PocketGamer.biz Podcast Episode 8: Mikko Kodisoja leaves Supercell, Crash Bandicoot Mobile, and more

hello and welcome to the poker game of biz podcast my name is Rick Cowley and this is I think the seventh episode I always lose track I should really make a note of these things before I start the podcast joining me today as always is Kaylee Pattinson Oh Matthew Ford hello and we are going to be talking about all sorts of stuff in the mobile games industry stuff like Apple removing unlicensed apps in China that's finally happening the rumors around Warner Brothers games division being sold the not rumors that bethesda is teaming up with Amazon Studios make a TV series based on fallout could be exciting a bunch of other stuff but first of all we're halfway through the year this is just oh we've only just made it this far the show will make it all the way to the end what a half a year I mean we can look back on the last half the year and we can pretty much sum it up as coronavirus everyone going to new remote working games getting delayed disaster

after disaster after disaster disaster yeah it's been you couldn't write how bad this year has been so far but I was wondering does anyone have any predictions as to how the year is going to turn out towards the end I will go first I think we're gonna see a lot more games getting delayed still yeah I think I think even though even though everybody started saying oh we're getting into a boat working with we're finally used to it now got all the processes in place I still think we're gonna see a lot more games slowly and slowly getting pushed back until everything ends up bunched up in March 2021 rather than October 2020 the thing is with the video game industry a lot of games are not announced until you know only a couple months in advance you know Nintendo does that and I'm a few of the most companies only do it like maybe it's six months or something or a year like it's very rare you know we don't really know the next three years of the video game industry as opposed to the movie industry which you saw the do have an AI outline of what movies have been

prepared and worked on so in that case I think I think there will be delays but we just won't know about yeah that's entirely for Kaylie any anything that you can see happening over the next six months yeah just lots of delayed games lots of delayed games and maybe one day being able to walk outside you know properly again or we might even be living like Fallout and we'll be in shelters probably know if that's true yeah I did actually have some predictions because you did mention before and to get some predictions prepared five if you do if you want to hear got five I got fired at the air all right I've got like one for each like sort of platform and like well more every year every major you know console man you butterin first one and is to do with well general play numbers and everything like that so I think obviously we've got every record being broken at the minute especially on mobile you know activities

of revenues of downloads are up everything is literally just skyrocketing so I think that's gonna shift down a little bit as the world sort of returns back to normality yeah I imagine we'll see that over the next coming months one of that is obviously different parts of all they're in different states you know uk's slowly sort of coming back to normal the u.s. is getting worse who knows exiled integration is my next one i think that's gonna be a big push for microsoft with the next generation and they've been talking about that a lot more and obviously the launch and the x-box series x i think that's the next one thank you always when i get confused with and i'm curious whether sony are gonna have an equivalent obviously they're launching the playstation 5 so I wonder if is gonna have anything at all in the mobile front cuz I guess I guess they could because they do have PlayStation now yeah exactly and they do have like you

can stream your ps4 games to your phone if you've got your ps4 on and you're on the same network so they have some systems in place I just don't know if they would see it is like a useful area to enter I don't know yeah I mean they used to do it for handhelds you know the feature and PSP and everything but they don't have them now so I'm wondering if they will go to mobile on that retrospect so that's just an interest I want to keep an eye out for yeah Google star yeah they're gonna come back with something big something they're gonna especially it's coming up to the one-year anniversary they're gonna try and like rebranding me like this is actually day one this is like everything we got but it's gonna be too late I don't think it's gonna shift the needle whatsoever especially again with the PlayStation and Xbox launching a new console mmm the mobile aspect I would love it if Google

sort of turns around and like retcons it and says oh it's out of early access now oh did you not relicense put the daily access this whole time just plays it off like no no it's never although I'm sure this is we're now in beta that was alpha stage exactly so at Nintendo on switch we'll definitely gonna hear a lot more from them they've got one game announced immediately at the minute which is Paper Mario Color Splash which is due next week it's not close blush Oregon origami King yeah so I think we'll hear a lot more from them not on mobile because they've said they're not basically nothing's been made for my DNA and everything a new thing is to do with Apple arcade and I've sort of been in the middle of all this saying how they're gonna slow down a ramp up just because obviously there's been lots of reports of them them canceling games and the song thing behind the scenes not happy with numbers but I think just knowing that Paul's history of them I slowed down a bit

