Roblox brainrot explained, Ustwo’s strategy switch, Ubi closes mobile studio, 2026 predictions, more

Hello and welcome to the mobile gamer.biz digest. I'm Neil Long and every week I go for a walk and tell you what's happening in the mobile games industry. Here we go. One of the biggest hits of last year was a game within Roblox Stealer Brain Grow Garden. Also a big hit. It is for me a bit of a blind spot. Fortunately, there is an expert out there. Anna Diaz, they used to work for Polygon and part of their remit was to go deep into dive service games. So, I kind of commissioned this almost for myself really. I asked her a lot of things about Roblox Brain in particular, and [snorts] I think the answers are interesting. The things I wanted to know, are these Brain Rock memes and characters owned by anyone? No, they're not. So, I mean, you got to be careful, but really, as long as you're careful, you can make some sort of hyper casual brain rock game, and there are already

plenty of games out there taking on these themes and get a bit of traction that way. It's all deliberately kind of random. I asked my son the other day to read off some brain characters, and he did. They've all got like silly sort of rhyming names. Weird Pokemon is how I would describe it. I realize I sound like a ancient man talking about this stuff, but I think it's important to know about these things, particularly with younger players. So, I also asked Anna, "What can we learn from what's trending and popular on Roblox?"
[snorts]
The answer is really how Roblox quickly capitalizes on memes and trends on the internet in a way that a typical game developer just can't. These games are knocked up by Roblox creators very quickly, much faster than your average mobile game.

And actually, the jankiness of your average Roblox experience is all part of the fun and adds to the slapstick. I think there's a lot of virality inherent in having such a janky, wonky game engine, and I think polish for these kinds of players is not really important. I also asked, what do Roblox developers do well and what lessons can we learn from them? The answer according to Anna is community management. These games are from the community, played by the community, shaped by the community and having that connection to your players is really, really important. Not just looking at the data like mobile game developers do, but building that community on Discord, talking to players on social media. I think we have seen a few game studios raise VC money and try and

get in on Roblox with more professional productions, but it seems a bit like going viral. You can follow a certain playbook, but you can be sure that thousands of other people are following that same playbook. And once that playbook becomes popular, the algorithms like a different thing and the cycle continues. So if you are looking to get in on the Roblox action, it feels like bit going into it with a professional game developers mindset is actually the wrong way to do it. You got to think like an influencer or a content creator, but for video games. So yeah, I think I'm going to commission more of these Roblox articles because I don't think it's being covered in the way that it should and we need experts like Anna to tell us what's going on in

this world that I don't fully understand and I think lots of other people don't as well. We'll probably go a bit deeper next time with Anna's help and hopefully this will be a useful run of articles for people wanting to get a better grasp of what's going on in Roblox. Also, this week I spoke to Maria, CEO of US Two Games. Actually, a little while ago, just after the Madiraa Games Summit in November, US Two Games, famed maker of Monument Valley and other Apple Arcade and Netflix games, is effectively now a PC first developer. And I think this says a lot about where mobile is. As I say in the article, US Two has always been a sort of easy proxy for the state of premium games on mobile. And after their huge success with Monument Valley, after the second game, which must have been 2017, 2018ish,

they effectively became the Apple Arcade, Netflix games guys. They have been porting their Apple Arcade and Netflix games over to PC, but I think reputationally they are a mobile game studio. and 2026 we'll see an end to that. It's does feel like a a loss in some ways. Really wellrespected studio, one of very few mobile game studios who gets on awards lists due to the artfulness and the socially meaningful nature of their games. And it sounds like I don't know if this is fair to say but they were a little bit burned by uh switching to Netflix games having long been associated with Apple and Apple Arcade. They switched to Netflix games with the release of Desta the Memories between and then with Monument Valley 3 that was

announced through Netflix with some fanfare. There was a decent marketing push behind it that didn't really get any traction on Netflix games and 6 months later it was removed. It's now out as a free to start game on iOS, Google Play and of course now PC and console. A lot of detail in the article from Maria on that process and how it's been weaning itself off of Apple Arcade and Netflix. In her words, the fact that it is effectively moving away from being a mobile first studio to being PC first is a little bit sad. You can't blame Apple Arcade and Netflix for this, but you can perhaps say that their attempts to save premium mobile games or however you want to call it, support premium mobile games is at an end and as a result, people are having to switch

strategies. the time of those subscription services being a home to more interesting indie style games is over. So, read the article on the site. I think it's interesting stuff. I left it quite long because I think Maria's answers are really interesting. And let us know what you think. You are halfway through the podcast. Here is a commercial break. I'll be back after this. Exola connects developers with the resources they need to [music] build, fund, launch, and monetize their mobile games globally with Exola Web Shop. Sell virtual items, in-game currency, subscriptions, [music] and custom offers directly to players while driving up to five times the revenue growth. With the industry's [music] number one web shop solution, Exola provides the tools for developers to focus on what's most important, creating great games. Visit exola.com [music] to learn more. That's xsol.com. Ubisoft's mobile studio based in

