PocketGamer.biz Podcast Episode #3: Jens Begemann leaves Wooga, Jagex gets sold again, and more!

hello and welcome to the Pocket Gamer dot beers podcast my name is Rick Cowley the editor of baka gamers and this is our weekly chat on Zoom to discuss the fun and exciting world of mobile games the industry behind them and all the big movers and shakers and interesting stories of the week but not necessarily the games just the industry joining me as always are Kaylee Parkinson hello Matthew Ford Oh is everybody doing well today we are now on the sixth week of quarantine in the you can't leave not that I'm keeping track comes out right yeah time is meaningless it's just it's all that into one sunrises sunsets same things different day mmm yeah well dude well thankfully can my main hobby is video games sir well that it's true we are in the right place and the right time is right industry the right timeline there yes apart from the horrible things outside of God yeah if

you just close your eyes in your lalalala doesn't matter obviously the world is in a dire place and everything is terrible but we will be discussing other things but first of all before we go into mobile games I know that's kind of our whole deal but I did want to talk about something not mobile gave me that I was keeping an eye on yesterday for about the eight hours that it actually ran for and that is the Assassin's Creed Valhalla digital reveal where I I believe I posted in RPG busy chat on skype where it was literally just a video of a guy making the like key artwork for Assassin's Creed Valhalla very very slowly and painstakingly not even like sped up and it was a proper just live stream of it did either of you like watch it how long did you watch it for yeah it was a boss logic wasn't it who had the like Marvel and DC artists he's done a little work I didn't realize it was like a new as well yeah yeah I

think he's pretty like popular social media he's got a half a million followers or something right yeah it wasn't just the ubisoft like run a competition when i old oh come on really our new game project my son is available today that's a great name as well for you son yeah it was very unusual for a reveal but it was so cool in a way to sort of like slowly roll it out like that I mean we're getting a trailer today so five o'clock UK time but reveal all the artwork and the setting and it's like that I think for people that are really into Assassin's Creed you know something to keep people going during the day but in terms of light so I obviously you know it's not a mobile game we're not gonna talk about it the game nobody nobody here cares about the game we're all about put mobile games on your phone right so the thing I'm interested in is is this kind of reveal something that you think the game should be adopting because obviously it's a very specific

thing in the Assassin's Creed is hugely popular and does have these wildly intricate like artworks and stuff like that and that's going to be important for that kind of thing is this something you think other developers should do or is this just kind of a one-off thing the only you be soft could pull off of americaís Lee what do you think see I don't think it's something that developers should like the thing is with Ubisoft Assassin's Creed like you said it's huge and there was so many different possibilities like people thought was going to be in Japan other sport Vikings obviously the most popular one was rocking the rock people thought was gonna be all about the Norse gods at one point so I think this artwork thing was really cool because it enough people guessing like what were they what was right although pretty quickly I think you figure out it wasn't in Japan so you don't think you'll see candy crush saga doing a long long reveal video or something I don't think mobile

developers can really there's only a number that I think could pull this off and you know the top proper top-tier lot like I think you know Epic Games could maybe do something like this yeah possibly king in some manner I don't think a lot of these you know match three games and love all the titles that come out regularly mobile will generate that sort of excitement and following for people to stay online for eight hours non-stop and watch this video you know it's you know it's a different level yeah maybe like a clash of clans to yester field by a herd long like 12 hour stream of one person meticulously drawing a hog rider or whatever or a new Angry Birds something like that I can imagine a an interesting campaign from that cuz they always do cool stuff like they did for the what was it the 10th anniversary of Angry Birds where they rolled out loads of like Angry Birds products yeah one-off stuff like it Angry Birds electricity uh

yes it was a cow and by the screw there was powered by your screams yes and the vending machine as well which did you have to punch or something I'll scream at it as well yeah and there's a few of the ones like that which is very cool really interesting marketing mmm miss out your anger exactly ah you'd stop talking just as I went why would you do that anyway yes so I was really interesting and I'm gonna segue I'm still working on and still it's my third time this is gonna go live third or fourth time hosting so we're still working on my segues but we'll get there we'll get there so moving on we are going to talk about actual mobile game stuff we have got interesting news about jagex being acquired again for another huge sum of money by another business that has no right being in games we've got rumble hockey are doing something interesting for their content creators fortnight from Epic Games as a couple of interesting stories about its new part

