The final word on GDC | Week in Mobile Games podcast

Hello and welcome to the Pocket Game Adopt this podcast week in mobile games where we chat about the week's news and provide some insights. We've had a two week I think hiatus. I've been away traveling and I got a bit ill after one of those travels but we're back and I'm Craig Chapel head. With me is our deputy editor, Paige Cook, and our news editor, Aaron Assel. Great to have you both on the show after a few weeks. Paige, how you doing?
Doing good, thank you. I think it's an extra week for me as well because I think the last podcast I did was before I went to Belfast and that feels like ages ago now. So,
yeah, it's been at least like 3 weeks for me. But yeah, not much going on in my world. I had all the excitement of Belfast and then the weekend after that, I had a friend come and stay. So, uh, it's like an online friend that I've been gaming with for like a year and she lives up in Scotland, which actually isn't that far from me. So, we were

like, let's just meet in person. Let's take an online friendship and make it real. And it's always like nerve-wracking cuz it's like, am I going to get on with this person in person? But, it was great. We had a really fun time. So, that was nice. But yeah, just been sort of taking it easy and actually enjoying a little bit of sunshine, which is I feel like it's such a traditional British thing that we talk about weather, but it is just like, oh my god, it's the sun's there.
It's quite a shock to see so much of it. And it's it's just genuinely warm out as well.
Yeah, I'm already planning my gardening and everything. I am getting old.
Thanks, Paige. Aaron, how you doing? What you been up to?
Yeah, I'm good, thank you. Um, so, uh, yeah, I feel like I'm always saying this, but I, um, caught up with a with an old friend over the weekend, uni friend I haven't seen for a couple of years, so that was nice. Um, so he came to stay for the weekend. So, we went out over to Oxford, did some bowling, which we both did really terribly in the first game, and then sort of picked things back up in the second game, and then we

went out for like dinner and sort of showed him some of the kind of Cotswaldy, countryside bits while he was here outside of Oxford City. So, yeah, that was a nice weekend. I've also had some other sort of realworld stuff going on this week, but we'll save that for my kind of segment to come.
Real world as opposed to going out. Well, I mean like you know that was real world. I've had even more re you know away from the computer screen activities in the past week.
Nice. Nice. But now the sun's out. You got to
Yeah.
Thanks for that Aaron. As for myself, mostly you've just been traveling. I've been to a few events which I'll go into. I've been to MWC which is Mobile World Congress and GDC Game Developer Conference. Um which are very cool. I'll go to that in a sec. And elsewhere they're not really up to much else. watching TV shows. The Godzilla shows back. Monarch doesn't have Godzilla in it, though. So, uh, I've been watching I might have mentioned this before. I've been watching Paradise and, uh, season

two. I mean this in a good way. It's like Peak Lost. Like, it's so good. Like, when they they're doing a lot of flashback stuff, a lot of character things, character like development, and it's just really really good show. I do I highly recommend it. It's like right up my street and it has like mysteries to it, but they it's not like endless mysteries like Lost. It's typically like in season one there's like a central mystery and then that's kind of it and then it will get it will get answered. So um very very good. So we got uh before we get into it, we got a few events coming up. We just did Pocket Gamer Connect San Francisco. Thank you everyone that came to that. That's pretty cool. was in a nightclub in the day and then we turned it over in the evening to be a nightclub. Had a massive disco ball in the meeting area. It was great. We got Sweden coming up May 27th 28th. So it's it's two days summit. Uh the first day is for networking. The

second day is for talks. You got PC Barcelona June 15th 16th. Shanghai July 29th. Nordics which is in Helsinki October 20th to 21st. uh Bangkok October 27th and we've got Gran Canaria as in December as well. So we got a few things coming up. Right. Let's just jump into news and insights and whatever else we we're going to talk about. So the first thing I wanted to talk about was GDC. So I've got an article on the site posted a bit about it on LinkedIn as well if you want to check those out. Just a bit about the event. So the main the main talking point which I think is never it's probably never great for an event is like the health of the event. That shouldn't be the main takeaway, right? Firstly, just how it looked when you when you when you go into GDC, there's three it's technically three separate buildings. There's the west hall and then you have the south hall and the north hall. The south wall is where like the main expo is. So you go underground and it's and it's kind of and it's

there. And then in the north hall is where they used to have like company booths for meetings really and also a lot of expo space for games for developers to show off their games and seating areas and food and stuff. And then along the middle along the walkway uh there'll be space for other booths as well. And then there'd also be some side rooms for for some sessions. This year you could tell that the decline had really hit it and that and they kind of preempted that with the rebrand to the Festival of Gaming which I think was a bit confused. Didn't really make much sense when you're there personally. People saying tickets more expensive and they're supposed to be cheaper. So the only So the Northall was effectively cut off. I think they did the awards in there but there was no expo space there. So you're already missing that half. Yeah. Then you're also missing any any boos in the walkway which used to have some pretty big spaces in there as well. They would have a lot of the international booths like say Brazil or

