Supercell, Epic, Unity, Budge, Roblox, DICE, data, jobs and 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. Let's talk about Supercell's financial results and blog from Ila Parnan. Excuse the crazy noise in the background. I'm doing this in Vegas. I'm at DICE and I'm quickly discovering there are no quiet areas of Las Vegas. But let's keep going. I went with the headline of Supercell Boss laments coasting mobile industry as Clash Royale stars in 2025 results, but really you could lead on lots of different things. By the numbers, revenue was down 4% year-over-year. profitability as measured by EBITDA up 6% basically a billion dollars in profit for 2025 290 million monthly active players lots

of other big numbers there was a call for the media as the results were announced where we got to ask a couple of questions I asked about Moco boat game and project rise because there was just no mention of MoCo anywhere in Panen's blog even though this game is technically a worldwide launch. It is out now worldwide playable for anyone and it has undergone a reboot of sorts. The game's community managers are calling it Neomokco. And I wondered if that was the last roll of the dice on the game before it gets killed because we saw a similar reboot on Squadbusters shortly before that game was discontinued. But Ilka said no, I wouldn't say that when asked if it was the last roll of the dice for that game and they're taking player feedback. They'll launch when they're ready. Same deal with boat game and project rise. And the other bit that wasn't in the annual blog, Panen

was very clear on the importance of immigrants to Supercell and to Finland. He said, I want to say very clearly that Supercell wouldn't be what it is today. we wouldn't have achieved the results we just did without these extremely high-skilled people who choose to move to Finland. He continued, "These people make us better, make our gains better, and actually believe they also make Finland better." The bit that was in the blog is the headline phrase, not an industry thriving, an industry coasting. His thoughts here probably chime with a lot of people in that at least the western mobile game business seems to be mostly concerned with optimization and eking out monetization and retention from existing games and not taking too many big bold risks. And of course, this transitioned into a little bit of a sales pitch for people who want to change that. Ilka said that

founders and game makers with new ideas should apply to join the company through either its spark program, the AI innovation lab or Supercell Investments, the VC arm of the company. And on a related note, headcount is up 30% yearonear. And Supercell is doubling its investment in new game development. Its AI innovation lab will also triple in size. So in Supercell's words, Supercell is putting its money where its mouth is, which I think is good. You know, if you are in the position of a Supercell where you are making a billion dollars of profit and you want to see more innovation, then you need to create the right circumstances for that to happen. and actually maybe should have made a bigger thing of this where Elka actually admits to not fully creating the right environment for new game teams to truly thrive. He says, quote, "For over two years, I've talked about new game teams operating like startups. Honestly, we

only went partway there. We attracted entre entrepreneurial founders and gave them independence, but we didn't create the full conditions that make startups work. That was my failure. Now we're trying to fix it." So, yeah, all good stuff from Supercell. There's some other stuff in there about about how player sentiment helps new features catch fire and have helped the game's growth since this came out. Jinxy, a streamer who was part of that big Clash Royale comeback, is not happy about the lack of credit he's been given for that comeback. And you know, there was no mention of increased UA spend or anything like that around Clash Royale's comeback over the last year, which I'm sure was part of it, but maybe doesn't fit into the Supercell narrative as such. And then there's further sort of self flagagillation around what went wrong with Squad Busters, which Supercell loves to do. A full write up on the site. It's quite a beefy one.

Loads of stuff to read and think about in Supercell's annual blog and results. Couple of quick ones I put out there on the way to Las Vegas this week. Epic not happy with the UK's measures to rein in Apple and Google's control over the app stores. The UK's Competitions and Markets Authority put out press release which was picked up by Bloomberg BBC, all the big mainstream national media outlets and was positioned as a victory for UK regulators that Apple and Google have agreed to greater app store transparency measures. If you actually look at them, they are quite vague and ever with this sort of regulation stuff, it's not that clear what they will actually change. It just seems to be that the UK will ask Apple and Google

for reports on how it handles competitors app review processes and requests for interoperability, whatever that may mean. I think more generally, we're all quite tired of this regulation stuff making a lot of noise but not really changing the market's fundamentals. Not good enough. According to Epic Games, it said they failed to open the mobile mobile app ecosystem to real competition. Gatekeepers continue to block competing app stores and payment systems with outright prohibitions as well as scarecreens and junk fees. The agreed changes won't correct the core anti-competitive business practices that the US courts and the European Union are addressing. The CMA must prioritize addressing these barriers to competition in order for UK consumers to gain the benefits of real competition that everyone deserves. There is further dialogue going on between the UK regulators, Apple and Google. So there may be further developments soon. Quick one on Unity as well. Just before

the financial results, which were pretty positive, revenue and profitability up. Lots of other graphs pointing upwards there. Before all that came out, the company announced that mobile gaming veteran Bernard Kim has joined Unity's board as an independent director. He is, of course, the former leader at EI Mobile and the boss of Zingga and Match Group. He's joining on May the 1st. And on the way out are Unity co-founder David Helguson and Iron Source co-founder Tomar Bar Zave. Hope I'm saying that okay. Helguson stepped back from the day-to-day running of Unity years ago, even before its IPO in 2020, but has remained a member of the board. He is now no longer member of the board. And maybe more interestingly, Iron Source co-founder Tomar BV joined Unity when the engine maker merged with Ironsource, the adtech giant in 2022, a