of rail mode and the Travis Scott gig which we revealed how old and weird we are and completely out of touch with the kids we are we've got some soft launch games we're gonna talk about we go to a Scrabble go because that seems to still be in our newsfeed somehow which is pretty interesting but first I would like to talk about possibly the biggest story certainly of this week possibly even the first like third of this year yen's beggarman of Wooga fame the CEO and founder has decided he is now leaving the company after 11 years there he will be passing at the end of June where he wants to return to the world of entrepreneurship to support young founders with angel investments and he's also gonna do some other stuff he's been replaced by Knight Chang who was the former Google global head of games that's a lot of kids who also used to work at Buffalo Studios which I believe was acquired by play tikka which now owns wooja-- so interesting that he clearly has maybe

had some experience working with play seeker is now coming back in a CEO Matt you spoke to yen's just just before he was announcing his his thing how did he sound about all this light is he excited and happy or like because the the feel of the news and the interview that you gave seems like he's like super sites but also like it's 11 years with the same to do that he found and now he's kind of moving on and like what kind of vibe did you get from them when talking to him yeah he sounded in good in good spirits he sounded like he was ready for a break you know 11 years with one company is a long time and also founding it and he's basically insane he's been working since he went straight out of school and that was like you saying like I think he said 50 hours to 60 hour weeks so I think he's due a break respect but yeah he seems like he was talking about how he wants to leave the company on a high and he feels this is the best time and I think that shows you

know after you know woody they were in a very bad place a few years ago and you know revenue was down everything like that and then they seemed to bring him brought back from the brink and over the last couple years so it's probably a very wise move on his part yeah it's interesting yeah because obviously like the main thing was they were having a rough year a few years they brought it back and then he managed to get acquired by play taker I have forgotten the exact figure I'm trying to load the website now yeah I don't think actually there was there was like a figure revealed of how much play Tiki but he's interesting yeah they kind of sold the company and now a couple years on he's he's decided now is the time to step down so definitely he definitely is at the top of top of where they should be and back on top of the industry especially with with the hidden object games like Jim's journey and whatever the first one of Jim's journey was is anyone remember that fills peril yeah wait where's Jodi the first one I don't play hidden-object get the first one yeah no he's sounding

excited I am for the future and everything about you know you said he was gonna be gonna go back to a bit more entrepreneurship and he's gonna he's a really nice guy yes as well as God say that in when he speaks to me he's a very nice guy and he just came out and we were talking about this interesting that he's just like ah I'm off to fight climate change things like yeah make sense nice a guy I believe that I remember you telling me and just thinking yeah yeah he's leaving it to night Chiang who's in charge and it was taken over his role who as you said he's he stack company he was at the Zynga for a bit as well and so I mean he seems pretty positive about him taking over but he did know it's interesting that it was play take his decision at the end the other day and it wasn't down to him so I think that is a key interesting element yeah and especially

because I as I mentioned before like he's obviously worked with play before so they've kind of spotted him remembered him and then turned to him what he's still a Googler hey this job so yeah I guess that means that play Teague has a lot of faith in in in a Chang to actually step up and do the role as well I guess so yeah this is really interesting as you say against Bergman's a really nice guy I've met him a few times and interviewed a few times and I really I personally very excited to see what happens next after this and hopefully we can keep in touch with him and find out more but you'll no longer be a Tweaker from June onwards so good lately more time with his family as well isn't it good yeah it sounds like he needs to spending 50 to 60 hour working weeks for 11 years so yes best of what so everything in the future yen's if you're watching it if you're watching thanks and in terms of other big eventful things happening in the world that was terrible Jagex has been acquired yet

again in the for the second time in like a few years for all it's I think it's owned by like a Chinese conglomerate I can't remember what they were called it's now been purchased by MacArthur fortune holding LLC through its platinum fortune LP oh yes this is just the most memorable names in the works not a huge force in gaming that I can I have heard of before but interesting enough they've paid 530 million pound million dollars sorry for Jagex which is a huge huge investment for a studio that is still running on on games that it developed like 15 20 years ago now with runescape and getting mobile and stuff yeah old school runescape that's the one that they re-released I mean I'm wondering is this necessarily like a good thing for jagex cuz this is like as I mentioned the second time in the past a few years they've been bought out again I mean on

the one hand I would argue that it's interesting that people that companies still see so much value in Jagex to be able to pay like five hundred thirty million dollars the other argument is there are companies who want to sell them and I don't know if maybe that's that's a sign of like disinterest either in the industry or just injects itself I don't know does anyone have any thoughts on the what major companies with large amounts of money think about when they fight I thinks that's yes that's that's all I've got um okay I can't wrap my head around this one if I'm being honest I don't really think they've not really from what I've seen had much to do with gains before so to acquire jagex for five hundred and thirty million ask I am quite the investment when you've not really shown much of an interest in the industry so and I don't think it's

