Ubisoft turmoil and what happened to Big Fish Games? | Week in Mobile Games podcast

[music] Hello and welcome to the Pocket Gamer.Biz podcast week in mobile games where we chat about the week's news and provide some insights. I'm joined this week by our deputy editor, Paige Cook, and our news editor, Aaron Assel. Welcome to the show. How you doing? How you doing, Paige? What you been up to?
What have I been up to? Not a lot. Exciting times this weekend. Yeah, it was my partner's birthday, so we went to York last weekend, which was actually really nice. Oh,
lovely.
And then this weekend, we've got one of our friends coming up. We don't get like visitors very often because we don't live where either of our families are from. We don't get a lot of like family visits and friend visits. So, when it does happen, it's usually like a whole weekend thing. Yeah, that'll that'll be nice. But yeah, besides that, nothing really.
Well, York sounds lovely. Is it how cold is it this time of year? And how enjoyable is it? It was okay because it didn't rain and that's all we were

hoping for. We knew it was going to be cold but we were like if it doesn't rain then that's a win in January and it didn't. So we actually did get to wander around a little bit and it was actually really busy to say it was just like a random Saturday. It was very busy. We went down there's like a street called Shambles and it's very Harry Potter kind of looking and there's like Harry Potter stores and there was literally a queue the whole way down the street to get in this Harry Potter store.
Did they film there for the movies?
I don't I don't think so. I think it's just like a themed store just
as far as I know. But yeah, it was very popular. Like I'm not even a massive Harry Potter fan, but I need to go and have a look in there just because if it's this popular, I want to have a look. And it was Yeah, it was pretty cool.
Nice.
Yeah, I went I went there on um not just for that, but I have been there on holiday cuz I went to York a few years ago. So yeah, I'd kind of forgotten about that, but yeah, you said shambles. The memories came flooding back. Um, yeah, it's weird like how busy it was cuz, you know, I wasn't blown away, shall we say, not not to throw any shade

at the place. It was fine, but yeah, but how busy it was.
It's essentially just like one street, but I guess the buildings are just kind of quirky. Like the tops of them, they like lean forward, so like the tops of the buildings are almost touching. So, it's like this one small street, but it kind of like thins towards the tops. Yeah, it just looks kind of like quirky and unique, but it is just literally one street, so it gets very busy. But yeah, it was cool.
Thanks for that, Paige. Aaron, what have you been up to?
Uh, yeah, so it hasn't been a massively eventful week. Probably the highlight last weekend, I went to see the Two Towers, second Lord of the Rings film at the cinema cuz they're reshowing the extended editions at the moment. It's for the 25th anniversary of the Fellowship of the Ring, but they're doing all three, which is good. You see, I went to see the first one a couple of weeks ago. Saw the second one last weekend. Uh, seeing Return of the King on Saturday, so that should be good. Yeah, obviously seen them before. Fan of fan of the films, but it's um it's a

cool experience to get to see them in in the cinema. And I'm glad it's the extended editions cuz I always opt for the extended editions at home. Um, so it would have felt, you know, incomplete if they were showing the normal normal [snorts] films. Even though it means you end up kind of sat in the cinema for four plus hours,
multiple snacks.
Yeah, there are they were doing some showings where you could kind of fit in multiple and like do them back to back on the same day, but I thought that would be a bit
as big a fan as I am. I think just physically needing to sit quietly for, you know, 12 odd hours would would be a little bit much without kind of a break. But having the week between, you know, it's it's working quite nicely. Quite enjoying it.
I love those said there. But I like you said you had a you also had a bit of an issue with one of the screenings.
So basically the Yeah, the parking there you can it's free parking but for like