India in that part. All of that's gone except in the part of the walkway was replaced with just seating and one place for like it was more open for a session like for sessions and so so then the south part is now like an amalgamation of everything else. So basically it's very small and when you like talk to people there people are like one person just like I said that I knew went up to them and like yeah how you doing and they just looked around online like they were like this is it right like next year that'll be it because it was it was just that much marketkedly smaller. I think if you went there for your first time you might think oh this is impressive but if you've seen it for years gone by you realize it's very much smaller. A lot of the big companies of old, aren't there? Unity, Unreal, and some of the web 3. I think most of the web 3 ones that have probably been propping up the expo space somewhat have gone. Meta was there for some reason with VR, but I think that was really the only bit of VR. And then some Asian companies kind of had fairly big presences like Tencent, for example. I looked at the stats that they've

released for the last 15 years for each event and I made a little table. As I said, 2024, 2025, they reported at least around 30,000 attendees. Not sure. I'm not sure how they calculate that because it didn't feel like it last year. It's hard to tell. This year they reported 20,000. So, it's decline of 33%. They they said they had more speakers, 1100 compared to a,000 plus last year. There's over 700 sessions, which not that far away from the last few years, very pretty high historically as well. exhibitors though 300 plus which is the lowest since 2012 when they reported 300 plus technically in 2022 at 200 plus but like it's postco and so they only had 12,000 people there and 5,000 virtually so I don't really count it and interestingly this is the first time they mentioned 85 plus countries so yeah like marketkedly down if you were in the surrounding hotels which is used to be a hive of activity not really so much anymore people were saying that they could easily get like

seats and the Marriott Marquee or the W, which was kind of impossible say 10 years ago. So, I guess that's I hope the event keeps going. I guess the the concern is the profitability of the event now. So, um if you lose a lot of those or if you lose a lot of those boos and the expo space is smaller, maybe that's where they actually make a lot of their sponsorship money. Um don't know how much they make from tickets, etc., right? I'm sure it's substantial, but I'm sure a lot of it is paid for by that expo space. So if that was to get smaller again next year, I I worry about the event. I hope it sticks around cuz it's one of the few maybe even the only event that develop you can hear over hear developers all get together talking about actually making games and like like specific game design stuff which is really nice to hear. Like a lot of conferences are very business focused. There's obviously room for that. There's nothing wrong with that. GDC is quite unique in typically in bringing people together. I think maybe there's a bit of a shift going on to other events. We've got Gamescom in Europe now, but that means we missed like that March window

before a massive global event. I had some other very quick takeaways that I wrote basically very quickly the problems that it faces the conference. So posts there's obviously been massive layoffs across the games industry for the past couple years and it was previously reported that largely those came from California which is where GDC is. Obviously, the current US administration's policies uh like uh ICE and just being quite aggressive with immigration in general has seen people stay away. And when I filled in my visa, it asked for like my past 5 years sort of social media accounts. So, I closed my ex account as precaution cuz they might look up old tweets about Trump, which I don't do. I I don't even use it these days. But yeah, like it's pretty aggressive. Obviously the USIsrael attacks on Iran meant people in the Middle East could not come. Not necessarily that people would feel welcome anyway, but that kind of ruled that out. I think that also presented problems. I heard it presented problems for the Pakistan booth. Um there is

actually a photo of them like opening and saying, "Oh, we're here." But apparently some of those couldn't turn up. Obviously that's in Asia. I heard that that was affected. Um as I said, Gamescom's kind of muscled in on on GDC. Last year it had 34,000 train visitors and500 exhibitors. I think that I think the exhibitor number includes um the B2C space there. Yeah, the big stands like web free gone. AI you think would be a big trend there and it was but I I didn't really notice that much on the on the expo floor which was surprising. San Francisco is just unpopular. It is not a nice city. I think when people say oh it's getting better I'll be honest. I think I think you're just lying to ourselves, anyone that says that cuz it is awful. I'm sorry. I I've traveled to a lot of places around the world and I've just never seen something that bad. Yeah. Still a clamor to move out of California. Paired, did you see anything like from the outside of GDC? Like how did it feel? Because usually there's