good for Jagex to keep getting called from pillar to post yeah I'm already thinking this is the third time they've been acquired because they have some us they were buy out originally by us investors in at the start of the decade 2010 and then it was the Chinese firm who bought them in mid in about 2015-2016 I think around that time and then is this the third time now that sounds reasonable I am ranked desperately trying to look up when they were required by their Chinese owners who just solved them and how much it was for cuz I'm sure there was a figure attached to it yeah this time a bit but but they were put on saleable you been twin tat the end of 2018 so they have been looking to sell him for quite a while yes there were rumors that they were being sold I think I don't know if they were like actively being sold at that time so it's interesting as well that they're kind of taken a few years to get a sale to go through although I guess for 530 million dollars you'd want to make sure that you're buying something that's worth 430

million dollars yeah yeah I mean really escapes still does incredible numbers for as you say again that's more than a decade old yeah and if not longer and both old school runescape and normal specialist it's come to mobile to the modes of download figures loads of revenue and they can see the potential and the growth and it's still gonna keep going so as you say from an outside perspective if somebody's been monitoring this company that might be like look this seems like it possibly easily easy win yeah I'm not gonna find this story I will say as well though in 2016 this is the story I wrote back in the day that Jagex helped set up a Chinese game company called Zhong Zhi holding would you owned a 51% stake in no I can't remember I can't even read my own writing at this point yes so they helped set up against Kofi now I'm wondering if that's gonna stay as part of their thing because it was certainly served with the

help of the they're all Chinese owners so I'm wondering if they can still be involved in that I don't know if anybody has any opinions on that because I don't know if anybody even remembers that they did that I didn't remember let's move swiftly on yes interesting Jagex getting acquired for 30 million dollars I'm excited and interested to see what that means for the company the the new owners say that they're gonna put some more money into I think it was R&D at marketing so it'll be interesting to see how this helps Jackets grow runescape and all the games that it is currently working on that hasn't announced that aren't runescape so I'm definitely invested in seeing in what happens there in terms of other investments now doesn't make any sense this isn't an investment that's right rumble haki from frontline so we all know fraud mine they made bad land bad lon - and they got quiet by supercell and now they make these sports ish games so

they made Rumble stars they've done another Rumble game I think and now they're doing Rumble hockey which they soft-launched I think we talked about it either last podcast maybe it was the first one this last one I might be enough time is relative yeah we definitely spoke about it at some point in the weird midst of times and they got in touch with us again recently to say that they are planning a new revenue share scheme for rumble hockey which will if I can remember the wording of this correctly because it was kind of deliberately vague so content creators are being given the opportunity to sign up as like official influences for rumble hockey and then they'd all be given a link that they put in their content and then when people click on that link and download the game that will be tracked and those players who if any of them spend in-game a hundred percent of that revenue from those players will be given directly to the content creators which is huge because usually they will get like 5 or 10%

instead they will get the entire like money from them this only is going to happen for the first 30 days after the player downloads the game so after the first month of that player playing the game they will no longer get the full 100% presumably there was will still get a revenue share but they haven't frog mine hasn't mentioned anything like that now so far and they are doing it primarily because they've seen working with influencers previously has seen the number of downloads increase and then that in turn increases engagement and revenue through the audience wow I should have turned down notifications so is this gonna boost the number of players or do we just think it's going to boost the number of creators that's because that's what I'm thinking this is a big sale for creators yeah and and they are they have a limit of like we're looking for people with at least five thousand subscribers you need to be relatively ticking along but are we gonna see more people playing

or we're just gonna see like tons of creators immediately launch lamp onto this and they're not really I don't know generate the players that frock minder hoping for I mean from from my perspective it is so see it's a clever marketing initiative you know to get people to important board and everything like that I find interesting that you know the hundred percent revenue share and last for the thirty days because normally with all mobile games is you know your first couple weeks on it you can play that for free and it's fine you can get through most of it and then it's when you start playing games for months on end you after that actually look at spending more to progress really so that's where some of the money on there is gonna come through so it's that's not make sense to me I think a lot of people will jump in through this yeah I mean it depends how many influences get onboard with it but if people do it does seem like a smart move yeah I mean what do you think I I think I think it's a smart move because content creators influences this is a

key that they influence and I do think it is gonna bring in more players so I think it's smart and it does because I wrote I wrote this story somehow I remember a fact said they wanted to actually keep money within the games industry so through giving it to the creators it's staying in the industry yeah yeah there's an entirely fair point actually yeah and sometimes it's difficult sometimes remember that influences are really part of the industry and a huge part of it these days and how much they actually play into the downloads and stuff so yeah there is a good point that I had not thought of that's the thing if you do get one big influencer involved in your game that can make or break it you know if you get someone yeah obviously ninja someone like that just throw a name up there if he plays a game you know it makes it game heavily profitable normally hmm yeah I guess for me is

