Supercell reboots Mo.co, Fortnite is back on iOS, Nintendo's next mobile game, Embracer, Wooga, 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. Now, at the start of this week, I thought to myself, what is going on with Moco Supercell's Monster Hunter game? And funnily enough, just as that thought passed, the Moco team put out a video saying, "Actually, we've rebooted the game and there's now a season pass and there's now gacha boxes in the game, although they later clarified you can't pay for those and the game is still exclusively monetized through cosmetics." But yeah, this is quite a strange one. So, I thought it was worth covering also because people really like reading about Supercell. So, the headline here is Supercell reboots its lowkey monster hunting game Moco with seasons and free

gacha pulls. So, yeah, in that I pulled together the details the Mo development team have put out in the last couple of days. There's a YouTube video, there's a blog post, and there's a tweet or an ex post from the game's community manager, Xiao Freightas. And the story here is this game has a new meta, more typical season pass structure, but it's still monetized only with cosmetics. And that may well explain why it really isn't earning much money. It's been out for over a year and according to AppMagic estimates, it has earned just under 4.7 million in the inapp purchase revenue from about 8.5 million downloads to date. For a Supercell game, this is extremely poor. But that comes with the caveats that quite an unusual launch. There's not really been any marketing behind it at

all. And it was one of those titles that a bit like Squadbusters, they just sort of put it out almost just to see what happened. So since that sort of strange launch in March 2025 when it was invite only through influencers and a few months later it was then opened up to everyone. It was in maintenance mode all of Wednesday, 20th of May, and is effectively being relaunched Thursday, 21st of May. We'll see if that season structure improves monetization, retention, etc. But if the development team is indeed set on having this game be monetized only through cosmetics, uh I can't see the revenue turning around really because you need huge numbers to pull

off that sort of economy, I would imagine. So this is a bit of a puzzle in Supercell's portfolio. And at the end of the article, there's a little bit of context around Squadbusters. You know, Supercell killed Squadbusters October last year, having earned like 70 million or something, 80 million in its first year. Around that time, the Moco player community started to wonder if that game was on the chopping block as well. Supercell came out and said, "No, it's not, but we are rebooting the game soon." And this is that reboot. So, you could very easily frame this as the last roll of the dice for Moco or one of those games that will just keep going and keep building and slowly pick up steam. But yeah, Mo, an interesting chapter in Supercell's history. Um, one that may not last much longer given those revenue statistics,

but it has survived this long without really making much money. So, not sure what to make of this one. Um, if you know what is happening with that title, you can DM me in confidence anytime. Epic Games announced on Tuesday that Fortnite has now relaunched on the App Store worldwide, minus Australia. This follows Fortnite's return to the US App Store almost exactly a year ago after US Judge Ivon Gonzalez Rogers ordered Apple to resolve its issues with Epic over the release of this game or explain itself further in court. Um, at which point Apple gave in and allowed Epic to release its flagship battle royale game. So, it's been out on the US app store for about a year and now it is coming to all storefronts

worldwide on iOS minus Australia. There's a bit more legal wrangling to go through there. But within the statement Epic put out about this decision, there's some interesting terminology in here. It seems that Epic has done this so that Apple is forced to reveal its commission structure, which has changed and varies from market to market depending on whether you offer payment services in or outside of Apple's ecosystem. It's all very messy, as I'm sure you know. Um, but it seems like Epic has done this to air out what Apple is trying to cover up. The quote here is, "Apple knows the US federal court will force it to be transparent about how it charges its App Store fees. Fortnite is returning to the App Store now because we are confident that once

Apple is forced to show its costs, governments around the world will not allow Apple junk fees to stand." And then of course they also said they will continue to fight Apple's anti-competitive app store practices banning alternative app stores and competition in payments. And there was also reference to momentum around the world in terms of laws stopping Apple from being anti-competitive in Japan, the EU, UK. the standard reference to scarce greens, fees, and ownorous requirements. So, for now, Fortnite back on the app store around the world. Interesting to find out whether the game has lost momentum on mobile in that time. You know, Garina Freefire has done a pretty good job of filling that hole and so has PUBG Mobile. So, we'll see if

people still care about Fortnite on mobile from now and you can basically guarantee that there will be more sniping in Apple's direction from Tim Sweeney and Epic Games in the weeks and months to come as well. Nintendo has surprisingly returned with a new game, Picto Nico. This was revealed through the Nintendo Today app. It's coming on May 28th. It looks effectively like Wario wear, but the characters in it are based on your photos. It's free to start, meaning players can access a few mini games for free, but must unlock the full game by purchasing volumes. The two inapp purchases listed on the app store are $7.99 and $5.99 in US dollars. So Nintendo has not given up on mobile contrary to popular opinion. Uh

elsewhere in that article, there's a little bit more context around what's going on there with Nintendo in mobile. Fire Emblem Shadows launched in September 2025. Does not seem to have gone that well. Critics didn't like it. It doesn't seem to be making much money. So that one may not be long for this world. And actually Nintendo seems to be keener on app and play thing type stuff on mobile which Pictor Nico seems to fit into too. It's released the Nintendo music app in the last few years. The Nintendo today app kind of a calendar and news app. And then there's Hello Mario and Hello Yoshi, which are sort of kids play thing type apps where you mess around with the characters faces. But yeah, at last count, October 2025, Nintendo had earned $2.3 billion from 816 million downloads on iOS and

