters and what
they're gonna be if they're the same animals in Rumble hockey as it is in Rumble stars and then they could build upon that I mean but from what my remember I don't think they had names tonight the might don't be on say I didn't play the Lord's but he hasn't stuck with me I think that's that's one points of it you know against it the names haven't stuck with me if there are any yeah I think it's they've got a really I think their games are great because frog mind also did bad land and and maka gamer over the years as a loved bad land Const consistently so you know I think they do is fantastic it's just that building a brand which is which is what has been so-called super selling in building like Clash of royale from clash of clans like I don't think clash Royale would have had pretty much the same amazing impacts straight out of the gate that it would have had if it wasn't for the clash yeah the clash of clans brand being part of it that's that yeah cool well I'm glad we all agree outside of Rumble hockey have we got a particular spot we'd like to see this area second you're no fun boxing I'd
love to have a tiger they go let's get ready to rumble that'd be perfect see I would actually be great there you go frog mind if you're watching deck in the past yeah feel free to send a check to Matthew for that one right we are gonna have to wrap up because we are zoomed limit okay timer just keeps on counting down thank you so much for joining me and for joining us for talking about the games on the mobile devices that's what we do but we do it a bit more seriously or we would if my brain wasn't slowly deteriorating from the fact that I can't go anywhere so now I'm kicking things over and it's gonna be terrible without enough thank you so much yes it's a goodbye from Matthew goodbye it's a goodbye from Kaylee I've always wanted to do that it's like University Challenge goodbye from me please do check out bone game without bids for all your news and do check back next week
for hopefully the next edition of the podcast so long as technical issues do not continue to Mars see you later
Apple has significantly expanded its global footprint by launching the App Store in 20 additional countries across Africa, the Middle East, and Asia, bringing its total reach to 175 nations. This strategic move aims to diversify service-based revenue streams, though long-term success in these emerging markets remains contingent upon the availability of more affordable hardware. Simultaneously, the mobile gaming landscape is experiencing notable shifts in user acquisition and engagement, exemplified by the 800% surge in Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp downloads following the console release of New Horizons. While cross-promotional rewards successfully drive initial interest, industry analysts remain cautious regarding the long-term retention of these users.
The industry continues to navigate complex challenges regarding intellectual property and evolving entertainment formats. A high-profile legal dispute between Office Create and Planet Entertainment over the unauthorized release of Cooking Mama: Cookstar underscores the critical importance of licensing oversight. Meanwhile, the success of virtual events, such as the Travis Scott concert in Fortnite, signals a potential shift in how brands engage audiences. However, the viability of these digital experiences depends on the integration of unique, interactive content rather than passive streaming, as developers seek to replicate the cultural impact of traditional live performances.
Market performance remains varied across different genres and titles. While Sonic Forces has achieved significant scale with 50 million downloads, its modest revenue highlights the ongoing tension between user acquisition and monetization. Similarly, the expansion of established franchises like Danganronpa into mobile markets contrasts with the challenges faced by new intellectual properties. Titles such as Rumble Hockey demonstrate that while fast-paced, high-quality gameplay is essential, the absence of a strong, distinct character identity often prevents new games from achieving the enduring franchise status enjoyed by industry leaders like Clash Royale.
The games and companies this document names on the inner ring, other documents about them on the outer one. Select a cover to see it up close and open it in a new tab; drag to move, pinch or Ctrl + scroll to zoom.
PocketGamer.biz · 2026
PocketGamer.biz · 2026
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