that I never really watched influencer content and streaming and stuff so I'm still very much like outside of this entire realm of youtubers and beep and twitch streamers and that kind of thing so whenever I think of influences I just think of hyperactive 24 year old women trying to sell shampoo and that is a fault of my own and that is there is no fault of the influencer industry Danielle editor an influencer update if you're watching this I do apologize and do you think this is 100% revenue share do you think this is something that other developers are gonna latch on to as well because it's to me it seems like a lot and lies so like is it something that you think of the developers are gonna see the value of or is this just like something that frog mine can kind of get away with because they have the backing of supercell which has billions of dollars to mess up Emily I think it'd be a wait-and-see approach you know proof will be in the pudding if late in

six months time well I guess it'd be the first months because that's how long you're celebrating salt but and you know another might extend a book regardless yeah it's the first months you know if they come out after a couple of them and just say hey this is how much certain influences are made and give some stats around it it's all positive or if they keep very quiet about it and it's very obvious it hasn't gone well it's gonna be clear that and nobody else might not experiment with it yeah that's a good point we all love it when people share facts and figures with the rest of the industry so hopefully frog mind will remain open and transparent I mean they probably won't tell you it tell us exactly how much money they made nothing gave gave back to influencers but I imagine if it reaches sort of the heights of like a hundred thousand dollars generated and give them straight to contact creators will get a headline about that so yeah an interesting and generally all-around good thing for the industry yeah more people talking about you game the better isn't it yeah that's very

true okay and speaking of people talking about games that's what we're doing so we're gonna talk about fortnight [Music] sometimes I think you're getting better and it's not as easy hosting thing fortnight is a huge game that everyone's always talking about and now it's gonna try and be even huger that's not word by introducing a new violence-free edition of its game well not an additions per se but a new game mode that takes out all the guns and building and everything basically that you would normally associate for though with and just makes it kind of a chill-out zone party royale yes thank you is the name and so it's been it's already available but I don't play footnote so I haven't checked out myself but kind of the idea that I'm from what I've seen is that it's gonna have different like experimental spaces that are gonna be you can go around and play in it's gonna

have like football and stuff like that and at the minigames there's like smoke emotes that you can have the only work in in the part of royale mode so you can like do clapping and cheering and generally from exciting little things I cannot use a Deadpool minigame as well yes which looks like ski free which is really weird and not something that I had spotted until now so that's terrifying um yeah I mean so to me and again trying to bring this back more into the mobile games industry because that's our entire reason to be here this feels like sort of an advancement like bringing together of house party which we know epic games owns and then the whole fortnight thing so is this are we gonna see like casual gamers and non-gamers bringing themselves together into fortnight to play the party royale mode or is this just gonna be like a fun little side project I don't know Kaylee you go first well I'd go into a battle

royale game to shoot things yes so but I do what you think this is gonna work and I do think it will bring casual gamers together with with people that were normally cheap things I don't most people aren't me so that that's why I think it's gonna work I think it's an interesting concept and I I like that they've tried to take a chilled approach but I think it is getting that being more of a side project yeah it feels kind of like because they did creative modes like two years ago now and I have not heard of creative mode in a long long time because it was just a sort of a fun little thing where you can go mess around and build stuff in but that's never been the focus off what fortnight is which is all about shooting and competition and eSports and all that kind of things so it's an it's I don't know if epics gonna keep putting their attention towards it after this initial reveal yeah it's interesting yet because I've seen when font I was revealed it's

the hope they helps bring the battle royale shown right into the mainstream and it's you know bigger than anything these days but this the thing that really makes it stand out is it's live events you know the game's great and everything is fun and everything I put all the bow Royals personally but it's still a good game but whenever they do a live events like they do with their Travis Scott and which had lightens what was it eleven point three million concurrent viewers play players at the same time yeah which is ridiculous and it does go out into this like stratospheric like just a mile and use coverage and everyone's talking about it and you know know where the game can touch so I think them doing this it's very much trying to you know take advantage of that going to the mall hanging about with people be more sociable because that's what those events are you take the weapons away you are just hanging about with people there's music events whatever there is I

