Take-Two, Ubisoft, Monopoly Go and SciPlay news plus data and soft launch nuggets

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. On Thursday night last week, I had a great time going through Take 2's financial report for Q4 and the full fiscal year just gone. As regular readers might know, I will continue to go with the angle of mobile being over half of Take 2's business until people stop being surprised by that fact. Yeah, the headline here is Zingga hits an all-time high as mobile dominates Take 2 financials. I do think it's notable that mobile games represent over half of Take 2's bookings. It actually reflects more broadly what is happening across the games industry in that half the money is made by mobile but no one really takes it seriously or reports on it properly which is hopefully where mobile gamer.biz biz bits in. But yeah, I listened through the earnings call. I

went through the financial report, the top mobile performers for the fiscal year just gone. Attemblast, match factory, empires and puzzles, color block jam, words with friends, and toy blast. In Q4, mobile net bookings were $829.1 million, up 14% yearonear, 52% of the platform split. console was 38 and PC and other was 10. For the full fiscal year 2026, Take 2 made $3.3 billion from mobile games. That is up 15% yearonear and 49% of the platform split. So overall, Take 2's Q4 net bookings were over guidance at 1.58 billion. Full year net bookings were $6.72 billion. Also above guidance FY27 guidance which includes of course GTA 6 suggests the company expects net

bookings of 8 to 8.2 billion. So up from $6.72 billion in the fiscal year just gone. Take 2 also pulled out some other mobile game related highlights. Tomb Blast up 25% euro a year. Empires and Puzzles up 5%. Color Block Jam up 15%. Top 11 had its strongest quarter ever. That game is 16 years old. WWE NBA games also doing well. The company said it will launch two mobile games in the next fiscal year. CSR3 and Top Goal were also mentioned elsewhere in those financial reports. So, it is likely going to be them. But both of those games have been in soft launch for a long time. So, it may or may not be them. It may be something more casual from Peak or Rolex or Popcore or Zingga or one of Take 2's other mobile studios.

It's direct to consumer business was name checked positively. No hard numbers on that, but it did say that going direct to consumer was driving margin growth, reducing payment friction and improving conversion and customer loyalty. forecasts for Take 2's mobile division were down a little bit, but Zelnik explained in the earnings call afterwards that mobile is very hard to predict and some of the recent hits Color Block Jam and Match Factory as they get older revenue will tail off a little bit. The quote here is on the mobile side particularly, we never anticipate huge numbers because it's just impossible to do so. Hit ratios are just too low. There was the usual AI question in the earnings call and Zelnik unlike lots of other CEOs did actually offer a concrete example of AI use internally that is helping. uh he talked

about how his teams use generative AI to make UA ad creatives and he notes that previously the company hired third party companies to create uh those ads and they would cost 2550 or $100,000 a pop but AI is making them for free and talking about the twoman marketing team that are making these creatives he says what AI has allowed them to do is be more efficient make great stuff and do it cheaper and this is all a benefit to our company. There was also a name check for Turkey, local tax breaks and subsidies there. And then one of the analysts noted that Take 2 had an increasingly large stack of cash on hand and will likely have even more once GTA 6 is out. So he was asked about mergers and acquisitions. The actual quote is, "Assuming our balance sheet continues to improve, I think you could imagine more inorganic growth in the future as well."

So, didn't rule out another big studio buy. Most of all though, the analysts were trying to get out of him how much GTA 6 is going to cost. He did not give them a straight answer, which suggests that is still up for grabs, I would say. I'm surprised there hasn't been more coverage of this in the industry press. He effectively reiterated that this is a unique game and it will have greater value to players than a typical AAA game. So, the suggestion is that GTA 6 will come in at $100 when it's launched on November 19th, but that has still to be confirmed. Lots more stats and figures and context in the article on the site. Have a look. Ubisoft posted its full year financial results just after I posted last week's podcast. So, let's quickly run through those. Now, the headline here is slow

start for Rainbow 6 and The Division on mobile as Ubisoft hits fiscal quote low point. As you will know, the the context is important here. 10 cents huge investment in Ubisoft and its restructuring into five creative houses as well as the delay and cancellation of multiple projects likely PC and console games means that this year was very much a transition year for Ubisoft and that is reflected in the results. Um I've not seen a company describe their own financials as a low point before. Uh, which is why I put that part in the headline. The problems Ubisoft has in PC and console probably pretty well documented, but it does also run a pretty massive mobile game division. Um, and just launched Rainbow 6 mobile and The Division Resurgence, both mobile iterations of those bigname

shooters. Revenue on both games was described as slower than expected. and then quote, "We remain cautious on the forecast for both games until we can see more meaningful growth." So, as probably expected, Rainbow 6 Mobile, The Division Resurgence, not performing all that great to begin with, but elsewhere in the earnings call, mobile dropped as a proportion of Ubisoft's overall net bookings year-on-year from 16% in FY2425 to 7% in FY2526. So, not great news. There was no mention of the Hungry Shark games or the idol games Ubisoft runs. I guess they're not meaningful enough revenue-wise to be mentioned, but Invincible Guarding the Globe was highlighted as a bright spot for Ubisoft Mobile. It benefited from the release of new TV series, and

there's been record activity levels in the game. Yeah, the transformation at Ubisoft is well underway. This is Ubisoft at rock bottom. And I'm not exaggerating. Ubisoft co-founder and CEO Eve Gilmo said, "This year is therefore expected to represent a low point in our free cash flow trajectory along with softer release slate and restructuring costs." So, Ubisoft says its rebound, restructure, comeback, whatever you want to call it, is coming in the next couple of financial years. And this year was also not helped by Assassin's Creed Shadows, which came out this time last year, and therefore skewed the results. But yeah, I have a sneaking suspicion that Ubisoft doesn't care about mobile that much and may well sell off some of the less glamorous stuff it has in its portfolio. Hungry Shark, Idle Tycoon,

