TWiG #375: GDC 2026 Post-Mortem, Epic’s Surrender & Google Play’s Legal Rebirth

My son was playing the game last night, and I [ __ ] screamed like a little girl, dude. It was
[laughter]
I can't do jump scares, man. I'm too old, man. My heart is too weak. I'm so embarrassed, but it's like I just can't stand these games. It's good though. It's beautiful. I don't know if anybody's played it. It is absolutely terrifying, but really good, so. Hello everyone, and welcome to Deconstructor of Fun this Week in Games number 375, the post-GDC episode. I'm Jen Donahoe. I fill the marketing and publishing role on the podcast. I resumed the role. I'm first chair now. Phil Black monetization are
[laughter]
Got it. He abdicated the throne. That's not how it works. I'm And it was a throne. It really was a throne.
a throne, yes. Eric Kress, strategy and investing. Misha Ketchell, founder, whisperer, and defender of investors.
[laughter]
I like that new one. All right. We're going to get you a shield with with that. A puffy vest shield will be your your new mic.

by the way, private equity, venture capital, banks, you name it. You got money, I'm defending you.
[laughter]
All right. Here's our episode summary. We're back from GDC, and we're going to catch you up on everything that we missed, and some of the new new news stories coming in. First is GDC itself. Attendance The attendance number came in at the lowest since 2011. We have three kind of mobile updates. We're going to group them together. One is we're going to finally go through the latest in the Google Play rate changes. This is all a result of the Google via Epic lawsuit that was in the US. Apple reduces its rate in the China App Store specifically. So, is that a sign of things to come? And the Epic Games Store will allow mobile publishers on iOS and Android to start self-publishing their games from August of this year. So, other things going on. NCSoft splurges 200 million on a rewarded play platform. I think it's Just Play. In PC console news, Resident Evil 4

remake becomes the series' fastest-selling title. And then Newzoo's 2026 PC console gaming report is out, and we'll hit a few highlights. So, first can I complain about LinkedIn? So, I don't know if you guys have seen this trend lately, but there's this like stupid hack that people have. They make a post, and they're and they write, say, you know, quote, this word, and I'll send you the information. And by the way, the information is typically really wrong. And then all of the responses are automated, and they don't actually engage you in the content. They're like, oh, I'll just send it to you with the same like automated AI response. And in the words of the great Eric Kress, stop it. Just stop it. There's one I don't want to glorify this post, but it was like wrong. It was completely wrong. And so, I wrote in the comments like there's no way on earth that this is actually correct, and I got this stupid comment. So, everybody stop doing this [ __ ] Kress, I'm glad that you don't do this.

Good job. Yet. So, anyway, public service announcement. So, shilling, no more GDC shilling. We're done, except to say thank you to our sponsors. We had a lot of amazing events. We'll start kind of posting some pictures soon. AppCharge, AppFlyer, Heroic Labs, Sensor Tower, and Vibe. Thank you guys for helping us at all these events. There were a ton of others. For Supper Club, TikTok also a huge huge partner for us. So, Misha, the shilling continues though, doesn't it? It never stops. [laughter] Yeah, in the show notes you said, oh, that's it. That's all the shilling we're going to do. Like, hold on. Hold on. Hold on. Let's not break the formula. So, let me shill a little bit. Sensor Tower's state of gaming is out. It's a 100-page report. Just absolute golden content on PC, console, and mobile. If you don't have enough time to read it right now, you can listen to the podcast or check out our blog post with graphs focusing on seven trends you should be aware of that is happening in gaming.

And also, it's going to be a mega week of content. So, take a mega pint of wine or whatever is is your drink of or beverage of choice. Two tweaks coming out this week, and of course, the tweak from GDC. It might have dropped before this or right after this or at the same time. Editing has taken a lot of time. We got the Sensor Tower content. We got a GDC write-up as well, sort of a postmortem. We got Star Trek Timelines, how they made 100 million. This is by John Radoff, who was founder of Beamable. So, he dropped an article also on Deconstructor of Fun, and we recorded a emergency episode on the Google's payment changes with AppCharge CMO. So, madness. Yes, and back to the GDC video. It's taken so long cuz we filmed on a professional set, the six of us. So, Adam and Laura were with us. We were on this lovely set, these couches. I've never felt so famous.
We were on two casting couches doing this episode, so there's a lot of editing that has to be done, you know.

[laughter]
Yeah, and thank you for all the porn jokes, Misha. It was a lot. Who would have known you would have you would have had so many porn jokes. Like, oh, shocking.
No, I'm trying to be the stepdaddy of this of this podcast.
Oh god. Oh god. All right, carry on. All right, keep going. Phil, uh, what else what else did you kind of see going on? Since that podcast,
[clears throat]
my tune has changed a little bit on the AI stuff. We recorded on Wednesday, so I still had Thursday and Friday. Hit the show floor, talked to a lot more people, specifically trying to see what was going on the AI space. Cuz I was very doubtful that this was actually getting traction, and I saw a lot that gave me encouragement. There were two that stood out. And they were both from indies that are not just, hey, we're going to make faster horses when it comes to AI, but it was also, hey, we have at least some sort of novel use of AI. So, one of them is AI 2 U. This is a game where you are trapped in your apartment, and you have to get out by chatting with your girlfriend, and she doesn't want to let you out. And so, part of it is you clicking around, and

finding clues that you can use to chat with her. It runs Gemini Flash on the back end, and it is a live chat. And it's a ton of fun, at least to start with, where you can see the possibilities, because I could start with an open-ended question of like, can you just let me out? And so, going back and forth with her, and like actually seeing the clues, and how this unfolds in a really compelling narrative, and how she remembers earlier things I said. Like, is this the game that's going to take take us to the holy land? No, but this is a novel use, and this is the type of stuff I want to see more of, even if it's just a skinned chatbot. It's using more game design elements. And the other one was Hideout, which is a game by a small team that tries to build an MMO, and what they did is they actually recreated GDC, all the booths inside of their game for their demo. So, you can actually walk around in the game at GDC. And they're using a lot of subagents to build up personalities, and just make the MMO feel like a more lived-in world. They're going to have some commerce elements. But again, like this sounds obvious, and it's small start. It's not the revolution, but this