think they're just trying to make that a more regular thing and hopefully get people to come on board yeah it feels like as well this could be like the future because I believe at the moment if you go on to like a music event on for tonight it's generally like just happens in the map and everyone has to converge on one specific location whereas this this feels like it could end up being like more of a concert space where if they have an event it's gonna be okay join us on this island for the concert space and then everyone else can still keep playing for tonight whilst the actual event happens so this doesn't like disrupt the gameplay which i think is an interesting thing as well yeah you map isn't it as well yeah yeah it's a hot holy sect holy separate area that has like all different activities and stuff going on in it I wouldn't I have no idea how you access it I presume it's like a separate thing that you have to load into like how I imagine creative mode works yeah I mean you should go through the main mode or what yeah not playing fortnight is one of my greatest failings as a games journalist I should have gotten on that way earlier than I did enough people play it's fine it's

true you know we don't have to stay up-to-date with all the games as they as they evolve I would just like to touch on the Travis Scott thing because it did as you say it got it was actually twelve point three million concurrent players that was on its first event it then overall saw twenty seven point seven million uniques so that's people logging him one time to come and see it and then overall it was enjoyed forty five point eight million times so people actually logged in I think that's that's nearly just about that's less than like double the number of unique users so there's a few people who probably jumped in like three or four times but definitely a lot of people came along twice yeah because those four music fence wasn't I think there was five overall they were a spread out on different time zones so I think in America had to the Europe had to and then I think Asia had one I don't know if that's exactly right but yes it sounds right yeah yeah so yeah it was it was obviously huge and

and we are fools because at the time we were saying that Travis Scott was not a big draw and you know they would be fools to have that we say balls no but I'm just taking it wildly out of context from what I remember of our conversation I think it's just me and you that forted be bad a thing I think Matt actually was on board with it I think I think Thank You Kaylee you've always been a favorite you can't pick favorites on your boss I have to be your favorite Bunner technicalities contract yeah I didn't really have a point for the Travis Scott thing I just think that's big numbers yeah huge amazing massive yeah we obviously we just don't listen to the guy I mean if they put anybody else in there's a chance we might know him I don't I'm trying to think whose modern and popular people and because he's a younger audience for tonight

okay you know he's doing ages a lot of people that is a big bulk of it you know you stick blink-182 in there so not come you know someone like that yeah I don't know guys but you know it seems a good partnership and it's clearly paid off funnily enough it's the total site now I always confuse Travis Scott with Travis Barker who is the drummer yes every time I hear Travis going like Oh didn't he the drummer for 22 what's he doing with the Raptor II just way off base I think that's a random partnership to graph or you know I think that just shows that we are the wrong age for footnote we've already been aged out of the games industry so I think really this means it's time for us to quit PC yeah that's what the old people are playing these days Viking based Assassin's Creed's let's move on before we think about how old and gray we are again the people who are

typically older this is not going well for my segues are playing Scrabble go sorry anybody any Scrabble go players you're in their early 20s and feel very disappointed in what I just said and the developer behind scramble go is a company called peer play we've never really spoke about before because to be honest I didn't even know that that was the developer because this is a scope to publication and scope we tend to sort of focus on themselves when they do their press releases and stuff but it was actually developed by a different company it was established in 2016 and now it's been acquired by scope for an undisclosed sum because the success of Scrabble go is unmistakable it's now 2.5 million daily active users daily sessions of over 100 minutes on average which is pretty great numbers and still I think though they're going with sort of tagline of this is the best word game launch ever it certainly feels like it that's a lot of players and I did have a question lined up for everybody about this oh yes so this is actually scope the second acquisition in 2020

because they started the year by buying fox net games which I can't imagine was cheap because they they have Marvel Strikeforce and a few of the licenses I think they're working on Star Trek don't know if they do Star Trek waiting no that was disruptive beam and they were required by tilting point everyone's getting bought at these days it's true there's been a lot of acquisitions going on despite the corrode virus which is actually really interesting that people are still willing to throw money around in these uncertain times so when will the acquisitions stop for scope is this is this is this a good strategy for scope Lee because like previously they've kind of focused on maybe like a handful of games so they had the walking dead road to nowhere I think it was called and they did a couple of WWE games that I think are still active like are we gonna see scope be like exploding in scope if you will or is this sort of the end do we think are we going to see like is it

is this the last acquisition that scope is going to focus in on it's it's things I don't know if anybody has an opinion it's it's hard to say I mean they've obviously seen the success of scrub or girl and you know they just warmest get a bigger slice of the back yeah you know I said what is his biggest word game launch ever so I imagine this has been something in the pipeline for quite some time it's not something they've just even before the game launch I imagine there were conversations ongoing before then yes om I I wouldn't be surprised if we see one mob for the end of the year Scott Lee yeah I think it's interesting as well I think part of the reason why this might be I I kind of feel like scope Lee's not gonna be acquiring anything else for the rest of the year just cuz I don't think that's really part of their whole like deal and and mindset but the interesting thing here is that so as far as I can tell pier play have only ever made one game after being established in 2016 and that is Scrabble go and they basically when they started immediately started work on Scrabble go with Scott Lee so they've