$4.4 billion merger, which according to my reports at least, has not gone well. There are links in this story about the entire Iron Source founding team leaving in early 2024 and then further accounts from inside Unity and Iron Source of culture clashes and allegations of bullying at the newly combined Unity and Iron Source. I think the headline most people will take away from this is that Bernard Kim is back albeit in sort of game engine and adtech rather than mobile games. development and publishing.
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Quick one from Monday on Budge, the Canadian kids game maker that is being acquired by private equity firm Havly Investments. The fee was not disclosed, but Havlli acquired Buds from current owner General Atlantic, another private equity firm that has stakes in, among many other things, Anthropic and Liftoff. Is based in Texas, USA, and looks like more of a tech and gaming specialist. It has stakes in lots of other games companies. Behavior interactive matchm creator Candyore London startup studio studios Runescape maker Jagex Million

Lords Maker Million Victories Lego Party publisher fictions and WTG maker of World Tour Golf. Let's take a positive view. They may well pump a load of money into Budge so they can sweep up more of those licenses. On Monday, I wrote up the highlights in a nutshell from Roblox's latest financial results. I think it's interesting that if you look at the business as a whole, it made 3 million in profit in the last quarter. losses. We're at $318 million in the last quarter, but the rise in revenue, rise in billings, and rise in daily active users got the markets excited, and the stock popped 20% on Friday. It's an interesting company, isn't it? They have a massive platform. They say that it is 3.4% of the entire

global market, in fact, and they say they want 10%. But it clearly doesn't monetize and they are making hundreds of millions in losses every quarter. So clearly the narrative they want to come out of these earnings calls is the millions and millions of young players who are on that platform will age up and start spending money. And of course, you got another narrative in the background about AI as well and world models in particular. After last week's Project Genie stuff, which caused the stocks to slide across the games industry, Roblox was hit by that. Roblox boss David Bazooki, but didn't really reference the Google stuff, but he did talk about World Models. In fact, he says Roblox currently employs over 400 internally created AI models to help players create

Roblox content and its new 4D generation model will allow players to start building things with just a prompt. In the in a CNBC interview afterwards, he said, "I believe what you'll be able to do is vibe code the next grower garden over the weekend." while also dismissing the idea that the rise of these AI coding tools will be a threat to Roblox's platform in general. There was mention of its advertising business in the call as well, but that was described as not particularly meaningful. It was described as modest and not a major contributor to the top line. I mean, you would expect and hope that Roblox does actually start reducing those losses and generating more profits at some point, but you know, traders don't seem to care. They were happy with the results. Let's talk about DICE. This is my first

trip to Vegas for DICE. I have been loosely aware of this as part of the industry events calendar. It is very high level, pretty small and attracts some very big names and this year they sent me a press pass and I thought, okay, I should go. It's quite PC and console focused. So, while I'm here, I did a quick news story for a website called VGC about Hideokima discussing making a Metal Gear Solid shooter with Vince Sampella in around 2010 just as he was setting up Respawn. And I'm also writing a overall temperature check of the feeling at the event for Edge Magazine's email newsletter knowledge, which is for quite a broad games industry audience. Not much mobile content here, but I think it is interesting talking to people at the

event to get a sense of who they work for, what they're here for. a lot of developers chasing publishing deals and investment, mobile game monetization companies, uh, seeking business, possibly in the wrong place because most people here are working in the PC and console space. And for that sort of temperature check piece, I'll give you a little preview of it here. But I think the sense overall is people are waiting for the next big wave of investment and it's not here yet or people are waiting for this next wave of disruption or the big new shiny thing and it's not here yet. And it doesn't feel like it's about to happen either. The vibes are quite bad for PC and console game makers compared to the overall feeling at

something like PGC. Obviously, the tributes to Vince Sampella were part of that overall downbeat mood, but it's a really good event in terms of people you might not ordinarily be in close proximity to. Some big people just knocking about. Mark Sony, the PlayStation guy. Yoshida, another PlayStation guy. Bill Trenan, Nintendo of America. I'm pretty sure I held the door open for Suda 51 at one point. So, as with every games industry event, really, great to meet different people from different bits of the industry, but also struggles. Megan Scabia, who runs Dice at the opening of the event, referenced affordability. She also talked about people being worried, people being scared of the future, I think in games in the games business, but also in America in general. So, yeah, hard not to be a

little bit downbeat coming away from this event. Tomorrow will be a little bit more celebratory. It's the Dice Awards and there will be a more positive vibe there for sure. I will update you on all of that next week. Stay tuned in Monday's jobs update. Loads of moves here and there. The headline act is John Rosenlat in at Supercell as Clash of Clans VP of global marketing. Rosenblat when he was at Ubisoft was one of the first big interviews I did when I was a very young reporter over 20 years ago. He's still knocking around. So am I. He's now at Supercell. There's also big moves at Scopely, Netflix, Homer, Hutch, Small Giant, Plarium, Apple, Delelfi, Play, Trailix, Arcade, many, many more.

Have a look at that report on the site. I'm sure you recognize someone you know. In data digest this week, a lot going on. Netis has sold its 50% stake in Mattel 163 to Mattel for $159 million. Mattel now 100% owns that part of its business which makes mobile card games like Uno and so on. Social Point hit 1 billion downloads according to a games beat report. Liftoff Mobile's IPO has been delayed. There's a big AppMagic 2025 report to dive into. Resident Evil Survival Unit, 5 million downloads for that one. Capcom's mobile sales down 39%. Square Enix profits rise on mobile and browser games, but revenue declines. And Lamar Idol Vlogger, 100 million downloads for that one. As I walk past

one of many completely mental nightclub things, there are no quiet points in Vegas in which to record a podcast, it seems. So, I hope you're enjoying the party atmosphere on this mobile games industry podcast. That's it for this week. Next week's podcast will have less background noise and will be more serene overall. I will be recording it from the Cotsworlds rather than Las Vegas. Thank you for listening.