is the stuff we need to start experimenting with. So, they gave me a lot more confidence. The one last thing I'll say, when I was talking to these indies, was something that I underestimated, which is that if you're running a model in real time in the ways that we're kind of advocating for, it's actually quite expensive, which sounds obvious. You have to hit that API. And you got to remember that if you're continuing to run all these queries, you're building up essentially cost per consumer, and that makes it very hard to put your head above water, cuz you're immediately going to have margin being eaten, and you need to figure out how you're going to control that and optimize that. So, that's still like a design space people are trying to figure out. Unless you've been living under a rock, you know this is Web Store Rumspringa. 70% of top apps are using Web Store, and the best ones, they're doing it with AppCharge. Do you want a $20,000 in-app purchase? Yeah, AppCharge does that. How about using web-based Apple Pay checkout? Yeah, AppCharge does that. Do you want to pretend that subscriptions are still a viable monetization strategy for games? Yeah, AppCharge even lets you

do that. Look, these guys are backed by Supercell, Moon Active, and Playtika. They get what high average revenue per paying customer means, and they're already doing over half a billion dollars in transactions a year. So, are you going to be the first to do a $20,000 IAP? Don't accept microtransactions, embrace macrotransactions. Learn more at appcharge.com. Attention app and game developers. Are you ready to unlock the secrets behind the world's top-performing apps and games? With Sensor Tower, you get the ultimate competitive edge, whether it's breaking into new markets, fine-tuning your UA strategies, or boosting monetization. Dive into data like never before. Track global trends across app stores. Analyze market-leading data, purchase, and in-app ad strategies, and benchmark your performance with real-time insights. The best part, Sensor Tower doesn't just deliver data, it helps you turn it into action. With

intuitive tools and expert analysis, it's everything you need to make smarter, faster decisions. Thousands of app and game studios, from indie creators to global giants, trust Sensor Tower to help them win. So, why not you? Start your free trial today at sensortower.com. That is sensortower.com. Well done. All right. So, let's get into the first topic, which is uh, GDC itself. The GDC Festival of Gaming 2026 attendance drops 30% to 20,000 visitors, the lowest since 2011, not counting there was a post-COVID dip in there. This is all from gameindustry.biz. Decrease in numbers attributed to the attendance cost

and the international visitor concerns since it is a war actually going on. I know a lot of folks that we were counting on to come to some of our events couldn't make it because of the flights being canceled. So, I know that the article, you know, the folks that write this article are based in Europe and I know a lot of Europeans didn't want to come for those reasons. So, I think, you know, there are a lot of different reasons. I I did feel like it was a tale of two GDCs. The the more senior older folks with with funding showing up, those without funding having it more difficult time. Any thoughts from you guys? And actually we're showing a chart that's that shows the trend in the numbers, which is pretty concerning for them coming in at the first year of the Festival of Gaming. So, Mishka, any thoughts? The graphs look damning, but at the same time we have to take into account that literally a war started just at the time when this conference kicked off in addition to the challenges in the industry. But personally, one of the best GDC to date, at least again,

personally. All the decision makers were there, or at least 80% of them. I had less sort of a filler meeting where you're kind of having to meet some folks because, you know, this is happening and so forth. It's less back-to-back and more time for actual talks, so that was much appreciated. The smaller crowds were noticeable, but it also made the whole conference more functional and the lobbies of the hotels. Overall, I think people should stop confusing the conference and the convention. So, I don't personally have time anymore to visit the actual conference. I I popped in, went to a couple of places, and kind of left. Didn't have time to attend the talks, but neither did anybody else who I had meetings with during the entire week. We were in the city. We were there for GDC, and it's kind of interesting that we don't count this by, you know, doing all these side events and gathering all these people and doing business in the area. And really on that note, I think GDC, if I can ask one

thing to improve is to set up a proper business lounge, a hall for that, because I believe a lot of people would be happy to pay for a ticket that it gives them access to this business hall, and it would be much better than those crowded hotel lobbies. So, yeah, again, it was really good GDC. So, they actually offered that this year. They offered an executive lounge, which you should get, which was by the one of Vista Gardens. That some people had access to and a nice little barista, just as an FYI. Like they have tried to respond to feedback. The thing that I think was pretty shocking is that the floor size was about half of what it's been in the past because Unity and Unreal have pulled out. But the thing I would just love to see them do, and I agree with you, wonderful GDC, nothing but amazing things to say. I would say this is the right size, and we'll see where things land next year is I'd love for them to work with the city of San Francisco to take more of that space. There's no reason we can't basically run that block. There's no reason to have traffic going through there. You know, Tim Sweeney, if the Epic IPO

pays out, let's make this an endowed institution. Like that would be great. Let's figure out how we can bring more people in to share what we do. Yeah, the one other interesting comment I heard since we left was from folks who said it was a more efficient GDC. So, Yeah. since there were fewer people, the meetings that people had were more efficient, they were higher quality. So, the time spent was kind of better for folks. I don't know. Chris, did you feel like any of that from your experience? I would just say that the quality level of people was much much higher, and I don't mean that in some, you know, but it was like it was to seem like all the senior executives were there. Like I I basically saw almost everybody. Um, yeah, which isn't always the case for these type of events. It's not really meant for senior execs, but it seemed like everyone was there. Yeah, and so I thought that was really good. I know there's a lot of comparison to Gamescom, and Gamescom is a wonderful event, but Gamescom draws a big audience

of actually gamers. I mean, that's fantastic that they have this conference. But okay, so what does 100,000 gamers do for you? Like The difference is we are a podcast of the business of games. And so, if you're talking about the business of games, GDC felt like it had elevated the business of games because all of the business decision makers were there. I mean, our supper club, I mean, we had CEOs of like, I don't know if we're allowed to say, like very big companies that are our little GDC supper club. I think Gamescom is and bankers. Let's not forget bankers. Morgan [laughter] Stanley, dude, they're trumping Goldman, dude. Where was Goldman? I didn't see Halal out there, man, or whatever his What is his name? What What are you talk Oh. Areeb? I mean, there was Goldman Goldman with Goldman Sachs. Dude, I think Morgan Stanley's taking the over, dude. No. Goldman Sachs is dead. Halal has has this thing on it in his grip. Don't don't worry about it.
[laughter]
I'm surprised we didn't hand out puffy vests at the end of that.
was running like five deep, you know?