that kind of thing. But we shall see as the turnaround continues at Ubisoft. 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. Quick one from Tuesday. Hasbro said in its latest earnings report that it has earned $41 million from Scopley's Monopoly Go in the last 3 months. That revenue was down a little bit. It was previously up to 44 45 million per quarter a few months ago,

but it was broadly in line with expectations, said Hasbro. And indeed, Hasbro CEO Chris Cox described Scopley's game as a juggernaut. The Scopely team is absolutely killing it. He said, "They've got a great game. They've got great partnerships and fantastic collabs." And he also said Monopoly Go will meaningfully contribute to Hasbro's bottom line for years to come. In the previous earnings report for the full year 2025, Hasbro said it earned $168 million from Monopoly Go via Scopley. So, as I remarked on LinkedIn when I posted this story, this is easy money for Hasbro. And a couple of months ago, Scopi said the game was earning roughly $200 million a month and it was also the

fastest game to hit 6 billion in player revenue according to Sensor Tower. That was a stat from back in January. So, Monopoly Go doing quite well. Who would have thought? Another one from Tuesday. Sciplay, the social casino game maker, has made some layoffs. I picked this up from LinkedIn. I followed up with Scipplay. They wouldn't confirm exactly how many staff cuts were made, but they did confirm there were a quote limited number of rolls affected. The LinkedIn post suggested that it was something to do with its bingo showdown game. I play did not confirm if it was related to that or not. I looked a bit further into its financials and its parent company, Light and Wonder, also reported its Q126 earnings at the start of this month in

which it said Scipplay's revenues remain quote challenged amid a mature social casino market. Scayplay revenue was down 7% yearon year to 187 million for the quarter though its direct to consumer revenue and active users grew sequentially. The revenue drop was down to jackpot party casino softness. Direct to consumer revenues were 50 million for the quarter, 27% of the total revenue and average monthly revenue per paying user amrpu was up 8% year-over-year 126.3. So on average, a Scip Play paying user pays $126 per month, which is extremely high obviously because this is Social Casino, but still an eyebrow raising

figure. And to add a bit more context, I looked into App Magic's inapp purchase estimates. The top games at Scip Play I thought was interesting because I don't usually cover this company that much. In the last 30 days, the top games were Jackpot Party Casino Slots 11.1 million, Quick Hit Casino, 5.7, 88 Fortunes, 3.8 million, Goldfish Casino, 3.2 million, and Monopoly Slots 2.1 million, Bingo Showdown, about $800,000 earned in the last 30 days for that one. So, one of the weaker performers and perhaps that was the reason it appears some staff cuts have been made on that team. In an extra beefy data digest this week, we have some early numbers on Neverness to Everess, uh, which has topped $14 million in its first month or so. It was

released on April 21st for PC, PS5, iOS, and Android. So, very much in that Hoyoverse type space. Daily revenue peaked at a million dollars on May 7th. So, not spectacular, but people seem to be talking about it as the anime GTA. So, thought this was worth including. Elsewhere, Monopoly Go was as ever April's top grossing game in the US according to Sensor Tower. Royal Match up one spot. Last War Survival down one spot. Township Royal Kingdom and Garina Freefire rising through the rankings there. Vita Marjong and Zen Word lead April's ad charts according to Social Peta. There's a whole top 20 in the story based on the top mobile game advertisers for April. 10-centent Games revenue hit 11 billion

in Q1, says an estimate from Nico Partners. an extraordinary amount of money driven by of course Honor of Kings, Peacekeeper Elite, Delta Force, and Valerant Mobile, which has been a smash hit in China, Clash Royale, Wthering Waves, and Valerant on PC have also contributed to that 11 billion total. Crazy money. Voodoo's Castle Busters, $4 million. In April, at Magic put out one of their charts on that one, an artillery shooter, which is not a genre you see very often. And then there's a big deep dive into Sensor Tower's Q1 digital market index report. I guess the headline news is inapp purchase revenue hit 20.4 billion in Q1 2026. Downloads down. Strategy leading genre in terms of inapp purchase revenue.

Puzzle game revenue up 21% year-on-year. Last war survival leading inapp purchase revenue. Block blast top in terms of downloads. Lots of good graphs to chew on in there. In the latest soft launch article, Metacor returns to the world of soft launches. In the last update to this two weeks ago, I had dropped the last few Metacore games from this list because they've been pulled from the stores. But another one turned up. It's called Power Tap, and it looks like another merge game, but with a fantasy theme. There's also now three soft launch games in this list from Century Games, maker of White Out Survival, a merge game called Just Desserts, Family Farm Merge, another merge game with a farming theme, and Lord Rush, which looks like a 4X strategy game, but with a medieval theme. Fortress building, tower defense, and large scale warfare is promised in

the product page for that one. There's also the usual titles from Supercell, Playicks, Zingga, 10-centent, Mini Clip, and many, many more. Moon Active 2. Have a look at the full list on the site. Just Google the soft launch games you need to know about, and you'll find it. And that's it for this week. A slightly quieter week for the site and industry headlines in general. It was a bank holiday on Monday here in the UK and it was also some sort of day off in America as well. A lighter week of content this week, but those beefy take two and Ubisoft earnings I think made up for that. If you are coming to Summer Gamefest end of next week, then maybe see you in sunny LA. Until then, thanks for listening. Goodbye.