which I really I'll be really disappointed to do because like Ed has been amazing and I think it's been a really fantastic initiative yeah I think it's been really interesting to see like that sort of effort being put into creating premium games and premium experiences on mobile which is you know as the rise of free-to-play happens this kind of died down you know we say this and then premium developers always get annoyed at me when I do because like obviously minecraft has done fantastically well the room series has done really well plague inc has done fantastically well and so there's still room for premium games it's just the room for them is so small an ample arcade I think has really helped in that god I just I guess apples aims with it maybe didn't align with everybody else because everybody else sort of saw it was like oh this isn't chance for Apple to read use premium games to the market and apples going yeah we're gonna cut all the production on all these got a bunch of these games because we want ones that people are gonna keep coming back for so they'll renew their subscription fees which is basically a

free-to-play game both without the name yeah way yeah they did just go quiet on it I think they've already done it already you know the first three months I thought they made such a big deal about it I mean we are damn beyond a steel sky launch like this which is a huge title which was announced at launch and finally made its way out but it just I don't feel like everywhere I look on the web I see it as opposed to it was in the first couple months it was like look this is a huge new thing we're pushing it hard it's very quiet yeah I know I think the thing is like I'm gonna reinforce my point about free-to-play because it is kind of something they said and I've only just really clicked that that's what they meant is what they want is more games like rhinestone and obviously grindstone is amazing but it's a game that has a lot of scope to just be continually added to and keep drawing people back in and you play it just a little bit each day and then you play it you've played it for over a month and then your subscription renews and you've actually start paying for apple arcade at that point and that seems to be the kind of games that they're going for but

that's just the free-to-play model with monetization removed and it's just a subscription service at that point and then it stops being an interesting service but that's nice like anything that's like you PlayStation Plus and yeah Xbox Live is it's the equivalent I think just don't know about yeah cool right I don't have a segue for this next part but we're gonna move on to the news now I hope you enjoyed that I did enjoy thank you very much for all the operations you did far more effort coming into this that I did which is just to go through our news list over the past few weeks and take a look at some of the biggest stories and obviously the biggest story of the past two weeks is that and I'm gonna get this wrong I'm just gonna preface this by saying I'm sorry for getting your name wrong supercell co-founder macoco dese are you know I didn't even try that time Niko Cody Soulja I'm gonna go with that that sounds good that sounds right I don't know why I said saya it was is supercell co-founder Makoto jet has left supercell at ten years after

helping co-found it with a bunch of other people he's fought his final day was on June 26th so the last time we recorded this podcast and there was kind of at the end of that day that he announced on Facebook we did also get official confirmation from supercell who said there's one of the six founders he's been a key figure in building the culture and values we greatly appreciate the contributions he's made during the past ten years it's pretty he's not I I would argue obviously that he's not like the biggest name at supercell when you think of supercell you think big names usually think the CEO ELCA panin and you know but obviously being a co-founder of supercell means that this guy a has helped lead a revolution in mobile games and create one of the biggest companies in the entire industry which is only I got five games and a relatively small team based in Finland and B this guy's probably loaded and could do whatever he wants now which is boss for him but the

things that I'm sort of interested in and I'm gonna go to you Matthew on this one because I've asked you to think about it our big change is gonna come to supercell now that now that we've seen co-founders or just one start to drift off and take on new new ventures no I don't think so just because reading you know about Mikko and everything he's you know left in August 20 19 for well there was first of all a cancelled on name game yeah it sounded like it disrupted a little bit in the background and then you're on a paternity leave so he's actually been out of the pitch of quite a while it's just obviously now he's decided go on to pastures new and find something outside in mobile games which we still don't know so they'll be interested to see where he actually ends up but the supercell now I think they're just continue what they're doing and they've got hey go pop in soft launch currently I think as long as they don't cancel that you know they did that with a rush was I think it was yeah last year so if

they're happy without the girl live for that and then they'll just continue what they're doing you know that they understand their audience and what they want and you know the continue with that well over a decade I guess the thing for me was like as he say there was a council game that he was working on and in his in his statement on Facebook he said he sort of took some time off from that rather than throwing himself into a new game he just kind of parted about and helped out where was needed and then went opportunity leave and was already thinking at that point what if I did something else and I think that's that's an interesting insight into kind of the mindset of supercell because supercell as people probably know it's not based in like a hierarchical style of game development it's not like a typical thing where you've got the CEO and everybody has to answer to them and then the person to them you have these cells and it's like a flat level playing field so you have the game designers the producers the narrative writers all those kind of people are all in the same level and they work on the games and then present them to the rest of the company and so when when you that so they're obviously