like a lot of news going around, but I don't know how much there was this year.
Yeah, it didn't feel like there was tons. Not from like being back here. It seemed quite quiet, especially on some days they said you would expect there to be announcements and like there were the odd one, but it didn't feel like exceptionally busy or anything like that. Um, we did just do obviously a mobile mavens as well where we got some opinions from people that also attended. A lot of those just kind of repeat very similar to what you've just said. I know we had Martin spans and she said that like the expo was like considerably smaller this year and it sort of makes you wonder like will that just disappear? But then at the same time like if the event does just keep struggling she was saying like what is the alternative to GDC for like northern America like what is the alternative to that? So yeah it was definitely a you know I think every single person commented that it it felt significantly smaller. I think everyone mentioned that in their comments.
Yeah I'd say the main thing I noticed from it was just the number of people posting on LinkedIn saying I'm not going

to GDC this year. If you live in America, you might not understand how it necessarily feels abroad, but like it does feel like if you go there, it's almost you don't know what's going to happen at the border. Definitely people, as I said, people in Europe, they're just staying away cuz they don't want to. They just don't really want to go.
On top of that, there's also the practicality of some people physically can't go like with what's happening in the Middle East, like some people literally cannot go. I think in Mavens again, I think Oscar Clark, I think he said that two people from panels he was supposed to be on just they literally just couldn't get there. Like they couldn't attend. Yeah. And I think it's probably more difficult to get visas and stuff as well anyway other than outside of what's been going on. So yeah, I think there's there's things inside of of the organizers in formers control and there's things just outside of their control that they can't do anything about unless they were to literally move the event to another city, possibly even to another country. It raises your point about North America. Like what else would there be for there? There are some other events. Dice technically there's

MAU but that's not really games. MIGs in Canada potentially. I don't think these are for games. They're not the same scale. One last thing is uh the Xway floor thing reminded me a bit of for years uh I went to GTC Europe a bunch of times which was basically took place in the days just before Gamescom which has now been replaced by DevCon and and now that is Gamescom dev. But anyway, the expo space there just like over a couple years it just dwindled and dwindled. It was already quite small but you that was the tell of like how long is this event going to last? So for me, it just brings back those memories, rightly or wrongly. So I think next year is really the big tell for GDC. How people received this year's event, how exhibitors received it, how people feel about going to America again next year because presumably it'll be the same. Yeah, 20,000 is the is the mark and hopefully it's profitable. Cool. Anyway, I've ravebled a lot. Uh up next page, what have you got? Uh, so my first story is technically one that was from the end of last week, but I kind of wanted to circle back around to it since we didn't

have the podcast. So basically, Peggy, so the age rating system that's used for like a large amount of European countries, they're introducing some pretty big changes. So from June 2026, ratings won't just be based on the content in the game. So, you know, the things that, you know, the warnings you always see when you bring up a game, you know, violence, bad language, drugs, all those kinds of things. So, it won't just be that that impacts the rating. It'll also be things like the in-game systems, how the game's monetized, and how like online features are handled. So, yeah, that's going to be looking at sort of things like loot boxes, time limited offers, daily rewards, um, and how like communication sort of works. So, for me, one of the big things for that is is the loot box type rewards. So the way they worded it, I think was more like paid for random items, but you know, that just kind of explains what a loot box is. So anything with those can just be by default now a Peggy 16, which is pretty high. It did say in some cases

that could even be an 18. So that's a pretty huge shift because it could push a lot of games that, you know, previously were seen suitable for quite young audiences will now be in a much higher age bracket. There was some other interesting details, too. uh games that reward you for daily login uh that could go up to a peggy 7 which I feel is a large majority of mobile games have you know a daily reward like you know you logged in here's this but then if it if the game punishes you for not logging in it can be a peggy 12 again quite a few games do that you know if you don't do it consecutively each day oh it's kind of reset is that classed as punishing you for not logging in so there might be some variables on what you determine is and isn't punishing you um Yeah, that's in there. Um, and then the communication stuff I think is more about if you have like some kind of uh like a chat system and it's just completely unrestricted that would just be an instant 18 rating. Like if there's no moderation on that, then it's a Peggy 18. So yeah, it just