up to 4 hours and there isn't really a paid option. It's just you can park there 4 hours and you have to put your like license plate details in, you know, and then your four hours begins. So I asked like, well, I'm kind of I'm going to be here just a bit longer than that cuz, you know, these are long films. Is that okay? And basically it's like, yeah, so it was fine. The car could stay there. It did not have to leave after 4 hours, but I had to leave the film to go and put my details in again and then come back to the film. So it was better than having to go off, drive somewhere else, and walk back. But it still wasn't
come back and park in a different spot.
Yeah. But no, it's a little bit of a nuisance. I I made sure to get that done before the Battle of Helms's Deep. I didn't want to be missing any of the action sequences. At least it's something I've seen before. Would have been a bit miffed if um it was a new film that was that long.
Yeah. All right. Yeah. No, I love I I love these editions. I've only seen them once and as I said before, got the hankering to watch them again now.
Yeah, definitely. Yeah, they are the

version to watch. Thanks, Aaron. As myself, yeah, I had a big rest at the weekend, but uh things that in things that no one else cares about but me. I don't know if I mentioned on the podcast a couple weeks ago, if I kept it or not, but I I I had a train penalty fine of £100 to go to a town near me because they they don't have a contactless machine at the stage, ticket machine at the station. But mine does and and it's like three stops away, but one connection train. I was fuming cuz I kind of I just forgot. I I actually thought they did have it and then like if you pay straight away it's it's only £50 plus the cost of your ticket. I I was so annoyed cuz I went to see 28 years later Bone Temple and I was just like all in all I'm spending like £100 to go see this film almost. I was like is it worth £100 to go see a movie? [laughter] I don't think so. Cuz that's like uh the ticket snacks train fine everything. I was just like, "Oh my god, it's ridiculous." But um I appealed and

then they turned it down obviously. And then that's when I was just like, "Right, I'm not having this." So I got very petty. And I went on to Google and I I found their announcement where they did say in November that they're going to have contact lists from December, but they delayed that. So I took a screenshot of that page or a PDF of that page. Then I found a government website that said I was getting it. And then I used uh thank you to AI not knowing what it's saying. So I took a photo of the front page of Google searching the town and contactless and all of the search results firstly were like yeah there you know contactless has been announced at the station and then the AI overview just completely ignores the one that says that there's a delay and just says yeah it's contactless. On top of that, it's really petty. I then got I somehow found the MP, so the member of parliament doing a video saying there's going to be contactless at the station.

I sent them all of that the second time and I was just like, hm, really? And uh and then they actually accepted my appeal. Got my money back.
I would have accepted that just because like, you know what, this person has gone to some serious effort. So like, yeah,
worried about what I'd send on the next appeal. Anyway, enough of all that. As always, a few shout outs. We just did Pocket Gamer Connects London, our biggest event ever. We had about 3,000 uh people, industry professionals there. It went great. So, thank you everyone uh who came to that. We hope you had a great time. We got a bunch more events this year. Go for as quick as possible. And we're going to San Francisco on March 9th. Dubai Game Expo Summit May 20th to 21st. We're going to Malmo May 27th. Barcelona June 15th to 16th. Shanghai July 30th. Helsinki 13th and 14th of October. Bangkok October 27th. In November we'll be in Jordan, Aaria Islands, we're doing that in December and we'll do the mobile games awards August and probably some other stuff, no

doubt. So after all that, the first story that I wanted to jump into. So Aristocrat put up parts of its games division up for sale in 2024 after it conducted a strategic review of its non-social casino portfolio. Aristocrat Leisure is an Australian casino firm. It owns Pllearium and Big Fish Games and Product Madness. Product Madness is staying. It already sold Plarium later in the year for 620 million. And Bigfish Games, which it acquired in 2018 for $990 million. It previously announced it was going under a restructure to its operations and no longer develop new titles. So, the whole thing never got bought. And uh I noticed on LinkedIn actually someone talking about a new company called BFG Entertainment. And immediately I was like BFG is that Big Fish Games? And then I I I looked into it all. So apparently Aristocrat divested certain assets from Big Fish Games in three separate transactions. So a new company