Well, anyway, so I think Gamescom has is what E3 used to be, which is the gamer event that happens to have, you know, a lot of the folks from a business side come, but it it feels like the European event, and this this definitely felt more like an American event. There were some folks from Europe, but I think a lot of folks had a difficult time getting over, like you said, with the war, with the expense, with everything. Yeah, and it was a lot a lot less stinky than the German Gamescom, so much better.
[laughter]
Yeah, there were only a few places in the city where the stink was a a problem for me. The city was great, by the way. Just so I just for the record. I did not actually see a person taking a [ __ ] in the road. I only saw the [ __ ] aftermath. So, each year for me it's getting better. Unfortunately, I cannot see the say the same. I actually did see someone defecate on the house.
[laughter]
It was awful. It was awful. Did not need to see that. Burned in my retina. No, yeah, like last year ago it was two two people, last year one

person, this year only the remnants. All right, so we're Poor Google. Here's the I know a person [snorts] who got mugged with a big newsletter has been on this podcast. I'm not going to mention him. He His computer got stolen on his way to a meeting. We know that person, but um, but yeah, so All right, let's cut let's cut all that out. It was great. San Francisco is amazing. That's all we need to know. Go, moving on. All right, so let's get into the Google Play reducing its fees. We did not cover that at GDC. We wanted a little bit more time to get into it. So, I'm going to run through the update. There's a lot here, and it's confusing still. In the US, this is not approved until April 9th, and that is a meeting with the judge who does not have to accept this. So, we will see what happens on April 9th. However, the rollout of this will happen in the other countries. The rollout happens across UK, you know, Europe, Australia, Korea, Japan. All of it will be finished by September 30th.

There's like a rollout of dates, but I won't go get into that here. So, let me get a little bit into how the rates kind of break down. So, the way it is today, it basically it's going to turn into 25% plus 5%. So, that equals in a sense the 30% that people are playing today. So, this is IIP existing installs with you know, no programs. Then you have in a sense what is a new install. So, whenever this goes into effect, let's say it goes into effect on April 9th, then the new install that happens at that date going forward, the service fee will be 20% if you use Google Play billing, GPB, that is an additional 5%. So, their billing costs are in effect 5%. So, the new rate for a new install would be 25% total. Now, if you engage in what is called level play, level play is still being

worked on, but today, think of it as the the game sidekick. So, it's a Gemini AI-powered overlay, the Google Play Games achievements, and then, you know, the support of some of the other devices. If you engage in that program, you get an additional 5% discount. So, those new installs plus level play would be 15%. And then if you put the billing on top of that, you would be now paying 20% total. There's a 20% link out fee, subscriptions go to 10% plus the 5% billing fee, and then if you're in the kind of like, you know, baby's first game, and you're under the first million in annual earnings, that is charged at a 10% service fee. So, plus the 5% equals 15. So, when you see Tim Sweeney saying, "Oh, we're going from 30 to 10," what that means is a new install without being in any programs is a 20% charge. For him, it's 20% because he's not engaging in Google Play billing. For

everyone else that is just using Google Play billing, that would be 25%. Okay. So, the point that I wanted to make is explaining this existing install versus the new install, because this is actually really important for people to note, and the accounting team is going to, you know, just their heads are going to explode. So, an install that is made before the agreement, so anyone that's kind of like installed now and is, you know, playing your game and paying in your game, those are charged at the existing rate of the 25 plus five, the 30%. So, if you're in Monopoly Go, you're in any game, that player forever is charged at that higher rate. An installation after the agreement goes live in a country, and so also the dates change by countries, that would be at the new rate. So, that would be either at the 20% or at the 15% depending on where you are. So, in a sense, you have like multiple different rates and that players will be monetizing over the course of their lifetime.

And so, this I imagine is going to be automatically tracked through the Google Play system, but if you're tracking your cohorts, you're going to have to kind of keep an eye on your older players are in a sense you have to pay a higher rate than the newer players after the date. One other small detail I wanted to get to is Sweeney isn't allowed to, I'll say quote, talk [ __ ] about this deal once it's approved, especially since the Apple lawsuit is ongoing. I've seen some people make big deals about this in the press. Oh, he's being muzzled. I mean, most lawsuits have, you know, these like non-disparagement clauses. So, I think it's relatively fair given his history of you know, perhaps what he says about this. Because next up, the Apple Epic piece isn't exactly, you know, completely resolved. So, finishing this up, you know, this is one of the biggest rate changes almost ever for platforms. Back in the old days, I think I've talked about this before, when we had the mobile carrier

billing, carriers used to make 60%. And so, just kind of like letting people know, it has been worse. This is better. I know it's not where we want to be, but Google is likely giving up billions of dollars in this. And I I get we all know that they had to make a change. Kress has been pointing out for a long time. They've had to make this change. Is it you know, far enough? We're going to see. So, anyway, that kind of wraps up getting all of the facts out. So, Kress, why don't you go first and give me your thoughts? At the end of the day, we're talking about like a 5% discount, right? That that's what we're talking about right now. Percentage points. Please. Just the analyst in me isn't going to let this go. Percentage points. 5 percentage points. Correct. If you still use their billing, it's you're going from 20 30 to 25. Even percent. company would charge in that range anyway. So, that we're talking about a 5% discount. So, this is kind of like really mice nuts. I mean, I think anyway. I think at the end of the day, this doesn't make sense. The first thing

that's most important, they've been trying to separate the app service fee with a billing fee for a long time. And this actually helps them kind of like, you know, manipulate the situation and and hopefully get the stuff passed. So, this is actually a huge thing for them, which makes sense. Now, I've heard that the level up requirements are so egregious that that is not likely an a viable option, but you know, the devil's in the details and they're likely going to change some of the things that were required for it. So, I don't want to comment on something that's not necessarily true. So, I will say that level up I'm ignoring for now until like more details around that um have happened. So, what I said earlier was like, if it gets down to 20%, like if it was actually 15 plus five, like I think that's more compelling, right? Like I think that is where they kind of need to be to make it make sense and to make it really tough to justify direct to consumer, right? In my view. First thing is that you obviously you said the judge will have to prove this in April, which may not happen. They're