working on all sorts of different projects at the same time and then if that game gets canned they have to come up with a new idea and they start again and they take their learnings and stuff and start all over all their join another team and start helping out and there so I guess it sort of speaks to me that he's kind of had this cancel game and at that point gone maybe there's a different way of doing things so I'm wondering if maybe after ten years we're gonna start seeing some of the the old boys that supercell start to go maybe there is a new way of doing things maybe I have been kind of stuck in this this style of game development for a while which clearly works for them yeah but it's vastly different to how game development usually works yeah I you know I appreciate that supercell does take its time with games and they only pull what they they believe is quality you know they don't rush out again they they and you know they're not afraid to cancel something and you know you don't know about this game it might be something very close to you know it might be his personal project or something that he spearheaded and the other side of is it you know ten years

in any industry is a long time ten years in the game industry is even longer so you might just be ready for change that's true he he has sort of revealed some of the things he's been working on which include there's the nonprofit that he runs with ilka called we foundation there's a movie production company called cinematic limit he's been working with and the city of Turku is having a infrastructure project that involves that it might involve some sort of cinematic things and games and stuff and he's helping out on that as well so there'll be some interesting projects he has said that he won't be going into games but will be looking at other ways to tell stories probably through interactive mediums such as mobile but still interesting so yeah Miko Cody soldier interests and see what happens next and best of luck with the future and no changes at supercell says pocket game without this moving on so something I mentioned at the top of the show Apple is now removing unlicensed

apps in China from the start of next month so August first so this has been a long brewing thing there was some rumors in February the Apple was gonna change heritage regulations in China or the ISBN is it sometimes known or approval number because ISBNs don't actually work on mobile it's not the same thing and so the approval number has become more and more important and now a police saying you need to provide one or else we will just reject your game to be launched in mainland China now they're saying telling developers if you have a game that has in-app purchases or is a premium game and you don't have an approval number we will just remove your game in August first it's gonna it might change things quite drastically I don't know Kaylee what do you think is this gonna be a big problem for developers like overall um overall I don't iron think it's gonna be a major issue um at this point I think they've had a few they've had warning they had a

few months this was obviously gonna happen when the rumors start circulating plus it's Apple I'm not overly surprised that this is what they're doing and developers have got a couple of options available to them of course neither of them are actually ideal right first of all your way around it could be to not have it listed as a game but Apple would have to approve that so whether that actually work out for you or not god only knows Oh or do the um I say simple thing but it's probably not is get the license it's um I don't think it's gonna have a massive impact long run developers are gonna adapt to it but at the moment yeah at the moment it might be a bit iffy for some of them but they've had warning they've had months to prepare themselves that is true I guess the main problem with getting a license is I believe estimates are

something between six to twelve months to actually get the license and that China actually only approved like 1500 games across mobile PC console for the entirety of last year so actually getting that license you might never get one yeah it's kind of a bigger issue isn't it yeah particularly with like the thousands and thousands of other games that you're gonna be competing with like the I think the switch still only has like five games because they need to be approved to go into launch with new super mario brothers u deluxe and i think that was it like two months yeah i think i think it had that and mary odyssey as well yeah i think yeah so there's big big big problems anyway were china so app in china who have been tipping us off on this and thank you very much for that folks also suggested that developers could just make it well I say just could make a free version of the game because games that involve that only monetized through ads are not covered by the need to have a registration number yet that could change we never know so what they're suggesting is that developers remove all

monetization from their games throw in some ads instead and then release that in China and tell everybody hey can play our Chinese game if you're in if you're here it doesn't have any ads we can't license it properly and then start working on getting the license for the full game but I believe you'll still have to take down your ad game to get the license for the premium game or IEP game it's all very confusing Matthew you sort of killed them to a face a little bit over the idea of ripping out monetization replacing with ads yeah it's not great is it like anybody wants to play these games in China and you know to be spotted with ads instead of you know going through the traditional monetization that the rest of the world's getting hold up mmm and it just speaks to again a bigger issue in China there's you know it's one of the biggest markets definitely so it's up to developers if they actually want to like cater to this and take you know these measurements into accounting you know see the thing is