been developing this game for four years and at the end of it they've been acquired by the publisher they were working with I mean clearly it's paid off but like four years for a word game seems like a long time do we agree on that one my yeah I mean it's paid off isn't it I mean as I say you know it's doing very well so far so it's not something you can I don't think we can say that who knows and I guess like it's well spent yeah I guess like words were friends to probably took quite a long time but at the same time they were still iterating on words with friends the original and expanding on that and keeping that alive with various things so I I guess I just don't know how the games industry works this is for every conversation in this Scott podcast has ended with me saying negative things about myself and I'm gonna stay positive the next few conversation topics we might have a new editor soon no you're better exits after

disastrous display on podcast I know what you mean though you know when you think of the cough Scrabble game to develop that onto mobile for four years hmm you know the games already existing so I can see you know you we can think I yeah for years there's a lot mechanics behind the scenes and everything like that I guess they could be testing for a long time as well because they you know you'd see the success of something with words and friends and you only get a launch one time you launch one time so you want to perfect it that is exceptionally true and a very good point and now we're gonna move on so yes scope players acquired peer play that's exciting is so much happened this week like genuinely I'm I wasn't even scraping the bottom of the barrel for stories this week because we've just had such great stuff we are also entering into financial season which is usually my favorite season of the year where all the big companies publicly listed companies start announcing the revenues and profits they've made for the last quarter we have seen the first of the

major mobile developers release theirs and I think this is fascinating so this is Rovio here we talked about quite a lot because Angry Birds still remains a popular mobile franchise and they have seen revenues decreased slightly but they have seen profits increased seventy four point eight percent year-on-year to fourteen point 1 million dollars still not a huge amount when compared to other major developers but quite a lot especially when you're considering the jump that is compared to last year and that seems to mostly be down to the fact that they've half how much they're spending on user acquisition so they're you a costs have been dropped down to the fourteen point six million for this quarter compared to twenty five point seven million last year I mean it has has Rovio been spending way too much on you a this whole time and they've only just realized hey Anjali that's kind of the only thing I can think of is I mean obviously I believe that they launched Angry Birds

dream blast this quarter last year so q1f why 19 and one of the things that they're saying and their financials is that they actually they like to ramp up their UA costs when they when they launch a new game and then they start scaling it back down again so you might see this footage way again again throughout the year as they're really small games because they've announced they want to and we know probably what a handful of those are going to be so yeah it's interesting that that's interesting how much more profit they've made when they're not advertising like so aggressively with their you a marketing and the other thing I wanted to sort of question is so I I would sort of argue that Angry Birds is still a recognizable IP obviously not yes not holding the same weight that it always has but is this a sign now that the the brand just simply does not have any weight or is this just standard practice for the industry to spend tons and tons on you a and I don't think it's definitely not got anyway so I think he's got a lot I mean we've just seen last year the young new Birds film

sequel came out he was an angry birds 2 Angry Birds movie - yeah yeah and that did remarkably well and he had a huge critical response for for a video game movie and which you know that's amazing awful about there and it made a lot money itself so people recognize you know resin bomb and coke and they're going to cinema to see lots of thing and I think that's been the same with games because dream blast has done pretty well still and you know just merchandise and a thing like that you can see that that all factors into the financials and I do and I know what you mean though about how which way they've got I wonder if over your questioning and are questioning this themselves because they did soft-launched and reverse legends an RPG game recently but they also soft launched an exact replica of that game yeah just without the Angry Birds IP in it and it was called Chronicles of

legends so it's just like I haven't written down I'm ready but yeah yeah so like it does make you wonder Rovio there are c testing the water with or without is it worth of slapping reading them in there or is it should we just go without and make it a bit more i don't say generic but you know is all the sort of typical ox and him still sort of creatures you'd find yeah i don't really have anything to add to that I think you just it's definitely definitely nailed every point on the head no yeah I think I think it is interesting that they are spending so much money on you a and and Angry Birds so I would say it doesn't have the weight because you would assume that you know when supercell announces a game and I imagine there's a you a budget to that but the world goes in like wild for it you said we saw that recently with whatever that game was called rush Wars that's the one when rush Wars was

announced even though it's coming out and soft launch and even what it was killed white people were talking about it so much and then when we heard about like brawl stars I dunno I dunno video games that's where when brawl stars was announced is coming to China we again saw like a hue we but in particular sore a huge amount of like coverage coming on from that because people were so excited about the idea of it coming to China because then it was going to be coming to other countries as well as super said they would but like I don't that's not you a that's just people why they're talking about it and getting excited about the game I don't think the Angry Birds games really have that that like conversational wait anymore I think if you say other than your Angry Birds game out people go okay and I feel yeah maybe the problem is that Rovio kind of went too hard too early with the Angry Birds brand that's so many Angry Birds games that at this point it's like as a new Angry Birds game out yeah III know you mean there is