as said called BFG Entertainment was established following the acquisition of some of those assets in October 2025. The firm now owns and operates bigfishames.com and develops, publishes, and operates titles across PC, Mac, and mobile. As part of the deal, BFG Entertainment brought in 30 plus employees. It's headed up by Lassie Yensen, who is a former CEO at Iwin and an adviser for Plug-in Digital. And he told us, "We acquired the PC premium business, including the catalog and IP as well as a handful of mobile games." He added, "We thought the assets were underutilized and that we could do better. We plan to grow both our PC Mac premium games business as well as the mobile games and develop more games uh for all of those platforms. Then uh a couple other things. Big Fish's puzzle title Evermer Merge uh that launched in 2019 and according to AppMagic generated an estimated $158 million gross revenue just from player spending. That is now

listed under Indian entertainment firm Jet Symphysis. but they didn't respond to requests for comment. There's a publisher called Seven Hits Games and that's listed as the company for match free title Gummy Drop on the App Store on Google Play and I'm not quite clear if that's one of the transactions that Big Fish was sorry that Aristocrat was referring to. We understand that the divestments as it were were not material for Aristocrat, but in its 2025 financial report, Aristocrat did report a 100 million, sorry, a $70 million USD impairment after tax relating to the Big Fish restructure. Uh, Big Fish Casino Jackpot Magic slots remain in Aristocrats portfolio. Lastly, spokesperson said they confirmed that they divested. They said it's in line with their strategic review to focus on basically social casino. I just think it's uh it's a little bit sad that Big Fish Games is

no more. Okay. I guess I guess it's still around. At least it looks like it's no more. Like they've sold off a lot of it. Their most successful titles are still with Aristocrat, but it's a company that was bought for 1 billion effectively and it's kind of been torn apart. Aristocrat has obviously pulled back from games which was expansion many years ago when it made these big acquisitions. Right. So Paige, what have you got?
Um first up from me is a little bit about Netflix and their new strategy. Um, so this time they're basic, that sounds so mean this time, but I feel like they've had so many shifts in what the strategy is for obviously like their games department and now the new main focus is going to be cloud gaming, but specifically kind of around making the TV the center of that rather than say your phone. Um, this was sort of brought up in their Q4 2025 earnings call where yeah, they basically said that that's what they'll be doubling down on. So, it's less about downloading games on

your phone, more about having it direct on your TV, which I feel like on paper makes sense. Netflix is very much so about the TV that's, you know, in your living room. So, making the games also about that, I suppose in theory makes sense when I think about it. But at the same time, I just think like when I think they started doing games in 2021 and since then, there's just been so many shifts in what it is that they want the games to do. it's mobile and then they had lots of big games on there, things like GTA. Then they sort of shifted focus more onto a lot of their narrative games, ones that matched up with their shows. I know like Emily and Paris, you know, they've got the show, they've got the narrative game, and now they're sort of coming away. Not that they won't do that, but it's more seems like the focus is going to be on Cloud and these sort of party games. I think it was just before Christmas when they did they had like Boggle Pictionary and the Lego party game. And apparently they said that those did pretty well for them. I do wonder if that was quite smart timing having them release sort of

before the holidays. It is a time where, you know, more people are sat in their living rooms playing party games and things like that that you wouldn't usually be doing. So yeah, I I feel like it's it's an interesting shift from them. I don't know if it's the one that will stick. I like the idea of Netflix having games and I feel like it makes sense in a way, but at the same time, I always just feel like the problem with Netflix offering games is is that what people want from Netflix? I know they've said like numerous times at this point that the game sector that they've got, it's not like this big revenue driver. It's about, you know, creating more engagement, but I do wonder how much of that is actually happening. You know, if I sort of just think of my own sort of friendship group and family and things like that, I there are very little of them that still even know that you get games on Netflix, let alone use them. And I feel like that is still the main hurdle. Like what is it that you want to go on Netflix for? It's it's not really the games. You know, may maybe this is a