going to have to divulge the deal that they're doing with Epic. Now, Tim in a interview basically suggested they have no special deal with Google, which Okay, we'll see, right? We'll see. They're going to have to divulge it, right? So, we will know exactly what the hell the deal is with Epic. I feel like this is kind of a big capitulation from Tim. I mean, he definitely fought the good fight for the last 5 years, but I don't think this is what he was hoping for originally. And I think if you look back at the texts back then, this is not where he wanted to end up, right? Some are saying that this is the death of the web stores. I actually don't think that is quite true, frankly. I don't think it's great for them. And I think if they move it down another notch to the 20, I think that's bad. But the way I can interpret this, and your table kind of says this, is that link outs to web purchases from the apps are still at 20%. Yes.
that makes the actual the next phase of this change to make it

easier for developers to get payments, makes it really tough for them because the 20% is pretty egregious to do that. That actually wouldn't make sense, right? So, in essence, web stores, which likely will not be billed at the 20%, they will be not be impacted. So, it's even more strategic to have a web store in essence, right? So, the link outs will get the 20%, but web stores will not is kind of my interpretation or the interpretation of those that are following this a lot closer than I am.
Interesting. That's not the interpretation I've had. I've I've had everything gets charged. The problem is that tracking web stores is so freaking hard that I don't know if they can actually do that. They can track link outs, but tracking web stores when they go to a different web page and the transaction happens off the app. So, this was this was the argument that Arch was saying at Stash. So, the intention is that all of it is charged. I guess that's the piece will we just need more information on. Okay,

if that's the case, then web stores are dead, fundamentally, right? I mean, let's be real, right? If they can actually track it and they're charging 20%, then there's no reason for them to exist. That their margins go to zero, right? The devil's in the details. Like we will see when this thing comes out and if it gets approved. So, we don't really know. And then we're going to talk about it later, but the Apple thing is another, you know, another blow to this stuff. But anyway, I'm not too thrilled with this result, frankly. I think this is not all that impactful.
for more. You would hoped. Uh yes. I would hope for more. And and I get we don't know exactly what level play is. It's kind of what like Apple
level play completely. If you take that out of the equation because it seems super egregious and some AI play. Yeah, if it was 20%, I'd be super happy. I think that's that's where it should be. Yeah. But 25%? Nah. We'll have to figure out a little bit more about So, the AI play is for the sidekick. So, if you're on an Android, a sidekick opens and it helps you with like rewards and if you

have questions about the game, that's what it is. So, you do have like AI kind of scraping your game for something like that. And and I think by the way, I think
what we wanted. This is exactly Yeah, can I just say the word cameras have been asking for? I'm absolute yuck. I mean, [laughter] this is that's [ __ ] horrific, okay? Like let's be real. You know, like that's not Can I get more Jim and I in my life? Can I please put a nano banana too? Can I just add the button It's not that. It is not nano banana too. So, I think we don't have research on you know, I'm just trying to in a sense play a little bit of devil's advocate is, you know, how can AI make mobile gaming better and more interesting and and maybe for companies that aren't bigger, how do you use this for your reward system and your loyalty system and for things like that. I don't know the answer. I I would love to see research that says players actually love this. And then that would make me feel better to get a 5% deduction to pay into this level play kind of thing. I also have to

go in and make sure that my game works on PC, that it works on, you know, whatever Google's VR system or XR system is that are coming up. You have to support more devices with what this is. Anyway, Mishka, let's get into your take on all of this.
So, my take I I tried to take a different angle. I read the interview with Dean Takahashi and and Tim Sweeney that was on Game Speed. And kind of took few elements out of it. So, one is kind of following what Eric was saying, the sort of a Epic one narrative. I think it really does deserve some scrutiny here because reality is is that Epic settled after winning in court. And in Greece, we call this a pyrrhic victory, a success achieved at such a devastating cost to the victor that it is considered a defeat. So, they litigated for 5 years. And the actual win is not going to move the global needle without you know, another decade of litigation. So, they kind of stopped it there. And they showed that the whole antitrust system, even when it works, doesn't really work

fast enough. And in US, the giants win because they have these massive coffers. So, anyways, the second part was the fee math. And it's really not transformative as you guys were talking about. It goes from 30 to 25%. And if we look at the most of the mid-tier developers, the delta between are you unprofitable, are you surviving, or are you thriving isn't the 5 percentage points. And you could also argue that the networks will be the true winners here because whatever the publishers will save will be eaten up by Meta, Apple and Google, TikTok, and you name it, Unity. The third element here is the scare screen removal, and I think that could be actually the biggest deal. I know, Kress, you're skeptical about the web shops, but Sweeney mentions that over half of the players dropped off trying to install Epic Games Store through Android's friction wall. And
[laughter]
I don't know if he tried to do this on iOS, but let me tell you, that was a

real friction to do that. So, so now that they're removing this scare screen, it makes it easier for registered stores to use web store economics mobile developers. And this is directly relevant to the web store strategy, direct payments flow, and all the first-party monetization. So, in other words, the way I see it is D2C companies might be the biggest winners here because they can do that 5% transaction instead of Google. Like they can do it for 3%. And now without the scare screens, it's much easier to guide players using those external stores. And then the fourth piece is that the small developer fee cut that they achieved in 2020 might have been actually the biggest win of this whole campaign because right after the lawsuit was filed both Apple and Google cut the fees for the first million that your app is making from 30 to 15% and that actually affected 98% of apps in the store. It's

the biggest win in terms of industry like it gives the most volume of app developers benefits because that these benefits that they're now introducing are coming in mainly for larger ones. This is an attempt at a PR win. This was not like a material change to the App Store. This is like absolute [ __ ] mice nuts. Like when you're talking about this low level, it doesn't matter. It's it's irrelevant like to the argument.
I understand like it doesn't change the business dynamics but we're talking about wins for like when did majority of developers get something out of it and I argue that this 5% change won't be anything for most of the developers but the first one is for most. I I get your point. I'm just coming from an angle of volume not the quality. And finally, Jen you mentioned the gag order. So basically, Sweeney is slapped with a non-disparagement clause that muzzles him on Google till 2032. And it's just a reminder this is the same person who called Android a fake