you know a dime-a-dozen so would it be better for them to go away and just like have a four five year without using the Angry Birds taking away the ones I've gotten soft-launched currently and just come back in a few years and go hey this is a brand new Angry Birds 2025 and you know it's a bigger deal and people care about it I mean question for you Kaylie if you see an Angry Birds game I does that entice you are you more tempted to jump in yes games been coming out for 10 years so that that's my thing ten years of continuous games so it has got to the point for me personally where no it's just another Angry Birds game it doesn't draw me in as a franchise anymore yeah well it's funny to circulate background to what we are starting with with sassing screeners you know they make the same point you beat us to it

but yeah they've pumped out a lot of games and I think it was doing one a year yeah and they took a few years gap and came back with origins and and then had another few years gap and did Odyssey yeah yeah they might be one after another but you know I mean they had a gap and I brought back and then origins and Odyssey has some of the most well sold and how is critical in the series I'm impressed you know that we're never having placements and there are many games I research games that is actually a really good point later to happen to have that as a case study that's the word I'm looking for my I'm just slightly slowly going insane from lack of human contact it is an interesting case study like it's not as you say it's not really mobile but and when you see console games just pumping game out of game after game after game you start seeing like sales eventually slowly decline and particularly in Assassin's Creed we saw like quality of

the games actually steadily decline as well they took a couple of years as they came back with with origins and suddenly it just exploded and everyone's excited about Assassin's Creed again I think there's there could be something in there for mobile developers to focus on as well especially because Assassin's Creed's origins and Odyssey have then been propped up by DLC and live ops and stuff like that in constantly running events which is something that o be soft has learned from the gate of the mobile games industry because that's what mobile games really did as well as PC games so I think it's interesting to see like console games have clicked to like we need to spend more time on live ops and less time releasing lots and lots of games and mobile games we've always known that but you're seeing developers like Rovio and people like that still churning out a bunch of games in the similar models or how it's done on consoles maybe maybe it's time for mobile games to look at console games go oh actually they've figured it out now yeah I mean each platform influences one another does yeah yeah and that's all we

can really say on the matter speaking of games that have been known that is it's gonna sound rude if I say it turned out so I'm gonna I'm gonna back out of that one again I will get a good the next segue I promise you is gonna be fantastic a pressure cyber games has soft launched its new endless runner train riders now we do keep a regular list of the soft launch games on our site on Pocket Gamer Dolf is please do go check it out it's really fascinating and like well researched and dense article that Matthew keeps updated each week with all the biggest and interesting games and this week we are saw cyber games adding train riders now train riders as far as I can tell is basically exactly the same as subway surfers except it has a different name and probably different characters and stuff would Matthew you've been looking at this a bit more than I have would you agree that that's a fair assessment that is a fair assessment yes it is basically it looks exactly the same game just with

the you know different coat of paint on it yeah so I'm kind of wondering why obviously subway service has been massively successful and this is another company that started spinning out the brand into other things like it's doing clothing and it's doing animations and stuff like that and but like as far as I can tell this doesn't seem to have the the key Lou branding attached to it so this is just the cyber games I haven't I admit I haven't really properly dug into it I left that to you Matt because I trust you did you have you seen any like key loo branding on this I didn't in the soft launch now and I mean we've been reached out to more details and to say I got nothing back so I think obviously they're keeping it very close to this yes for the minutes yeah be interesting as we say we'll talk about whether it'll have the same weight and everything without the attachment of the name I think it will but I don't think it will replicate the same success I mean it was 2.5 billion downloads which is yeah it's not gonna happen again I don't think no

the interesting thing for me is because we well I like subway services was a huge thing even when I was getting stayed in industry like you know four years ago and one of the things that I always noticed was tight if you ever write about subway surfers and you have a right Cyber Games someone from Kili will come on here actually we have half the license as well it's a co-development of kilo and sighs oh and I'm wondering if this is going to be cyber taking its knowledge of running subway surfers and then just steering off and doing its own thing entirely would that be wise though like as he say like is it is it gonna replicate success probably not but like is if the game is good are people gonna look it and go oh this is the same people who made subway surfers we should check this out yeah potentially as I say you know it doesn't have to be 2.5 billion downloads to be a success ya think they can have much less and it'll be very successful and everything I say they're probably just taking the lessons learned and they're gonna apply that and if they feel