good idea. You know, it makes it more about party games and, you know, having people use it on their TV takes out the element of needing your phone. So yeah, I get it in theory, but yeah, I'm just curious to see where this one goes because it does feel like yet another shift in what that main focus is for them.
Someone was uh I was having this debate with someone someone in the industry, an executive, and they they were explaining to me like the way they say it's just it's just preventing churn. So someone's about to unsubscribe and then they're like, "Oh, but I get all this actually as well. Maybe I'll keep it for a bit longer." So it's just something else in the library. So, I don't know if it attracts people necessarily, but it might stop you
cancing.
I get that. I would love to know more statistics about it because again, I can't imagine anybody saying to me, "I was going to cancel Netflix, but I didn't because of the games." [snorts]
That is a thing.
Yeah. I just personally, you know, I've heard people saying, "Oh, you know, my Netflix subscription is too expensive," or something like that. I've heard that, but I haven't heard like, "Oh, but I'll

lose that game."
I just just say what I hear. But I I thought it was like I don't know cloud first was really really naff to me. There's just like so what does that mean in pract practicality like if for best guess live it probably it could work quite well their quiz show which is like HQ trivia I think but like to play other games especially the other games that they've released for example so you'd either probably play it on your phone through the TV which is not a good experience it it can be for certain types of experiences I'd imagine most of those experiences are quiz type games uh or or or something cuz otherwise you're just looking at your phone. You can't just like look at a screen and control on your phone. It'll be quite challenging. The like you know WWE, can you do that on your phone? They're not going to release a controller. So you'd have to buy a controller from someone. I doubt you're going to do that just for your Netflix unless I mean they're never going to get into hardware. So I won't go down that road. But I I just don't really know what cloud first means for

them and how that ultimately works. Especially when I look at the previous strategy and the games that they've got. It doesn't it doesn't fit for me. I know you can play g you can already play games on your TV, right? And use and use the control the remote control, but that's so basic. And again, like you say, those aren't that's not the kind of thing that's going to keep you with your Netflix subscription. So maybe they'll do more announcements during GDC, but their new new strategy like last year. Uh all right, Facebook page Aaron, what have you got?
Yeah. So my first story this week is a Candy Crush one. there. So, as of us recording today, King of Shadow Dropped Candy Crush Crushable, which is a new daily puzzle game exclusive to Yahoo Games, which is itself making a comeback and hoping to become a big platform for casual games. So, yeah, basically this is a I guess a bite-sized version of Candy Crush in one way, but with slightly different gameplay as well. So,

it looks like they'll be yeah, like a new puzzle every day where you are essentially given a tray of candies and have to determine how to fill them in on the kind of board that looks more like the normal kind of puzzle layout, but it's got a load of gaps in it. And you have to put all the candies in, which it's weird saying candies cuz English I'd say sweets, but candy crutch. So you have to fill them all in and I think aim for like high scores of basically doing that in as few moves possible or as quickly as possible and positioning all of the suites so that they all I guess get matched at the same time and kind of you clear the whole board in one go and then apparently there's a um a bit of a competitive element I guess you can share your stats on how you did with friends and stuff and then you know I guess compete to see who can do it the quickest. So obviously like the New York Times really sort of popularized this

kind of daily puzzle game type genre. So obviously you got stuff like Wordle which is still huge from a few years ago. So I guess it makes sense that um Candy Crush would go into this cuz we've seen them kind of experiment with things like the Solitaire game and other things that uh kind of got shut down um over recent years. But maybe this kind of format will be an area that um there's a bit more of a market for if it's just like you if it becomes habitual that people go on once a day, do a level, switch off again, like maybe that's easier for people to add to their schedules. I'm hoping to do like an interview with them. So, keep an eye on the website where yeah, I'm going to try and find out whether they expect this to mainly kind of target existing Candy Crush players or whether it's a bit of a UA move to try and get new players. Um, cuz yeah, I'm not really sure what what the target audience is at the moment. I I can't imagine a vast amount of people

who don't play Candy Crush would start playing this, but maybe I'm totally wrong and there are just daily puzzle fanatics who jump on the chance to play a new one.
I think that uh I I imagine Yahoo Games are just like, "We'll pay you some money. Can you do this for us, please, to help our platform?" And maybe there's and then I'll just be guessing after that. Maybe there's part like a division within King that kind experiments with stuff to see what takes off. The reason I say that is because then I think of Singer and they do that. They experiment with new platforms. At least they have in the past and they did that like with instant games. I think they did it with Snap Games games as well, I guess. But I meant Facebook games before. And uh like they just released like games on there that I don't think they really expect any return other than one they're experimenting and two they probably just got paid a bit chunk of money uh to do it and help help a new platform gain some users. But it is kind of cool to see like a daily game. But I guess like