Regina this there's no I've lost my place here I think that I think this sort of a cost cost-benefit analysis that you got to do is like how many did how many downloads you're gonna lose by not launching in China or how much money you're actually gonna lose compared to how much time and effort and money is it gonna take to make the game available to China because you also have to think about like localization issues cuz I believe there's rules where you can't have a single word of English in there that's just outright banned you can't have skeletons showing in the game which makes me wonder how broad stars go out over there because it's like one of the carrots you play as is a skeleton so I'm curious about that and yet all this kind of stuff so you have to not only think about localizing the game super well but you also now have to think about how long is it actually gonna take to release in the in the region and I think a lot of smaller developers who don't have the money down at the time that the resources they're just gonna stop and I think we're gonna see like possibly a death of indie developers in China on

the mobile space so that'll be not fun but we'll still see I think obviously $0.10 going to get an easy ride on this one because they are already huge in China relatively easy obviously and Nettie's and all the big Chinese developers are already gonna get there we've already seen supercell has just jumped through all the hoops and got brawl Styles released over there recently and they've gone through the approval process and everything like that so I think we'll still see big-name games making that effort I think we're gonna see a lot of the smaller games start to go away which i think would be an interesting shift so yes interesting time to be releasing a game in China we will actually be having a ambadas roundtable next week to discuss this with a few publishers and other people related to the Chinese market do check out that it will have a page on Eventbrite at some point and I'll have a new story about it at some point and we're still just sort of working out the details with some of the people

moving on from that Warner Brothers so I feel like we probably mentioned this last week because this is kind of a relatively old story now a few weeks ago now that who is who owns Warner Brothers AT&T yeah AT&T started saying they were gonna sell the Warner Brothers games division and it was gonna look for about four billion dollars we've now seen reports that Microsoft is apparently lined up to buy it or is it interested at least we've also seen interest from Activision Blizzard EA and tape - all of whom you know enormous enormous companies who would definitely benefit from from buying Warner Bros and Kaylie is in well one the one on the one hand is it really worth four billion dollars because that seems like I mean obviously one of others games are huge but I think I feel like you're not getting the licenses for those games yeah is it do you think it's worth that much if you had four billion dollars would you by Warner Brothers games no I wouldn't

because not coming with the licenses Batman's not coming with it hmm so um and leave Batman is one of their biggest IPS then you've got Mortal Kombat you've got um they have a Harry Potter IP as well I believe it's some confirmed they're not good they're not getting Batman on as the games that were in development yeah my games they're working on stuff like that it's still kind of working there's all rumors and stuff yeah so it's according to this article that we wrote its projects tied to the Warner Brothers IP such as Batman Arkham series and Harry Potter are not part of the deal so I guess it's the the IPS as a whole do not come as part of site because I guess they are still licensed to Warner Brothers and Warner Brothers I'm sure we'll continue to make a lot of money by licensing those out to anybody they want yeah yeah plan wasn't it said license the product sell again probably it was

it's the studio's in it that's looking at buying is that right yeah so like you Rocksteady's know someone yeah yeah sorry Kaylie that's all right yes so you've got developers like Rocksteady like Kaylee and they are they gonna be worth this amount of money if they don't have the license is attached I wouldn't spend 4 billion on them I sent less certainly capable making some fantastic games and I've got no doubt that they will you have you've just gotta look at the roster of games that have been made from the studio's through Warner Brothers and they are fantastic four billion worth when you're not getting those massive ip's no probably not not for me anyway I guess the the hope would be for anybody who did buy the Warner Brothers games division was they'd have an easier time with licensing these games maybe get a sweet deal and just say hey you know we paid four billion for that for those game developers you mind if we have a Harry Potter just a little bit cheaper in a discount yes and I guess no the question

is you know we've got EA you got take to Activision Blizzard Microsoft queuing up to take a look and who would you prefer own and is easy okay go on I'd like to see Microsoft get limber enough or take or take two would be my second option I don't want a to get them - well the what they've been doing recently with them you know upgrading did say like you know then yes that's going around with 90 pounds for the next generation of games and everything and then they've been offering em was of a number addition which is gonna be a hundred hundred dollars to upgrade from the previous generation to the next generation games and I don't think it's great personally no Microsoft I think I by far the best option out of this it'd be great to see you know the more wealthy will be the more come but licenses we'll see what happens though studio specifically underneath and so you know WB Montreal's