it raises the question of how do developers, you know, do they change what they're doing? Do they change their game design to maintain a lower age rating? Or do they just carry on as they are and accept that the classification is going to be higher? You know, like I said, I can think of tons of mobile games that definitely have these things. Maybe if your game's already out, they just accept it. But if you're currently developing a game, do they sort of look at these things and think, "All right, how do we monetize it to sort of secure a lower age rating?" because, you know, if a game has loot boxes and it says Peggy 16, that's a lot of younger audiences that do play these games traditionally maybe won't be able to. Yeah, I'm interested to see what impact it actually has. I'm interested to see how seriously people actually take it or if it's just like a thing of like, oh, okay, like we're a Peggy 16 now and they just carry on doing what we were doing before.
I feel like you just have to carry on. Like if your monetization model is built on loops, you're not going to change it, are you? So yeah, it's quite big. I guess it's especially big for um as I think I've probably mentioned, but EA

Sports Football.
One of the first ones I've thought of.
It's just wow. Like imagine as a kid you're going into a shop to buy a game and you can't you can't buy a football game. Seems bizarre, doesn't it?
Supposed to be a sport for everyone. suppose around the loot box thing, there's been this conversation for a long time, like years back and forth on how much loot boxes are. Yeah. You know, how close are they to being, you know, gambling essentially. So, I do kind of get that argument, but yeah, like I said, there are tons of games that that use it and I don't think they're just now going to be like, "Okay, well, we're going to just take those out." And for some games, that's the largest part of their monetization.
Like, I actually think loot boxes are all right. They can be fun. Like I'm not that against them, but I think an age rating on it kind of makes sense. Kind of makes sense, right?
I think you can say that for a lot of things though, like even with like Fortnite, you you know, you're buying exactly what it is you want to buy. It's not a loot box, but there's still kids

out there that are addicted to buying V-Bucks, you know, and even though they know exactly what they're getting. So, it's one of those things you could debate till the end of time, I think. Um cuz I think those things can just have an addictive tendency to them anyway. So yeah, it's it is a it is a tough one.
I wouldn't say there I wouldn't say addictive because I I I doubt like I I wouldn't say addictive personally because I don't think it has the same it wouldn't have the same as as it were chemical reaction in the body to buy V-Bucks as it would on a machine in a casino.
Yeah, I suppose addictives maybe strong. I guess it's more of the like for the younger generation as well. just like, you know, the fear of missing out and wanting to have the newest stuff. And like there's there's lots of kids that, you know, are constantly asking their parents to buy more V-Bucks and so they can have a new outfit when they just got a new outfit on it yesterday and it does kind of snowball. I know when my nephew was super into Fortnite, like I I dread to think how much my sister was spending on V-Bucks because yeah, he would get upset if he didn't have the latest skin

or wanted to gift a skin to his friends. So would be like, "So it's not even for you. You want to buy it for a friend?"
Is it?
Yeah, it does. spiral. Sometimes
it is interesting like this year seems to be very much the year of like more regulation on tech and including games. We've spoken about that before. We're seeing social media bans. The UK has its own uh loot box ruling rulings. Um the ASA's like a sister group now requires mobile publishers to state very clearly and obviously uh on their store pages that a game has loot boxes. And if they don't do that, they get in trouble. So just saying contains like inapp purchases or something isn't enough.
Yeah.
Yeah. Very interesting. Right. Thanks, Paige. Aaron, we've got So you've been you've been on a trip to a rather big games company.
I have indeed. Yeah. Yesterday as of us recording this, I was in London. I went to King's Studio there um and had a a tour around. So I saw a few of the

different floors. Um, and like at the start we were saying about the the good weather and the um, kind of British need to discuss the weather and appreciate like the sun is real today. It was nice, you know, it was well timed then that the weather's been good this week. Um, I was able to like sit out on their their balcony for lunch and it's quite a nice studio. Very colorful as you'd probably expect for like Candy Crush kind of thing. Um and yeah, so while I was there, um I interviewed a couple of people. So there was President Todd Green, a few members of the marketing team like Roberto Casabi and Sean Finnis and Farm Heroes Saga VP Trevor Burroughs. Um so I guess uh expect a few stories to follow from from those. Something that I sort of got out quickly today was that um Trevor had said that Farm Hero Saga has surpassed $2 billion