you know Candy Crush has how many thousands of levels? It's kind of a daily game. It's it's still a daily game.
20,000
with with live ops events etc. Like it's not like there's other games. They're not designed to be subscription based but you know they work to the same end almost but in fact probably generate more money or do generate more money. So uh I that's how I see the deal. the you know the most shocking thing is that Aaron doesn't know who Frankie Mun is was and I felt very old.
Yeah. Yeah.
When you said the name I was like who's that? And then when you said it's the Malcolm in the Middle guy I was like oh him I didn't watch it but like I do know what it is. So
yeah I've heard the name Malcolm in the Middle before. But yeah no I I apologize for
making you feel old immediately this morning. Great way to start the day.
Yeah it was a good day. I I liked you. The other thing you said is just I thought it was just some random guy.
Yeah. You know, I just thought it was like
just some other actor, you know.
Yeah. It's just a guy that they got to

advertise the game.
It's funny. I couldn't think of what else you bid in. So, I was like, "Oh, I think he's in Shark NATO [laughter] as if that's a real [snorts] Oh, yeah. Obviously that guy." And then
Aaron was still like, "Don't know what that is either."
Don't know what that is. And then heard of that,
which is fair. And then uh and then I was like, "Oh, I think it's in Spike is the early fans." And then Dan on pocketgamer.com points out, "Oh no, he's agent. Is it Cody Banks or whatever his name was, which if you watch the trailer for that, it's an early 2000's film and it's such a trailer of his time. It's insane. It would not stand up today." Sorry, I got a bit off topic there. Right, moving on. So, I've got another fairly quick one, but I thought it was just interesting to mention. So last year there were those apploving shortseller reports if you remember questioning basically the business model and maybe making allegations about maybe some of the ways that applovin collects

data um and does I guess as business and they did ultimately some of that have an effect on the share price which has kind of been up and down over the past year. Um ultimately Loveance shares gone way up where they used to be if that's something that matters to you. [laughter] So CNBC has reported um the latest the allegation is it's another short seller report but the the basically there's a company called Capital Watch which denies that it's a short seller and it published a 35page report about Apploving and it made some quite serious allegations. I won't go through them all like just overall it's saying basically that the company quote serves as a digital laundromat for criminal syndicates which applo has responded to say is defamatory and baseless and its letter says I think it was there applovin put a cease and desist uh in

and it says your respective reports contain numerous absurd and demon demonstrably false statements of purported fact about applian According to the findings conspiratorial musings watch itself then said our coverage reflects a rigorous six-month investigation supported by documentary materials and multiple sources including investors victims of financial fraud and whistleblowers. Uh we will continue reporting including the next installment in our series nine questions for applied. So this is a story that's seeming like it's not going to go away unless uh the lawyers have already kind of done their work. I think the last post actually I'm not sure. I was going to say the last post was on the 27th. We'll see if that continues with much more reporting as they would put it. It's a whole 35page report. Again, I guess it's like kind of like the other ones just really questioning especially they're also questioning like one of the shareholders and their links to fraud

etc. So interesting story I thought I'd mention that it's just another thing for apploing again more questions around their business and I guess the problem for app loving is in the end it could get them investigated by authorities or the SEC or somebody which is probably not what you want whatever's even if you're like completely innocent. So yeah, one to watch. Paige, what else have you got?
I feel like this I feel like every time I'm on the podcast, I'm talking about Ubisoft. I feel like it happens every time. My notes for this story is actually like the headline for one story and then it's like and another story and [laughter] cuz I just feel like there's so much that's happened in the last week with Ubisoft. So I'm going to go through a little bit of it. I think I so not last week's podcast but the week before I mentioned the layoffs that had happened and now we're back to that but this time it's so they're essentially proposing Yeah. Yeah. They're now proposing cuts of up to 200 rolls for the Paris headquarters but this would be a voluntary termination process. So