you Rocksteady we feels like it's a it's a way off it doesn't feel like this is gonna be something that's we're gonna see happen this year I think they just point out feelers for the minutes to is interesting and then it was slow thing and it's put it in perspective because I just did a quick Google and Disney bought Lucasfilm for four point zero five billion so exactly it's like they monetize their hell out yeah I mean the Mortal Kombat series if they can get into that somehow a huge you know even on mobile they did reasonably well some extent you know they did the injustice - that was one of the last ones I came out yeah the big names and they are quality quality studios they make terrific games both critically and from a fan perspective hmm I guess fit critics and fans are the same but they also make a lot of money everyone's a critic these days including us because we are games journalists that

was a silly thing to say let's move on to something else Bethesda ah another big company maybe they could buy Warner Brothers no that would be ridiculous but what they are doing is teaming up with Amazon Studios and kill to film so I've never heard of before presumably the production company owned and operated by Jonathan Nolan who co-wrote the Batman films brother of Christopher Nolan who does the Batman films and he also has done person of interest which I think a lot of people forget about it's really good and Westworld which will come on through in a second because it's hilariously ironic and they're all now working together on a fallout TV series for Amazon Prime presumably because Amazon Studios is involved Todd Howard has said that over the last decade we've looked at many ways to bring fallout to the screen but it's clear from my first fight with Jonah and Lisa a few years ago they and the team our kilts were the ones to do it right we're enormous fans of their work and we couldn't be more excited to work with them and Amazon

Studios Matthew how do you feel about a fallout TV series pretty excited I'd actually like to see what this looks like I don't know what angered the girl we actually disgusted a little bit on the game of podcast the consume the less if you don't cast yeah yeah yeah don't tell James I said though and you know it's they could potentially go for like the zombie aspect you like the apocalyptic world which yeah it's been done to death so I wonder if they'd go from off like the the actual vault us but aspect some do maybe like we call to get like black mirror sort of stories behind each vault you say this is like we've all before we said them and then you do want episode that and then move on and do a different vault and who knows I mean as you mentioned there is massive irony with Fallout TV series come from Amazon because during you know fallout is a

game about a massive capitalism and all that and then the other IRA an ironic thing which M yeah was that be made by Jonathan Nolan for West world but fallout shelter and there was a clone of it or alleged Club yeah let's not go further around words like clone we already got we already got dragged into their lawsuit on this one let's not get to use their quote a blatant ripoff of it was a West world game and which was a ripoff of them fallout shelter so it's a very yes is wonderful to see okay Lee you're interested fallout is you oh I love fallout but I am I agree with them I careers map I actually think you should you should be working on this one because I completely agree with your

bolt idea yeah I was kind of Bala I am yeah certainly agree with that one the zombie thing Allison like say that's everywhere and the Last of Us is getting a TV series and that's obviously gonna be post-apocalyptic ants can be zombies yeah so I think it would be a bit silly for Amazon Prime to try to compete with the HBO series it's gonna be about zombies when there are other angles that they could take with it yeah I guess my concern is there they'll just go the traditional Fallout route and it's just about a lone wanderer in the plains going from town to town solving problems and that kind of thing would it just be a Western but in post apocalypse world do you things like when the series launched it's kind of like glitch now and then and like skip two episodes forwards and back the actors just suddenly appear in a random spot killed by a deathclaw that would be I'd watch that just for laughs

enter a bar and everybody's just got like Nuka Cola bottles four heads that would be fantastic yeah I don't think that's what would happen but Jonathan if you're watching this Jonathan Nolan a big fan of poppy gamer adobe's I hear you know you can have that one for free probably just put Matt's name in the credits that'd be fine and speaking of no I can't I can't think of a segue for this one let's just move on to a different topic and Niantic the other big mobile game developer there's lots of them but nine takes are pretty big and they have finally soft-launched their next location based augmented reality game Catan world explorers based on the board game Settlers of Catan I really do not know what to make of this one because this is just weird to me involves harvesting supplies such as lumber wool grain brick and all and then construct some

buildings sounds a bit like Minecraft earth although I've not played Minecraft Earth so I can't say for for any certainty but yeah it seems like it would gathering resources using it to build locations probably it's all built on the same the antic real world platform the other games are built on and there's being licensed at other developers yeah this is just such a weird thing but Matt do you think this could be the game that finally topples Pokemon go No I mean nothing's gonna stop a Pokemon girl and we you know celebrates fourth anniversary this week and it's just going from strength to strength you know it's nearly doubled no sorry not nearly double its nearly matched its first year revenue when you know it was a ginormous cousin you know literally took over the world and we could go outside and play it that way which is completely ironic because we're in literally the most opposite circumstances this year and you know I think that's such a testament Pokemon go how this year they've managed