open platform during the trial. So we won't be hearing any of of those hard takes. I do believe that Tim Sweeney is getting significant pressure from shareholders to get rid of these lawsuits and start building a platform that competes against Roblox. And I think this is the fundamental reason that we are seeing these capitulations and I just want to be clear on that point. So at the end of the day like this makes a lot of sense for Tim to get rid of this stuff and to settle with Apple and get rid of this crap and stop paying for all these lawyers and move the [ __ ] on and start like actually focusing on what's important which is basically UEFN. I've been hearing similar things to you, Chris. The thing I wanted to go back on with the scare screens and linking out to webshops, we talk about this all the time is we live in a world where friction especially with the younger generations, they hate friction. You know, we talked about it a little bit with friends law how they like low quality games because to them it signals, oh I'm not going to have to try

very hard. I'm not going to have to like sweat to learn this game. So with App Store payments, a potential danger to some of the D2C platforms is going to be you know, if you're a smaller developer, it might be worth the 5% because I can keep those players inside of the game to reduce the friction to maintain their payments. So what I'm going to be interested in watching over time is how much that really matters. I don't think it's the death of D2C but unless they go and add community features, loyalty features, you know, all these other kinds of social features, if it's just a payment platform, I think those are the ones that are going to be at the greatest risk. I don't know. Is that what you're thinking, Chris? I guess we need to know the details. Yeah. And we need to figure out like if they can actually do any of this tracking that they're suggesting.
So a lot more to come and I think the most important thing to say is it's not here yet. That's just our take on where it is right now and there's like a lot of things still outstanding. So this is

a related story and I think all of these things are kind of grouped together. I'm going to talk a little bit about Apple cutting its fees in China. So standard commission drops from 30% to 25% on in-app purchases and paid downloads effective March 15th. So what's March 18th today. So this went into effect in in China only on iOS but I think what we need to keep an eye on is if they're dropping rates there. There was no delineation of payment billing services versus App Store services in this particular article that I could see. So first of many and then this leads into and to be fair to our friends at the Epic Games Store, there's a lot of news from them over GDC. The head of the Epic Games Store and Tim were out kind of talking about the future of what that is. So let me hit a couple of things. The EGS is opening mobile self-publishing on iOS and Android starting in August letting publishers list games directly. Epic is rolling out a social framework, text chat, profiles,

messaging across PC, Android and iOS with voice chat targeted for June. I think this is a big deal to hit some of the the younger skewing audience. These social and cross-platform features will be open to devs via Epic online service later this year. Pocket Gamer, I think mobilegamer.biz, you know, gameindustry.biz all kind of picked up different elements of these meetings from GDC. Mishka, what did you want to say on this? First of all, I need to give shout out to Kyle from Epic. He's been really boiling the ocean trying to get devs to sign up for Epic Store for years now and this is kind of an interesting story because when he talked to devs when Epic was asking them to come in on the store, they were afraid to do so because they were afraid of of the backlash on the platform holders. So that's a little bit of a mafia play that these platforms have like they don't even have to lift a finger and developers are afraid. But let's be honest. Will anyone actually will anyone actually show up for these stores? Because let me give you an example.

Samsung, they've had a store for forever, right? It's pre-installed on every freaking Samsung device and to be clear there's over a billion active Samsung phone users. Have you ever heard of a mobile develo- developer that is has been working closely with the Samsung team and they got their app featured and now they're on billion devices and they got all these downloads. Have you? That sounds like a BD pipe dream. They would probably bring it in once a once a quarter like, hey Samsung wants to work with us and people are like, yeah yeah yeah. Yeah, peace. 2000. That's what they did.
there's an answer to this, Mishka. It's Fortnite. That's what [laughter] they That's what they did on Google. That's how they got on Android devices, excuse me. You went through Samsung. I know but like again going back to the article with with Sweeney and and Takahashi, he name drops like Steam for Android as sort of like a theoretical thing that could happen. But let's be honest like Epic Games Store, they challenged Steam. They're on PC and Mac and have existed for years with pretty much zero friction

and how's that affected Steam's dominance? Not at all. I mean, thanks for all the free games but they're not even a factor. So the kind of question is is like why would the Epic Store on Android be different? Is it that Fortnite has such a big audience still on mobile? Will they drop? Could be. I want to believe that that's true but I kind of doubt. I just figured out the way he's going to circumvent this 30% or 25% is he just going to basically link out to the Epic downloader and then install from that perspective? And therefore he's not going to be have to pay 25% he's going to have to pay whatever the fee is for third-party apps. He would already not be paying the Google Play billing, right? So he's
Right. I'm not telling you that the 20% I'm saying. Exactly. People were telling me it was going to be like 10% net he was going to pay basically. 10% plus his billing. So 15% let's say or whatever roughly 13 to 15%. All right, whatever. Look, this is a dumb idea. The consumer is not looking for new App Stores. Like

that's just not the way people consume content on iOS and Android. It's like they go to the App Stores. There is no alternative to this that is going to get any type of traction. It's it's so [ __ ] hard to do that, to change the behavior that's been barreled into us since you know, what? 2008? You know, it's like really? You know, you really think that that's a viable I just I don't get it. I don't I don't I don't see how this can be actually scale and be successful. It may be successful with their customers. So maybe they can actually you know, make a great social app for Fortnite or something but broadening out beyond that just seems really impossible. Yeah. One other thing that I think is worth pointing out which is China. China's had this for a long time, right? Like there is some sense in which we see this in the world. Like why is it that Chinese App Store distribution for Android works well in that country but we can't seem to get it to work well other places cuz I agree with you, Eric. I'm with you. Consumers have been trained but I think it's worth at least

pointing out that that exists and what's the playbook to make that happen. Like how did Steam launch? How did Steam gain market shares that they made Half-Life 2 exclusive to the platform? I wouldn't count it out to zero. I generally agree with you because again Fortnite has been the exclusive thing cuz remember you can download the Epic App Store inside of the EU on iOS and it's useless. We just don't have enough consumer attachment in mobile. I think that's ultimately what this boils down to. Like no one gives a [ __ ] if I can't get Candy Crush. There are too many close substitutes. Yeah, I mean it it's never going to be as comprehensive. The thing that Chris you're happy about and I'm happy about is just no special treatment for the cosmetic economy. Remember that?
Yeah. Oh god. I am thrilled to see that conveniently and silently not showing up anywhere which was a blatant attempt to give one company a little bit more of a benefit over others. But they replaced it with something else, right? Let's be clear here. There's no [ __ ] way he just capitulated without getting some

type of consideration similar to what he did before but just not defined the same way because it's such an obvious [ __ ] travesty of justice if they were [laughter] to get some kind of thing based on cosmetic [ __ ] you know.
Yeah. Yeah, I'm glad that That was great. I forgot about kind of forgot about that. That was crazy. All right. All right. Zoe? Guessing where your users come from? That's so 2010. AppsFlyer is like having a cheat code for mobile marketing. Pinpoint attribution, real-time insights [clears throat] and analytics that actually make sense. Stop flying blind and start flying smart. AppsFlyer because your data is your best collab partner. Game devs, here at Heroic Labs we know that great gameplay is what players love, but integrating meta-game features like challenges, progression, and rewards is crucial for retention and monetization. But coding them is a tedious and time-consuming [music] process. That's why top studios have turned to Hero from