confidence and they feel like they can bring the bring people in I can't see why not and I do think it's a name thing though as well subway surfers the name brings people and I mean with this one being train riders that's what unites it's it's a bit of a generic name isn't it it doesn't excite me and I hear that well it's sort of I mean it's so close to subway surface mmm although actually train riders sounds like you're on your daily commute more than it does like I'm riding hoverboard across train tracks and avoiding getting caught by the inspector it's more like I'm gonna ride the train for 20 minutes while reading an e-book I think that people might love that these days you know just to get guys to actually get on a train a normal commute I'd be so good just to pretend like I'm around human beings again why haven't why hasn't okay new question why hasn't the games industry caught on to the fact that people want their old commutes back that's what I want to know

I don't know it's a winning formular I think you've got getting high I will invest a whole 1 pound in any developer willing to get started on that game idea as long as I get a 50% of the credit for it ok we're gonna wrap this up shortly thank you very much everybody for sticking around but there is one more topic I would like to briefly bring up and I know this is a favor of mats he's been desperate ok gamers for some time animal crossing right animal crossing is a game that people are playing on the switch which we cover sometimes as well because it is a portable device so technically mobile and also we love Nintendo especially being Matt it's been now the host the the center of a new late-night talk show hosted by Gary Whitta who best known as the one of the people who worked on rope one he was a screenwriter a Book of Eli

which that's great the co-wrote after oh then my Shyamalan which maybe not as amazing and it's also words on several games including Telltale's The Walking Dead Gears of War pray and was actually also a games journalist for some time as editor-in-chief of PC gamer yeah he's now launched his own talk show with in Animal Crossing called animal talking there are some wonderful video highlights of it he set up a little room in his basement it's got cameras he's got a drum kit for his like side person like producer or whatever to play on the drums and stuff I mean Matt have you if you actually watched any of this are you just super excited no I've watched some of it and I love it it's one of those things you know when you you've seen an idea and you're like goddamnit what I didn't I think just one of those million dollar ideas yeah I think it's brilliant I mean it's already been blowing up outside of games meeting people at Entertainment Weekly covering

it and it's gone too you know it's gonna get bigger and bigger he's already he's got a future so far and then the last one he had a comedian and a full-on guest it was something wrong from twitch and on the front of switch as well and I mean like a hundred and thirteen thousand viewers and we posted at one time and I need a musical guest as well so there's like a full on yeah which is a yeah just amazing is pretty impressive for a very silly idea that has been taken to its extreme I don't know like maybe we should do that yeah well anybody up for detailed in-depth conversations about mobile games within the world of Animal Crossing I think we've gotta nail the normal format I think this podcast is near perfect says otherwise then they are probably correct as well so that's that's a no one on the animal crossing talk show then okay we don't even know no more crossing I don't even know it

just be me and Matt talking about animal crossing within the world of animal crossing maybe we could spin off as a separate it just be our avatars and Kaleigh but you know animal Kristen still continues to sell well and I think some stats just came in just before the show which I saw and which saying like New Horizons its best-selling game in Japan this generation and on console in over 10 years which is okay it's just a you know different level altogether it's it's a phenomenon at this point rather than just being a simple game and it's interesting that people are using it in so many different and creative ways just like we are using zoom to now create podcasts which we have reached the end of there's a segue thank you very much sir thank you thank you of now we're retiring from the my podcast hosting duties until next week thank you very much everybody who's joined and watched our wonderful little podcast about mobile games and the industry they're in please do check out Pocket Gamer top is if you haven't already we've got all these stories apart from the gary what's

a thing because i refuse to allow it to be written about on our website available for your viewing pleasure we've got great interviews with yen's Begum if you've not already seen that we've got the soft launch list we have so much great content please do check it all out again what connects digital number two is coming up as well we will probably be doing a live podcast there just a warning to you guys I guess because it was it worked out pretty well last time so we'll probably be back in some capacity at the very least you'll see us there will be writing up stories from that that is do you I should know this Jian 8 to the 13th is those even real dates I'm not entirely sure do the 12 Oh God 8 to the 12 you are entirely correct do check out that that's PG connect comm / digital for more information on that get your tickets now we are got great plans coming up with that and if you are an indie game developer we're also going to be doing our big indie pitch

I believe there's gonna be one happening this month oh nothing and also one at the PDC digital number two as well so plenty to be checking out if you're in the industry and excited about learning more about the industry and yet we'll be back next week to talk more about games and generally make a mess of making a podcast once more we will eventually get the hang of it thank you sticking with us so far so for now it's a goodbye from Caylee hi it's a buy from Matthew goodbye and it's a goodbye from me Rick goodbye