to and that amount of revenue concern literally a game designed where you still so go outside and play you cannot go outside and play so that's really impressive Catherine I'd never heard of the board game before Niantic announced this you're kidding Matthew it's been a pleasure working with you I am gonna have to ask for your talking everybody's badge and gun on this one educate never played it I've heard of it I've been I played it once I don't remember it's like Kaley back me up if I'm tell me if I'm wrong but it's like you have like hexagons and you have to build a world together with your other players by linking these together like it's kind of like playing a deck of cards but you're playing little hexagons and joining up match it areas and then

building resources like that is that right yes essentially yet okay cool I always get it confused Carcassonne for obvious reasons but I think that played differently my god the youth of today what is like this is the big question who is this game for audience wise is it I don't is it a big game in Asia is that because I've saved the crack Asia with it I generally just don't know I don't I have no idea of katanas popular outside of Europe because it is one of those like classic European board games really this you know there's loads of digital adaptations on mobile and stuff conceived as MIDI so I'm yeah it's just such a weird license to use of all the licenses they could possibly get like Niantic could just get anybody at this point and they got Catan and it's like what yeah well as you just mention you if it is Europe that's just one of smallest markets to go for you know me US and Asia and as you say to go from

Pokemon - Harry Potter to kitten yeah it's not in the same level I mean for me anyway I'm not annoying the board game is thankfully no Scrabble recently Wow get you little Scrabble next next dance it game is dream phone the ultra board game no less from that one I'm so disappointed what dream phone is okay stop the podcast there'll be one guy out there who just chuckled and like yes Rick you you get me thank you to that one guy who just took a look so listen it's a board game and what you have to do is guess which one of the boys fancies you and to do that you have to randomly call up lots of different boys and they are on an actual phone like a toy phone and they tell you details about the person who doesn't fancy you and then you have to cross them off its kind of like

Cluedo but then you you know you're finding your teenage love who will then if you guess correctly invite you to prom or something this sounds very stalkerish yeah I mean now I never want to play it again which makes me very sad anyway if anyone knows if anyone else was want to make a dream phone game on mobile I think it would actually work really well because you have a mobile in your hand it could be a bit like a normal lost phone only less dark and serious and speaking of games on mobile wow I did real good at that time I actually tried and podgy mobile is a game that is on mobile as the name implies it has recently cleared three billion dollars in lifetime revenue according to census our Kayle you wrote the story for this I'm gonna just kind of fur it to you a bit to explain a bit more about this because otherwise there might not be much less

left to talk about michaela yes three billion dollars a big number excitable number oh yeah goody that is a big number when you think I'm back in the monkey the seminar on 1.5 billion so in just seven months they've doubled yeah doubled their revenue which is insane and I've correct me if I'm wrong but I'm pretty certain game for peace the localized version in China actually makes up like 52% of it so that's some insane yes yeah yeah 1.6 billion generated which is is wild as you say I I'm just obviously we can't play game for peace it's the one that's localized for China where they removed all the violence and when you kill somebody they salute you and then vanish and turn to box I believe yeah the thing that I'm curious about was like what's changed like what other than the coronavirus has

that question answers as you mention game probably has peaked at this moment because of world events everyone's stuck inside everyone play more games and then in the world everyone starts to go back outside it will then go yeah a little bit I imagine it will maintain you know it's a huge game pop G I imagine he'll continue to serve bringing a lot of money but I don't think this amount again the interesting thing you think about that that's the position the key common vaccine that is the idea like you know once we start going outside people will stop playing games and I think I think what's interesting to me about that is like a lot of developers I think a sort of suggesting that now attitudes will have changed towards games and more people are playing games and it's new people playing games and that's more interesting and if people are changing attitudes and behaviors now we're going

to end up seeing people continue to play those games and we'll still see higher revenues but I'm interested to see like what you think about like that and regards to revenues going to drop in in the long haul yes I do agree I think this has definitely introduced more people to gaming as a whole but on the flip side of that you know especially first few months people that play games more than anyone else are more likely to go outside because they've been stuck inside all this time so I think there will be that drop there and that's where we'll see it mm-hmm yeah I guess I just I imagine it'll be it'll be less than what it is now but I think we're gonna see overall yeah you know rising tides yeah and also in the world climate change anyway I think we've we've talked about all we could talk about cup G I just thought that was a big number and I'd like to talk about big numbers and so we'll move on to our final thing and I feel is like a slightly shorter podcast but there's it's been if you want to find out even more about all the stuff we've written about dude check out Pocket Gamer dot biz but we'll finish on on a high note