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Continuing on. So, NCSoft um has acquired Just Play for $202 The title is a little bit weird because it says bit angers its casual gaming expansion. So, let me kind of open this up. So, NCSoft is a South Korean-based video game developer and publisher behind franchises like Lineage and Guild Wars 2. So, as hardcore as it can get. What they're doing is acquiring a 70% stake in German-based mobile platform Worst of All out of Berlin, and the company's called Just Play, and they are paying $202 for them, which is roughly 10x EBITDA. And they're buying 70% stake because the 30% is essentially giving like a 100 million plus earnout for the founders. Now, Just Play it was founded in 2020 by former AppLovin employees, and it provides reward-based casual gaming platform where users play casual mobile

games, puzzles, card games, arcade titles, blah blah blah blah blah. They play, they earn, so it's play-to-earn. It's essentially Web3 wet dream only without the stupid jargon, the rug pulls, and the friction of of getting into it. Now, let's talk about NCSoft. So, NCSoft needs EBITDA. We're showing a graph here where their revenues have steadily declined about 22% over the last 2 years. They actually had for the first time since they went public in 2024, they lost 80 million dollars, and they're back on the green barely with about $11 million EBITDA in 2025, and that sort of a turnaround was driven by very strict cost discipline rather than any organic growth. And the question is, is this a turnaround for NCSoft? So, if you go to kind of look at their breakdown of their revenue, you can see their mobile gaming revenue I I won't say collapsing, but this is I

mean almost halving in in in 2 years, and their PC revenues have actually increased. So, what has been happening on the mobile side, how they have been trying to stop this, and how this acquisition comes to be is they hired Anil Semel. I I might be butchering his name from Tripledot to build their casual games business about 8 months ago, and his first big move as a senior vice president of casual games seems to be the acquisition of Just Play. And personally, I like it. I mean, I think he bought himself time with this cash cow, and it's not only a cash cow, it's also a distribution engine. And like now, Anil's background is more as an ad monetization. You can call him ad monetization king. So, the question is is is NCSoft entering hybrid casual ad monetize games, which is very much off their core competence when we're talking about hardcore RPGs and and battle games on PC. But then again, they seem to be struggling with their core franchises like Lineage. So, that's

what they're doubling down on, casual games for a hardcore Korean publisher. Question is like why they're not doubling down on PC since that that has been growing, but don't know. Any any other takes on this? They are former client, so wishing the best to Carl and the team. Rewarded apps, super interesting space. Like fascinating space, and specifically how Just Play fits into the rewarded app space is fascinating. I think this could represent a larger thesis on the free-to-play evolution where in some sense you almost have negative CPIs where you're in this app, you are completing various activities. Part of those activities may be downloading or playing games depending on the model, and then you're getting payouts. So, it's a middleman for directing user acquisition. Just Play has ads, and they own all of the games that you play on the platform, so you see ads from other games, which is different than a lot of the other rewarded apps, which may have an offer wall or may have you complete

various milestones in the games. And sometimes these rewarded apps also have other ways that they generate revenue. So, for instance, Fetch is actually the number one rewarded app right now. We're looking at a ranking by weekly active users from Sensor Tower in the United States. They do a lot of receipt scanning, which has a ton of valuable data that you can use to push other ads to players. But by and large, most of these apps make money by getting players to play games. They tend to be almost all casual, mostly women, and there's a huge opportunity in this space I think again to have another significant player in user acquisition, which we all need. We all desperately need more inventory and more ways to cut down on CPI. I think this is one way to route money to players and keep the swish going rather than giving it to Meta and Google. Yeah, 100% agree. We we actually had a CEO of Vibes, and we have also had Misplay on the podcast talking about this space and how to do rewarded play right because the challenge with these are is that players are rewarded to play to certain level, and once they, you know, reach level 150 in

name the puzzle game, they kind of drop off and do the next thing. So, their retention might look amazing, but it looks amazing only till the point where they reach the reward. So, designing those reward systems and working closely with your rewarded app platform is quite crucial. Otherwise, you get retention curves that are puzzling at best. So, these rewarded systems are all like a race to zero. You know, the more money you give, the more less money margin you make. You can say that about user acquisition. You can say that about user acquisition though. It's just another form of user acquisition.
but this doesn't scale the way user acquisition scales with the right type of game. I think it's it's a false false positive. Well, first of all, I think Domino Dreams might have a different opinion. Like I think there are some people who have scaled their particular mobile games with instant installs or installs that have come from this traffic source. I agree with you, it needs to continue to grow. I mean, everybody I talk to that's at scale basically says that these are not viable means of distribution. What I don't

understand is why NCSoft is actually buying this company, frankly. Like I don't get it either. The acquisition makes no sense. What are they going to pump in Lineage? This is all US. What are they going to pump pump people in the Asian MMOs? US casual, dude. All they do is build MMOs, you know? And I love their MMOs, but I don't I I I'll find out more about this. This is kind Yeah, the thing that was a little concerning for me as someone who deals a lot with IP is when I was on their website looking at their app icons, they're all I I don't want to be too harsh, but they're rip-offs of existing top games where the app icons are almost exactly like Match Factory or Candy Crush or Solitaire or other games. And so, it just it felt like a little bit of a commodity race to the bottom. I get it. I get that there's places in the world for this, but as an IP holder, it looked like something I would be nervous about them ripping off, you know, my game. And I guess what we know that, you know, it's not defensible in many cases, but it just it I felt a little