Halifax, Canada is to close. 71 staff are affected and will be laid off. I admit I didn't quite clock the relevance to mobile when I saw this story on gamesindustry. and VGC. I just assumed it was another of Ubisoft's satellite studios working on its various console games, but it is the mobile specialist and it mostly runs Assassin's Creed Rebellion, which is also on ice. The statement that games industry.be Beers got says there will be no further updates or live ups to Assassin's Creed Rebellion, which suggests is in the process of being wound down, although that has not been confirmed, but I mean the writings on the wall for that game. Clearly, that game was actually moderately successful for a little while. It was originally made by

Behavior Interactive, the makers of Fallout Shelter. And structurally, it was similar. is like a base builder with some sort of action stealth sequences in between. So, a sad end for Ubisoft's mobile studio in Canada. It's not the first Ubisoft mobile studio to wind down. Future Games of London, maker of Hungry Shark, and its various spin-offs that was wound down maybe last year or two years ago. And Ubisoft does still own, I think, a studio in Germany that makes Idle Tycoon games. But yes, like with a lot of legacy console game publishers, mobile has never really been a huge percentage of Ubisoft's revenues. So, this is perhaps an inevitable one. Hope all of those affected find a new job soon.

It is early January, so it's 2026 predictions time. And I got 20 different viewpoints from various mobile games industry people on what they think will happen in 2026. I think the thing that sticks out to me is the number of people talking about the walls between platforms crumbling and premium games, PC games, console games, mobile games all coming closer together. Making games a risky business. It is smart to be on as many platforms as possible just to spread your bets elsewhere in those predictions. There's a lot of DTOC chat, web shop chat. Gil from Appcharge says increasingly you'll see direct to consumer people at very senior levels in publishers and they will own the whole direct to consumer P&L

which is an interesting thought. Berkeley Exola [snorts] obviously these guys are inclined to say this but I think they're about right. Direct to consumer web shops will become pretty much standard for large and middle scale publishers. I don't think there's any denying that. And of course AI. So Naomi Alderman novelist and co-creator of Zombies Run. She makes the point that AI slop will mean handcrafted game experiences will become the thing that people increasingly look for. I think you're already seeing this in the worlds of design. I'm probably a little biased here, but things made by actual humans with a human touch that maybe aren't perfect are a good thing. Actually, on the other side, of course, the rise of AI coding

tools and art tools mean that people may well be able to just totally skip having to learn how to use Unity. And these gamification of the world of apps is definitely a rising trend. There's going to be some coverage on this on the site soon. In fact, obviously AI coding tools, art tools will speed up, production processes hopefully. And Peter Hansen Chambers, formerly of Hutch, makes the point that it will be the startups rather than the incumbents who will benefit most. Naturally, big slowmoving organizations will be less quick to adapt and take advantage of the efficiencies of AI first game development. I actually don't think anything with generic AI art will break through, but you might well see a small

team with a cool idea who have used a lot of AI tools to bring their idea to life. you probably will see that. That's the game with predictions. You don't know what's going to happen. But yes, the conversation around AI is certainly not going away. In data digest, we have summarized a few of the end of year 2025 numbers posts that have been doing the rounds. Most notably, I think New Zoo's assertion that mobile once again is the biggest games category. 55% of revenues in 2025, more than PC and console combined. That's been the case for years now, but I think it's always worth repeating. The games industry.biz had their yearly infographic. Top games of 2025 according to censor tower. Last war survival 2.12 billion. Second place was white out

survival 1.33 billion. Top games publishers of course Tencent 8.75 billion for its mobile games. Scopely was a distant second 2.96 billion. Sensor Tower also predicts that mobile downloads will be back to preandemic levels in 2026. So mobile not maintaining the huge downloads we were seeing in the pandemic era. NCOFT has invested $104 million in Singapore's Indigo group that makes triple match 3D tiles in hole and triple find. NCOT also acquired casual merge specialist developer spring comes for an undisclosed sum. Bat studio makes Hello Town and Merge Suites. And this all follows MCoft opening a mobile casual arm with triple dot veteran Annel Siman. Elsewhere, you got numbers from Merge

Mansion, 760 million in lifetime revenue. Mag Interactive's latest financials, which are slightly down. [snorts] Mobile games making 1.88 billion pounds in the UK last year, according to the Entertainment Retailers Association, and Mattel 163, which is the toy company's mobile games arm. that company has said it now has over 550 million players. There are also more numbers in the December top grossing and top downloads charts which will be posted by the time you are listening to this. I haven't done the full analysis yet, but the highlights in brief are that Last War Survival came out on top in December, $140 million according to App Magic. Those numbers of course do not include web shop and Chinese Android numbers, but Last War Survival way ahead

in December [snorts] ahead of Roblox 118.5 million. Then Monopoly Go 108, White Out Survivor 105. Royal Match 100 million in downloads. Block Blast of course way out ahead 38.3 million installs in December. Then you got Roblox 24.1, Freef Fire 22.2, Pizza Ready 17.5, and Subway Surfers 13.7 million downloads in December. All according to App Magic. Have a look at the website for the full analysis of those numbers. I think that that's the most interesting bit, the month-on-month comparisons. That's it for the first podcast of 2026. My decision to record these while out walking is a good one in terms of filling the 20 minute gap I have between dropping my daughter off at school and

going to a coffee shop. But it is also quite cold and I have noticed myself being slightly more out of breath than usual on this on this walk, which may have something to do with the Christmas period in which I did not do much walking or exercise. And now I'm in big trouble. But that's fine. Everyone else is in January. Thank you. Goodbye.