and something that was announced two hours ago from when this was recorded Crash Bandicoot on the run is finally announced so this has kind of been teased a little bit through various leaks so there was facebook ads they're kind of testing the waters on the idea launched it was soft launch it was soft launch yes and you know but there wasn't anything sort of said about it it was gets kind of under wraps as much you know soft launch can be kept under wraps yesterday we saw a so Wednesday the 8th we saw a twister account starts a post about like loading and sharing different things and and then now today we have a new trailer and you can now pre-register on Google Play so crash bandicoot on the run and what we can tell is a three lane auto run a star in Crash Bandicoot it's the first time I think there's been a crash game on mobile even though the racing games hit miles I think it's the first time there's been like a platforming game and one specifically

for mobile yes yes yeah I guess you know this is Activision Blizzard testing the waters and and using king who would traditionally make you know puzzlers and stuff and now using this to make a crash game and see if a licensed game with the activision blizzard classic licenses such as crash bandicoot spyro etc will hold any water on mobile Kaleigh are you you strike me as somebody who likes crash bandicoot I loved Crash Bandicoot how do you feel about another three lane also runner on mobile um spoiler alert it will be game of the week that week even if it barely runs game of the week yeah became of the week because it's Crash Bandicoot yes perfect no but like do you think this is going to be I mean presumably you've been following the game because you have an interest in crash bandicoot I imagine you've seen the trailers a day does this seem like something that

you're gonna play that you gonna play for a long time is this gonna be a huge thing or is this gonna go away very quickly see um I me personally I am gonna play it and I will probably play it too quite wild because massive crash fan I think the fact is crash bandicoot it's gonna attract a lot of people at least to begin with he's um he's huge he's one of the biggest mascots in gaming everybody knows he crashes sorry in the West yes yeah yeah and like I think our last podcast we mentioned things was like Nintendo and mobile and how their mobile games can help main entries and crash bandicoot has got another main entry coming out later this year so crash 4 it's about time comes out and think probably around october/november time and this game I think it's going to be it will benefit from that and at least it's so I think to begin with you have a

lot of fans at crash bandicoot fans are gonna try it anyway and then you've got the next major installment coming out which is gonna give a bit more height to the game anyway and crash has just been on the rise since his remaster like in 2017 and everyone's gone crash nuts and then nitric not much of a car seat er yeah he mastered and again it's just so much hype around crash and I could spend hours talking about him and so he to me isn't intending to man but where are his jorts though does he have Johnson this one no he's got beat shorts yeah he needs jorts that's like the point of Crash Bandicoot he needs the jorts see I'm an I'm a massive crash bandicoot fun as well yeah he grew like many people in 90s you know the original trilogy which got remastered as the remastered remade as the end and sane trilogy which was amazing job from I remember name developers now it'll come back to me

about 10 minutes finally and but anyway King I take the thing for me is it's King taking on the license which they don't traditionally do as you mentioned endless-runners hmm and there's a specific feeling with crash games that you have to nail which they got me insane trilogy there wasn't really in the in-between period when em activision got the license every that from night dog and he's an endless runner it's how the platforming feels and that I mean for me but that's that and it's monetization because crashes had a bad history with this and you know you mentioned Crash Team Racing and was a nature of fuel delivered that came out on switch and everything that that that was a bad case because it came out was the first month Noah monetization basically it was you know it's a full [Music] and then a month after Activision and implemented and lots of like you know loot box mechanics are sort of thing for

the online about which you know wasn't great in the near enough to put that on the packaging as a result which is really really bad practice mmm obviously there's been a mobile it does have those practices it will be interesting to see how they do deal with that and it is too over the head you know the the pre-registration oh it already speaks to you get a Blueskin of a crash himself if you do so it's like how many more of them are gonna be how much more okay is it actually just coming to you again that I can play through without the need to you now and feel like I should be me condemned along the way and and is it gonna feel you know quintessentially crash and endless-runner is perfect choice crash on mobile absolutely you can't believe this hug wasn't done like five ten years ago yeah it's just how it's how its implemented and as I say there is a specific feeling to crash games I think hmm I think I think it's gonna be fairly light on monetization I feel because they've they're in the