which the last time there was any kind of official word it was at 1 billion
which which I nearly didn't believe but then we we tracked it back to 2019 the original billion still quite surprisingly.
Yeah. Um but yeah so hopefully a lot more kind of insights to come in the big kind of features to follow. Yeah, it was a really interesting day. Personally, I found a lot of the marketing stuff really interesting. They kind of showed me a bit of a behind the scenes on um yeah, kind of the design process for certain marketing things they do, whether that's like social media or just the design of like logos for events, their kind of seasons and things. So, I won't give everything away now cuz um yeah, I'm going to need to collect my thoughts. It was a very full-on day. Need to look back through all my um sort of recordings and notes and things to um get on top of it all. But yeah, it was a um quite an enjoyable, informative

day.
You you can tease some bits.
Okay.
Todd Green said some interesting stuff cuz we asked about midcore games, right?
Yes. So, um, yeah, cuz obviously King have previously kind of dabbled in attempts at midcore. Um, so I asked kind of when it comes to like new games whether whether midcore is still on the cards or something that they're looking at making games in. And he basically said like never say never, but at the moment they're very much like casual focused potentially um with some like midcore elements. So, I think he was kind of hinting at kind of the the rise of hybrid casual, he was saying that, you know, more games kind of blend between the genres these days anyway. So, there's potential for maybe like some midcoreish features, but in terms of the kind of core genre, they didn't rule out ever trying midcore again, but they're they're casual for now. For

people that don't know, just King at least maybe not quite in recent history, but they do have a history of really trying to break out from like casual and it's never worked unfortunately. They did they announced the Call of Duty game that they were going to make. Didn't happen. Um I think they published a game by Moki which I think did okay. It was called Night. It wasn't like a massive breakout king-size success. And they have tried other things over the years. I can't remember the names of them. There's one with a character was sword was called and they did rebel riders which I don't know if necessarily that was midcore but it might have been but that that didn't really that sort of quietly went away and so they've only done like the casual gamesoft launches like the solitire which they then globally went and then what was the other one 3D batch or something match 3D
yeah something like that
as well blast
there you go
yeah that was one It's the try out

stuff.
And then they just released like Crushable, the like daily puzzle game,
but they nothing ever is going to match Candy Crush. We'll see. All right, cool. Thanks, Aaron. Yeah, there'll be more articles on the site soon. I'm very quickly going to do mine cuz I rambled on so much earlier and technically this story is a few weeks late. Just I thought I'd have to mention uh the Google Play changes. So Google Play and Epic came to a deal after like years and years of hating each other. I think as the judge would put it, being mortal enemies in the US case, they've now they've now got a deal which covers well they it's like worldwide. They've ended all the worldwide legal disputes and their deal covers the European Economic Area, the UK and the US. But the US will still be that is still pending what the judge thinks of this new agreement. So basically what it is is effectively Google now takes 20% service fee instead of 30%. But it's kind of pulled it out

differently. So now it's a 20% service fee just with being on the platform and a 5% royalty on top of that if you use Google Pay. So it's effectively for many a 5% cut but which after many years seems kind of pointless almost or not pointless just disappointing really. is still 5% saving technically. Although with uh I had this discussion with someone at GDC and DTOC firms, they take like 5% that's like I think a minimum I can actually go like 10 to 15% is what I've been told like their share. So you know you might not the publishers might not actually make that much of a saving here but the most most significant thing is the anti- steering is gone. So Android is now open up properly to third party marketplaces. If you on Android, on Google Play, like if you send someone to your web shop, you should take all of that money, not like Apple trying to claw that back currently. Google said it's also reducing its fee for recurring

subscriptions to 10%. And I think you can actually save like further money if you use certain of go of Google's uh new tools as well. So, it was interesting. I'd be surprised the judge goes for it, but maybe maybe they will. So, I I actually spoke with Epic Game Store GM Steve Allison at GDC and I was like, is it worth it? Was it worth it? Like all of this for 5%. Technically, Epic's better because they have their own payment system, right? And he he just called it a meaningful reset and that developers now, as he would put it, have a toolkit to keep more of their revenue. So, he said, "Is it worth it?" It's not for me to answer. It's for a developer. I think that those that want to lean in and get that 20% and maybe in some cases 15% I say it's worth it. He added uh I think the opportunity is about digging in and if margin is important to your business you have options now. Uh and then he also said, you know, would we like it to be 12% or 10%, of course, but where we land is where we land. And basically his