nothing is kind of final on that yet. Obviously any agreements would have to be made but that is the plan and it's obviously more cutting back. And then we also recently reported on Ubisoft's new restructurer of having these creative houses that different things will fall into like mobile being in its own thing, whatever that may turn out to be, which is perhaps not a lot, but um so yeah, each one is in its own creative house. Um also canled some projects outright, one of which being the Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time remake, which I'm very sad about. I think we spoke about it, Craig, in our morning call. Like that game had to be so far along in the development process and now it's just not happening and it kind of blows my mind.
Seven it's like seven eight years to make for a remake. Uh I think it was initially made in India then they moved it to Montreal or at least part of it. These games are supposed to be sure did aren't supposed to be like free money.

How does it take that long to make moving it to a very expensive team in Montreal to to still take ages, by the way, not to like do it quicker in the end and then to cancel it? Insane.
I um I can't remember where I saw it, but I saw a story that was about somebody that had worked on the game. I think they had done voice work on it and they basically like I' I've found out about this the same as everybody else did and now all of this work that I've done for years on this game is like it's never going to see the light of day and I think this voice actor is like you know relatively new to that scene. So like for them obviously that that's a huge deal and that nothing's ever going to happen. And they said that it was only a few months ago that they were doing um they recorded some like marketing content for the game and that was a few months ago and now it just doesn't exist. So yeah like that's you know that's awful and yeah that was one I was personally very much so looking forward to as well. But yeah obviously all of this kind of bad news has not had

a good market reaction. Um, Ubisoft share prices, they dropped by almost 40% in a single day after all of these restructures were announced. Um, and I think I mentioned this last time when we spoke about Ubisoft, that at this point, if you work there, even if your job isn't at risk, you must just feel in such an unstable place. And, you know, I know that it's not just Ubisoft. Lots of companies have had, you know, layoffs and a lot of time of uncertainty over the past few years. But, you know, with Ubisoft, it does just feel kind of relentless over the last few years and just sort of bad news after bad news. And then the the the final bit of the update on this is now the escalation of all of this is that some unions that are representing Ubisoft employees are now calling for a 3-day strike. They're just not happy that there's been basically no dialogue about a lot of what has been, you know, proposed to happen. They feel that there's just a massive lack of respect. Obviously, no security. You know, obviously a lot of this is in light of, you know, cost cutting, but

there's also other issues such as their mandatory working in the office. I think unions have been trying to negotiate changing like their working from home policies for quite a while now and not really had the headway they want with that. So, yeah, all in all, it just seems very messy Ubisoft. So, we'll see what happens with the the strikes because as of now, that's just kind of a proposed thing that they're calling for. So, we'll see what happens with that. I I mean I have loads to say I guess but like with the strikes um I think a lot of that stems from because it's uh a lot of those layers that were announced the 200 I don't all know they are right 200 job cuts in Paris. I mean the French are very well known for for striking and I believe you know they have a lot of protections in place. Again we'll kind of see how that that goes in terms of everything else. You know, Ubisoft has obviously got this deal with Tencent and it's packaged it into Vantage Studios. All of their top IP exists and I think Tencent takes a royalty and then that

subsidiary I got confused so I need to look into it more now to be honest. But I think that subsidiary then pays a royal like a license fee almost like a royalty back to the rest of Ubisoft. All very strange structure. I've said before, I'm not an expert on it, but it if I just look on the face of it, it looks like Tencent has basically done all it can to avoid having to acquire the entirety of Ubisoft under French law. So, it's done this like weird new deal. Ubisoft needed the money. But anyway, so Vantage Studios is the only named Creative House and then like just got his Creative House 2, three, four, five, and I think mobile is in Creative House 5 with some IP and I saw people commenting um I think on LinkedIn places like it's kind of packaged almost like as a chopping block, right? So do do we really think that Ubisoft is serious about these these other creative houses and giving them independence, etc. or do we think they're like, "Here you go. Here's a package that we think would be