gross. Look, I'm no expert on Korea, but I don't think this tracks at all with the Korean market. So, it's like seems like they're trying to penetrate the US market with casual for some reason. I I don't understand why they would do that per se. So, maybe they have a broader broader plan in place that I am just not smart enough to understand. All right, let's keep going. Phil, you have some games to keep an eye on? Two brief updates. One was something that I saw a lot of people at GDC talking about, which is a new game from Moon Active called Merge Drama. So, as we know, Merge 2 exploding. What's the other thing that's exploding? Well, it's Short-form video.
So, what if you duct tape them both together? And you were playing merge games, unlocking stars or tokens.
Yes. Yes. And it as you know, Merge 2 far more narrative-based than a lot of other casual games. There is a

consistent narrative. Uh maybe these two things tie together, maybe they don't, I don't know. I do love seeing things duct tied together. If you look at where the game is, it was in soft launch in 2025. They did a UA push in November, which by the way, in the United States, everyone is just saying [ __ ] it, YOLO. The game has really changed for soft launch for quite some time. And there's a little bit of an uptick in February, but this has been a slow roll. I think they're still trying to figure out a lot of things, but very curious to see where this one lands because the Merge 2 market still super hot. Tasty Travels, Gossip Harbor, Travel Town. There's also Flumble. That one's starting to scale. There's just a lot of fascinating things going on in merch, too. There's a Hollywood game. There's just a lot of ways I think these games are getting at much more fundamental female player motivations in a way that casual hasn't touched on beforehand. And so I expect this genre to continue to grow and I think it's going to seriously rival match three. Chris, we love this. I think we called this out as a potential,

right? Like let's do something and gamify micro dramas. Sure. Let's do make it
[laughter]
monetize them even better, Yeah, make it happen. Let's do a brief update. Marathon early returns. Last time we had chatted, we were looking at wish list. By the way, shooter monthly episode five dropping in your inbox today. And so we have real data we can look at DAU since launch and we can also look at cumulative unit sales versus launch about where you would have expected the game to land given its wish list numbers, which in terms of DAU has been largely flat. So it hasn't been on a significant decline. And again, we're looking at both consoles and PC. PC's had a little bit of a decline. And we'll see where it ends up in terms of equilibrium, but course not anywhere near Arc Raiders was. And I remember Arc Raiders was growing during this period as you can see in the chart. It started at around 1.1 million DAU and after about 14 days since launch ended up getting over to 2 million. I mean, that's that's incredible stuff to see

particularly for a premium game. And it looks worse even on a cumulative unit sales basis. By this point, Arc Raiders had hit 3.5 million and right now Marathon, according again to video game insights, on day 11 is around 1.1 million units. So layoffs coming to Bungie.
[laughter]
Yeah, that's not good. That's actually even worse than I kind of expected. I think it ultimately gets to like four or five point four or five million, I would think in the next like six months.
With this this
Yeah. curve? I don't know, man. I think there's some legs here. I think there's some legs here. The PSU did not decline as much as you would expect. I mean, I don't have the comparisons to other titles like Helldivers. And it certainly hasn't hit that virality for premium. But I I think this thing's going to have some legs and and and some stickiness. The problem as Eric pointed out is there's no there's no [ __ ] arpu tail here. Even if they hit the four to five, that's not even close to where it needs to be for Sony to be happy. Like the expectations were so insane for this game internally that it doesn't even

it's not even coming close. So yeah, we'll see.
What do you think it cost to run Bungie every year, Eric? What do you think? It's 100 million studio? 150 million to run Bungie? I don't know, I'm just throwing numbers out there.
[laughter]
That's actually probably not so far off. Maybe maybe I don't actually know how many people are left at Bungie to be honest. Maybe it's 75, 80 million. Oof. Everything I hear about this game, it is really, really hard and really sweaty and you have to be
this on shooter monthly. Uh, you have to be like a young whippersnapper who is like amazing at these kinds of games and who wants to be, you know, to Chris's term, the apex predator of like shooters. Well, the time to kill is really low, so you have really need to know what the [ __ ] you're doing, right? Which is unlike Bungie games cuz generally Bungie games the time to kill is a lot longer, right, Philip? Or am I speaking out of turn? Yes, I think the thing that people will hear on shooter monthly from Chris Sides, who worked on the game, is that remember when they

were developing it, they were developing it with a comparison to Tarkov. So in comparison to Tarkov, it's a lot softer
[laughter]
than what I think. And remember Arc Raiders the most hardcore game of the of ever. Sure, I'm just giving giving some context here. And so Arc Raiders now makes the game look hardcore cuz that game softened up the genre by such a significant degree. It's tough, right? It's tough for each studio to react to something like Arc Raiders. It's a yacht you've always got to turn. I am curious to see whether or not they'll turn the knob more casual as the live service continues. My expectation is that they would be able to do that. All right. Well, on a more positive news, Resident Evil Requiem has surpassed 6 million units in sales, officially the fastest title in the series to reach this milestone, which is good news and I basically said early in the year that this is going to be a good bellwether of the platform's success this year and how engaged this audience is. So this is actually really good news. However, I've been told by people

in the channel that it's very, very slow this summer actually and to you know, we have Crimson Desert coming out this week, which should hit the same level like the four to five million units, maybe a better, but we really are waiting for GTA to really, you know, jump start you know, get this year going really, which is not until October, November. But anyway, good news for Capcom. My son was playing the game last night [ __ ] screamed like a little girl, dude. It was
[laughter]
I can't do jump scares, man. I'm too old, man. My heart is too weak. [laughter] So I just had to walk out of the room. I'm so embarrassed, but it's like I just can't stand these games. It is It's good though. It's beautiful. I don't know if anybody's played it. It is absolutely terrifying, but really good. So What what what Sorry, what's cool about the game is that there's two parts. One is with the woman, one's with the with the guy. The woman is more of the scary like walking through and the jump scares. And the guy is like all guns blazing, you know, bat you know, blasting out all the you know, the the monsters. So Anyway, it's it is really well done. So good