point was they could keep going on for many more years to actually get some kind of ruling that said it should be like x% but they wanted to agree a deal now rather than keep going legally, I guess, to reduce that. It is worth pointing out that in the App Store case in the US, I think it's going to change a bit, but obviously it went to basically zero. Although Apple was going to get something that in that one country and in the Google injunction like it was much harsher much harsher of Google four let's not forget anti-competitive practices so I'm curious if the judge is like okay yeah we'll forget all this and we'll just go over your new deal that's so that's me Paige what else have you got
yeah mine links uh quite nicely with what you were just speaking about so as of today Fortnite is officially back on the Google placed or so it's kind of this big full circle moment like Craig was just saying um you know after the last few years of legal battles. So it

was originally removed back in 2020 when Epic introduced its own like payment systems to essentially bypass Google's rules and then that kicked off this whole legal battle. Um so yeah, it's back on the store today. You know, obviously lots going on behind the scenes like Craig just mentioned, you know, the the Google stuff of how it's, you know, adjusted some of its how it's doing like charging developers and bit more flexibility around payments which is allowed the door to open for Fortnite to make its return. We obviously saw like this play out in a similar way like you were saying last year with Apple and Fortnite going back on there as well to the App Store that it did really well. I think it was like top of the charts. But yeah, it also comes at a time where there's some some more changes coming to Fortnite. We did a story, I think it was last week about the pricing for V-Bucks is going up. Not everyone very happy about that. Like Epica trying to balance it out with things like, you know, you get more cash back if you use their own payment system. Very convenient. And then yeah, there's there's other changes

too. It's not mobile, but again, I think Aaron and I were talking about it last week. They're bringing the like the original Fortnite, the save the world mode. They're making that freeto play. That won't be mobile, though. I always just I I can't help but always find it really funny that that's how that game started. And me and Aaron were talking last week. Aaron was just like, "Is that what that game was? Is that what everyone was talking about back then?" And I was like, "Yeah, like I remember having that game." And I think it was only like 2 months or so after that they added a battle royale. they must have just known that like this game was it was just not going to work as it was and you know not to be harsh it wasn't it wasn't great like it was very forgettable so I guess yeah uh they made the right choice turning it into a battle royale game look where it is now
right thanks for that page Aaron what else have you got
yeah so my other story this week is so I took a look into the kind of BAFTA game announcements cuz they um revealed the of nominees uh for the for yeah for this

year's BAFTA Games Awards and so there was a long list a couple of months ago uh yeah now the um the proper like nominations are out so there are um 42 games across 17 categories uh and particularly obviously I was looking from the the mobile angle and uh quickly realized there were no mobile games nominated for best game Um, not even anything that's like multiplatform and available on mobile. Um, and uh, not to say there aren't good games. I know like Claire Obscure is very highly regarded. That's up for, you know, that could win best game. Uh, that's got 12 nominations. And then there are other games like Dispatch and Ghost of Your Toy or however you pronounce that one. Um, that are up for best game. But yeah, it seems like once again mobile's kind of

been snubbed. Um, looking through the list, like anything that is on mobile that I could find is also like crossplatform. So there are games like Monument Valley 3 and Ball X Pit and Is This Seat Taken? Which you can play uh on mobile. They they've been nominated for things like best British game or for game design, but they can also be played on like PC or console or whatever. that are also on mobile. So yeah, the more I looked through the list, the more it was like, yeah, there's just no kind of almost even acknowledgement of mobile this year. Even I thought so like the evolving game category which can have like older titles that have been updated in the past year to kind of be up for an award and even those which obviously you know mobile live ops that you know they kind of go together. Um, but even there there's not really like mobile representation.
No Clash Royale.
No, no Clash Royale. It's like Hell Divers 2, Fallout 76, Hitman, World of