trailer it announces like customizable characters and it shows off the blue hyena skin that you get if you pre-register so I imagine it'll be you know unlock a skin but I don't know if it'll give you any special powers or anything and it has like multiplayer options so you can play with your friends I don't know if that's gonna be like multiplayer or or leaderboards or something like that but you know it'd be weird if they start is like selling skins and then it was but it gives you a boost over games and then it moves into the whole pay2win argument I feel like with King at the helm they've had years and years of experience making mobile games and monetizing mobile games and they still making tons of money with candy crush saga which I would argue doesn't have like really harsh monetization mechanics I haven't played it in a while I could be very wrong but this still makes a ton of money so I think you know I agree like the Activision has handled monetization poorly before in some of its games particularly on console I think if King you're in charge and if they you know have the full control over how this game is being made I think then

we're gonna see a game that monetize as well that all said I have seen rumors dotted about an internet and at the post is reporting that and it does have like wait timers and stuff and it will block your progress from playing forwards and as your reactions show it's still not a great thing to have in the in a mobile games to get to a point and then say okay you can't play anymore until you wait eight hours or give us two pounds or something like that some I'm a little bit worried that that's going to be the case but we shall see as you know Vicarious Visions [Laughter] carry on no that was it I'm glad that you finish that with more they're doing the new one when he quit on the tables but it was Vicarious Visions I'm sure it's toys for Bob this is podcast death

yes nice the bob was Spira they did do they did do crash as well and they I'm fairly certain they did the freezer and they did it Nitro fuel though everyone's maybe on swage I'm googling developed by Vicarious Visions thank you wow okay we've all been following yeah money in the purse thank you we are all now furiously googling Vicarious Visions to me as we all look the suppose a developer to which one says right here to easement Bob as well I mean the Wikipedia literacy developed by Vicarious Visions and published by Activision it says it's it also has twice the popper in here I don't know where you're looking I'm on Wikipedia yeah I was on Wikipedia and it

had toys for Bob before I clicked on it hang on hang on Ricky the deciding vote Here I am the deciding vote because I've I've on the Wikipedia page now myself the original ps4 release was by Gary's visions and they orbit the port two PC switch and Xbox one would have I know it was just the switch one that was felt by toys for Bob I in galaxy did the port two windows and Vicarious Visions to the port's wait so it's one so technically we're all right okay and we're gonna leave it there thank you very much everybody for joining us on this podcast which we totally murdered at the end there by spending three minutes googling who develops again that it's not available on mobile on our mobile hearing podcast it wasn't switch I'll give you that yes if you want to find out more about the stories that we spoke about which boats pokes Jesus they're just stories that we spoke about on the podcast dude check out Pocket Gamer dot biz I presume you that's why you're here watching the podcast anyway if you're

not reading our website please do it's really good and we're all putting our all into it we're doing loads of other stuff as well as previously mentioned we've got a roundtable next week on July the 14th at 10 a.m. PST so totally out of range if you're in the US but it will be available on YouTube afterwards we talked about publishing in China and it was the end of the month I think on 28th of July at the normal time of 4 p.m. BST we'll be discussing and the death of the IDF a with some people who actually understand it because I don't really know what it is so I'm excited to learn more but yes advertising and ad tracking and personalized ads on Apple and iOS is going to be very different we're gonna find out all about it we do have launch pad from baka gamer calm which is the big consumer thing that we're running which we're all very excited about if you're a developer I don't know if you can still get involved but go check out poker game calm there's a banner at the top that was explaining it and we're gonna be announcing a bunch of games in partnership with a bunch of developers

it's gonna be super fun super exciting and really interested to see how we go about it and if you are you looking for your usual Pocket Gamer connects content bug gaming connects Helsinki will be going entirely digital this year that will be held in September somebody remind me of the day I think it's September 14th to 18th that we will be doing that ok gamer connects Helsinki he desperately googles yes that'll be another one of the the wonderful events that we do yep 7th over 14 to 18 I was right I never should've doubted myself so talked panels roundtables and all that kind of good stuff and we'll be there writing all that in a few months time and we also have the top 50 list coming up so we're going to be doing something big to celebrate that and not entirely sure yet what it will be and but we are working on hammering out the details which still coming out with a date and thank you to everybody who submitted their companies for consideration we will be taking those into consideration over the coming weeks

coming up with a short list and announcing that in the next few months so do keep a lookout we are doing so much baccarat table is it is wild we are super super busy and it's all for you are wonderful readers and listeners and viewers of the podcast and with that mentioned and all the things talked about it's left to me to say goodbye to Matthew good bye bye - Kaylee I and good bye to myself as I close this zoom call good bye and thank you for watching