job, Capcom. Yeah, they're really playing into that the jump scare like horror light even is such a trend right now with player behavior because what people can do is capture those moments and use them and put them out on social. What's great for the game is that's like free organic marketing for them. And so that's why a lot of people are starting to add in those kinds of features because it leads to some like a little bit of like UGC almost and organic social sharing. Okay. Okay, give us project Helix. Give us the truth serum.
the big announcement. And by the way, there were not that many announcements coming out of GDC surprisingly, right? I mean, GDC's not generally the place to do big announcements, but given the fact that it's like the only one major thing in the US. The big announcement was Microsoft has announced project Helix, a hybrid Xbox PC box that no one ever wanted.
[laughter]
I don't even know what the [ __ ] they are

thinking. Like this is so stupid. If someone wants to buy a PC, they buy a PC. You don't buy a hybrid Xbox PC. It it don't make sense. I mean, unless you want the cool box, right? Fine, right? Some of the core guys will love it because it has Xbox branded [ __ ] PC, but this is so ridiculous. And then on top of it, and this was this was from our friend at Scope Play, is that they have this integration of co-pilot they're like throwing out there. And this is for not only this box, but also for the Xbox X and Series S in late 2026, which offers like real-time in-game assistance to enhance accessibility and player convenience. So this is exactly what the gaming community has been after. They've been demanding this. That instead of just picking up their phone and [ __ ] go to chat GPT, right? They're going to do it on their Xbox and figure out what the [ __ ] they're

supposed to be doing in this game, right? Like this doesn't make any sense at all. Like this is just not the way people consume [ __ ] on consoles, right? So I just think Xbox continues to be missing the script on this market completely and they're in their own lane driving off a [ __ ] cliff at this stage. So yeah, good luck with this. Bring a small reduced price subsidized Xbox that's clean, that plays Xbox games. That's what we need. We don't need all this [ __ ] So anyway, that's it. One more dig at Xbox for now for now anyway. What's the PR perspective? Why would you announce this? Is this to bolster confidence that they're still alive? Like what? Why would you ever say this? I guess that they're still making hardware. You know, like I mean, it had to have been planned well in advance of the Xbox CEO shift. I'm not I'm not I'm not throwing shade on Shonda this time, man. This is not her, right? This is I would hope that she'd be smarter than

to do this. So I mean, they had been teasing that Xbox wasn't dead, right? They had been saying, "Oh, no, no, console's coming. Console's coming." Is this the console that was coming though? And like this is going to be like $5,000. Like how on earth is this going to be affordable to anyone?
be like 1,200 bucks. You you you have to paralyze this.
going to be the world's worst PC. I know. You have to pair this with the announcement that they were canceling the this is an Xbox campaign where they'd have pictures of random [ __ ] and they would say that this is an Xbox. Like this clearly is tied into Sarah Bond's strategy of expanding We've talked about this for a long time. They don't want to be in the hardware business in the way that they have been previously. It's extremely risky. I'm sure like the three rings of death, if everyone remembers that 360 saga, is something that is a scar that many of those employees still care about. And like, okay, let's get Tam up. Like that is the big play if Satya lands some sort of huge margin proposal to them. I understand that like if their back is against the wall, like this is where it's led, but I think you're giving her a way too much of a free pass.

She is the CEO of Xbox now. Like you should not let the [ __ ] go out if it's not consistent with the playbook that you want to run in your division. Now, like the buck stops with you. And so she's she's got to sign off on all this. So this is her strategy now. Two things in her defense. One, this is clearly like they're planning on releasing that this year, right? So this is like coming. And so like
year? And all they have is that [ __ ] press release? I don't believe that. That's that's got to be a [ __ ] date. In late 2026. No, no, that's just a co-pilot feature. Alpha versions of the hardware to developers beginning in 2027. Alpha version
Never mind. Sorry. Sorry. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I was going to say if it's like project Helix, it's not even branded. So that yes, that is late as much later. The second point is I think this is supposed to stand along Xbox series S and X. This doesn't replace them per se. Like this isn't the next gen Xbox. I could be wrong. What the [ __ ] am I doing? I I don't Cuz that's cuz that's the problem with Xbox. Not enough platforms to develop for. There hasn't

been enough complaints about the S already. Let's add another one to the mix. Yeah, this is just dumb. They I I Yeah, you're right. If I was Sharma, I would have just canceled this thing all together and and even if you ultimately release it, just don't announce it yet. Like get your plan and strategy in place. Like don't make a big announcement like this that doesn't make any sense. And any reasonable person would have seen this and said this doesn't make any sense. Like this doesn't make any sense. So it's like I don't understand why you would do it. And it doesn't add any value. If it's if it isn't coming out this year. I assumed it was coming out this year and I read it wrong. I apologize. But if it's coming out next year, why bother releasing it now? Wait till games come when you have a strategy in place or Well, my reading of the tea leaves of why is to have developers at GDC, right? It's a developer conference. So that people knew that they should be developing for the platform. So that would be why. I don't know if it's the right thing to do, but I think that's why they went ahead and announced it so that they can get people to develop. If

you're developing, do you develop differently though? You have an Xbox and a PC. Isn't it the same as it normally is?
if it's just a PC, you can give the specs to developers and tell them this could be a skew that's coming out next year in holiday, rather than announcing it like this, right? Like you don't need dev kits and stuff necessarily if it's just a PC architecture. I mean, for Switch it's a little bit different cuz the architecture is different. So I mean as far as I understand development. But like it just doesn't really make make any sense to talk about this now when you just changed leadership and your strategy is not in place yet. So I think I would have held this back. You know, from a comms perspective, what tends to be a challenge for people, especially when there's a leadership change, is people keep rolling with the same strategy and they're like, "Oh well, it's already like really far." It is really easy to not do things. It is much harder to undo things. I didn't see a ton of pick up for this news though. Did you? I mean, I saw it in a couple of places. And so I think

most people were like It's It just landed with a thud. You know, like no one cared. I mean, the only people cover this stuff is like GamesBeat and like You know, like the Alex stuff. Yeah. Yeah.
They're all bought and paid for, you know, by the publishers. So People like us. All right. Well, that wraps it up for this week. We are going to move a bunch of topics to next week. Subnautica drama and some other kind of legal drama and Newzoo 2026 PC and console report coming next week for you guys. So see you next week. You did it. You made it to the end of the episode. As a fan of the show, it would help us out if you'd subscribe and leave us a review on the podcast service of your [music] choice. Those stars and likes, while a small action on your part, mean a lot to us and help to grow the show. More importantly,
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