Assassination. But yeah, like you say, like Clash Clash Royale could have easily been considered for that category. And then so I had a look at like the criteria as well. So to be eligible for a BAFTA, a game had to have I say other than the kind of updates category, a game had to have released between November 24 and November 25. So like just a couple of mobile exclusives that came to mind that have done well in that time. You've got like Super Plays, Disney Solitaire that didn't get a mention. Hab's Capiara Go Century Games King Shop released in that time frame. Each of these have made, you know, hundreds of millions of dollars, but they didn't even make the long list, let alone the kind of final nominations. Um, so overall, I guess it fits the trend we've seen for a long time of things like the BAFTAs and the the Game Awards sort of overlooking mobile, but yeah, it it seems we're we're still in

the same place as last year in that regard.
Yeah, it doesn't uh it doesn't really get better. I I would say can't believe I am defending Beth, but I would say in their defense a couple of those Monument Valley was a mobile game that later
originally
to other platforms because of the Netflix deal
so
but it also left mobile for a while. Yeah, I think that was more the uh but that was just because of as they would hint at the irregularities of the Netflix deal and then being able to put it on mobile again later on than other platforms. The the
I had this massive debate with someone at an event last year which I'm sure they love before. It was about um because Bic for basically one of the reasons that you might not see mobile games on there is because you have you have to pay to nominate your game, right? Apparently, there are good reasons for this, but it just looks not great. I think that you have to pay. And

they were saying like literally every game on there is, you know, is paid for. If you don't, if someone doesn't pay, then it won't be nominated. So, that's whatever you think of that. Cuz I was like, well, I guess mobile publishers don't really care, do they? Like, does sensory games really care if the Kingshot is nominated or not? Probably not. I don't know. I can't speak for them, but maybe not. Same with other mobile games. It's just it's just a different world in terms of how you market promote your your mobile game versus PC and console which kind of I think crave a lot more critical acclaim. Um because that probably boost sales with mobile it's just a different world of user acquisition. So I don't think it necessarily matters. Depends on the mobile game obviously.
Yeah. So if you didn't know Yeah. You have to pay.
I still think that's insane. And also if you if you you have to pay within like 30 days of release, I think. And if it's after that, you pay more.
All right. You have to know it's great from the from the off.
You just have you just have to do it in time. I think it's part I think it was

explained to me. I could be wrong. No, I'll confident have to say that the reason the price goes up is because they they don't want all the games coming being nominated all at once at the end of the year because there needs to be some sort of judging process.
M
but then the debate was like all right so what games that are nominated earlier they get more time. I don't know. Straight.
It makes sense.
The argument of like is it the best of the best if it's like if you paid for your name to be there. Not saying that you're not still the best just cuz you paid for your name to be in there, but you have to have that money to be able to pay to be in the running, right?
It's not thousands, it's like hundreds. So, but you know, if you're an indie dev, you know, do you want to spend hundreds? Probably not. Maybe you got a publisher that can do that for you. But you know I'm not saying it's like yeah it's unreachable for everyone but similarly you know that's that's the process but you know that's only nominations and then it's a jury that actually I think then selects like the

actual long list the short list etc you know it's not like
it's not like you pay to win it but you pay to be involved
right
like you said can't like speak for them but yeah I wonder if it's just like like you said it's not like mobile companies like you know if it's a 200 they it's not that they can't afford to get themselves in the running but is it just like that culture thing of a lot of mobile studios are like like they're not that bothered about it whereas obviously the culture for a lot of like console PC that there is that like awards season type thing that they make a big
thing about so is they're just like they're just not actually that interested
mobile studios
and I think I've been harsh on BAFTA before which I still am but it it is you know if we're going have this debate. It is up to mobile companies to actually even bother. Like if mobile companies don't bother then is it even worth us having this debate because they like we said they don't care. So like it doesn't in effect it's a shame that you don't

see it because it should be part of it but mobile companies have to play their part. It's not all up to BAFTA is it? I guess it's a self-fulfilling prophecy in a way particularly because like if a mobile publisher was vaguely interested and looked and saw like oh well mobile never wins or gets nominated it's like what's the point in spending the money
to just get overlooked and if everyone does that obviously yeah it keeps happening because no one's eligible because they haven't paid. So, if you're listening and you're a mobile developer that's got a good game, you're willing to pay and you want mobile recognition though, worth giving it a go and then and then we can vote about it properly next year. Don't get nominated.
Yeah. Let us know that you
let us know that you applied and then All right, that brings us to the end of the pocket gamer.biz week in mobile games. I remembered the name of the podcast after two weeks, which is an achievement.
Well done. I know. I deserve a round of applause. Thank you very much, Paige,

for being on the show. Good to be back.
Thank you very much, Aaron, for joining us.
Yeah, thank you as always.
Thank you everyone for listening and we'll catch you on the next one. We'll try and resume as normal next week. If I