Android, according to Sensor Tower, since the launch of Super Mario Run in September 2016. Given this is a freeto start game, I can't imagine Picto Nico will be troubling the top grossing charts. But it is nice to see Nintendo still doing weird mobile stuff in collaboration with Intelligence Systems, which also does work on the Warriorware games. So you can see the origins of this one. Picttono coming May 28th on iOS and Android. Exola connects developers with the resources they need to build, fund, launch, and monetize their mobile games globally with Exola Web Shop. Sell virtual items, in-game currency, subscriptions, and custom offers directly to players while driving up to five times the revenue growth. With the industry's number one web shop solution, Exola provides the tools for developers to focus on what's most important, creating great games. Visit exola.com to

learn more. That's xsol.com.
The earnings reports continue this week with Embracer. Embraces sort of overall troubles in the PCing and console space have somewhat overshadowed the fact that it does own Crazy Labs, A Thinking Ape, and Deca. But mobile does not seem to be the focus of the business. It's fair to say the top earners at Embracer owned studios include Sled Surfers, Glow, Fashion Idol, Lamar Idol, Vlogger, Flop House, and Party in My Dorm. And in Q1, it posted net sales of about $72.5 million. That's down 28% yearonear, mostly thanks to the divevestature of Easy Brain. Embrace has sold Easy Brain, which is a maker of

casual puzzle and hyper casual type games to Mini Clip for 1.2 billion about a year ago. Profitability was up 4% to about $10.1 million in the last quarter. For the full year, net sales were down a whopping 57% to $244.9 million. That is the loss of easy brain essentially not accounting for that sale. Organic growth was 3% for the full year. The company said profitability similarly down in spectacular fashion. 79% drop yearonear to $31.1 million. So, as a result of all of that and what it described as prudent future expectations for the mobile

market, the company wrote down the value of its mobile arm to the tune of $192.4 million. Uh, so Crazy Labs, a thinking ape, and Deca combined worth quite a lot less. Now, there's a few other stats in there about user acquisition costs, but yeah, um, I can't help but think mobile not a focus for Embracer, and it probably wouldn't mind selling off its remaining mobile companies, Crazy Labs, A Thinking Ape, and Deca like it did with Easy Brain. But we shall see more detail on Embracer's mobile arm, which is now worth quite a lot less in the article on the site. As I did mention in passing last week, there were indeed layoffs at Wuga, owned by Platea. Wuga when contacted confirmed that there had been layoffs, but did not

say how many or why or offer a comment. And it's the second time they've done that. Maybe it's worth mentioning here the contrast between Metacore and Second Dinner last week. Both companies were very upfront about the exact number of people they are letting go. Posted a very remorseful statement about the staff leaving. Wish them all the best and appeared to be sorry to be letting its staff go. I think that's the way to do layoffs if you're going to do it. Trying to sort of get away with making layoffs without getting any press just makes you look quite bad in my opinion and definitely doesn't feel good for the people leaving. By my estimates, uh there's about a dozen people let go at Wuga. So, not a huge round of layoffs in the grand scheme of things, but um one

former Wuga staffer who I've not named or linked to, but they did say that Wuga and Play Ticker had made some quote abysmal management decisions in the last year and there's been a couple of rounds of layoffs at the company. So, yeah, layoffs at Wuga. Again, unfortunate news for those lost their jobs in Berlin where Wuga is based. Apple revealed a long list of nominees for its design awards on Monday evening. In amongst the nominees, Future Labs Power Wash Simulator, which appears to have been a big hit on Apple Arcade, Ball X pit from Kenny Devolver. Is this seat taken from Potty Potty Studio? Sega Mini's Ginger Garden Hyperliminal Games Pine Hearts Foraxis Civilization 7 in TR49

gets two nominations in Innovation and Interaction. There's also Spilled from Sound Games, an iPad only game. Ark Knights Enfield and Silt are the iOS games in contention for the visuals and graphics awards. Apple has nominated quite a few Mac OS games and one or two Vision OS games as well. The winners of the Apple Design Awards will be revealed in the period running up to June the 8th, which is WWDC week. So, keep an eye out for the winners likely at the start of June. In Data Digest this week, we have news of Love and Deep Space hitting 1 billion in total lifetime user spend. Pokémon TCG Pocket 200 million installed since that launched in October 2024. Mission Control Games, $4 million in

preede round. Mission Control is founded by a couple of former Graham Games directors. Record financials for Capcom, but mobile revenue is down 32%. Mobile not a huge bit of Capcom's business anyway, but still down significantly. Nexon reported record Q1 26 earnings. Maple Story Idol RPG showing really good growth there and it crept into the top grossing charts last month. Uh on the other hand, Dungeon and Fighter Mobile declining quite badly after a pretty spectacular launch a couple of years ago. Square Mobile sales also down 21% there. A few Legacy titles are tailing off there. more detail as ever in the site and a link through to even if I do say so myself, a great uh making of love

and deep space uh article based on the GDC talk from earlier this year which I had a great deal of fun putting together. Uh but not many people read it. So seek it out if you can. In Monday's jobs digest, we've got moves at Roblox, Scopley, Supercell, Play Ticker, King, Mini Clip, Homer, Hutch, Triple, Scipplay, and more. And the end of last week in New Game Digest, there's a few interesting football games coming out. UFL, which is a free-to-play football console game that's coming to mobile, that is having a global soft launch, which you don't see very often. Roio is also hiring for a football game. Mini Clip has a football game coming to Apple Arcade. So, World Cup fever starting to break out Planet Hoy versus take on the Animal Crossing formula.

Pre-orders have opened for that one. NCOFT also has a Genchin Impact type game. And there's a couple of new games in testing from Century Games and 37 games, makers of White Out Survival and Puzzles and Survival, respectively. Have a look at the story on the site for more info on those. That's it for this week. Thanks for listening. I am preparing to get myself off to Summer Games Fest in early June. So, if you are out there for that, let me know. I'll be around. There's not a huge amount of mobile stuff out there. I may well be doing some bits and bobs for other websites. Um, but we shall see. Maybe see you in LA in a couple of weeks. If not, speak to you next week. Goodbye.