suitable for someone to acquire or at some point for us to go, we're going to nyx creative house 4 cuz it's not working for us, etc." Yeah. The whole thing as we're reporting on it, you know, it just seems incredibly incredibly poorly managed and the CEO is seems to be trying to Eve Gilamo just hanging on. I mean, it is his company, so he could do what he wants, I guess. But like, it's such a it's such a shame to see overall what's been happening to Ubisoft maybe over the past decade. And that's not to say they haven't been putting out any good stuff. They have, but uh overall just, you know, the layoffs, the turmoil, um all the Yeah, all the staff losing their jobs. It's it's just it's just awful. So, I I really want to see the Ubisoft of old come back. I think for all the people that saying the ease need to go maybe we get some new people at the top but I guess like what I don't know sure but like what what then happens after that like say say they got

a new ownership because because of the apparent mismanagement it's like what happens after that is it going to be hundreds and hundreds of layoffs after that because there's still actually a lot of work to do the 10-centent deal is already done etc. So yeah, I hope they get back to what they used to be. We'll see.
And I hope they change their minds and give us Prince of Persia.
I I just I'm so shocked that that whole project, but I I'd love to know what happens there. It just can't happen. They'll be like canceling. I don't know. Any any big remake you could think of like Resident Evil 4. Imagine imagine that took like 10 years and they're like, "No, we're canceling." It's like why? Just it's just a remake. Not saying don't making games is easy at all, right? But I thought again I thought that's the point of these things. You basically it's called a remake, but I thought the idea was to just remaster and release stuff.
I was going to ask,
especially when it's so far along like surely

anyway if they're doing marketing work
cuz was it like a groundup remake or basically just updated assets and stuff? I think it was supposed to be more because obviously there's the argument of a what's a remaster and what's a remake. I think it was supposed to be more in fashion of like a remake when you think of like original Resident Evil 2 for example and the remake they did of that it was like a hu it was a huge overhaul. So I do think it was supposed to be quite a significant
like work in terms of a remake I believe but yeah it has been in develop for de development for a long time and like I said I was reading the story and like I said if they were doing recording marketing content for it then I would imagine it was you know there was something substantial there and it's a lot of years of works. Yeah it's is just a shame that no one will see it.
Right. So just looked it take this with a grain of salt. I'm looking at this on Wikipedia as all good journalists. The remake was going to be developed by Ubisoft Mumbai and Ubisoft Pune and it was announced in 2020 for a 2021

release. So, we're way past that. And then there was some apparently there was some I don't I don't remember this, but apparently there was some like negative feedback towards how the game looked. So, they delayed it. They delayed it to like March from January. Then and then they just kept delaying it and delaying it and I think it it kind of sounds like feature creep or something came in and they were like, "Oh, actually we could just make make it bigger. We could make it better." And then it's like delayed 2022 23 and then it's like announced in 24 that it was going to be released in 2026 with the Sands of Time name and then a year and a half later got cancelled. Insane. Insane stuff.
Yeah. Like so for all of that time like what like I would just love to know what that game looks like right now. How
the decisions were behind it.
Yeah. And because it is it was like really like highly anticipated as well.

So I feel like it probably would have sold pretty well because just just nostalgia factor. A lot of people would have got it just to relive it again. So yeah. I get you don't want to ruin the IP with a poor game, but something's gone horribly wrong to get from an announcement in 2020 to a cancellation in 2026 of a remake. Crazy. Right, Aaron, what have you got?
Yeah, so my other story this week is a Pokémon one. It feels like it's been a little while since I've spoken about Pokémon on the podcast. Um, we did we did it last week, so it must be overdue. Um, yeah. So, this is a Pokémon Go story, which so basically every February since 2021, Pokémon Go has done a go tour event uh where they'll do there's some stuff in um in person at different locations around the world and then they do the kind of global version where everyone can access it from home. So, it's always kind of late February around Pokémon's anniversary. Um, and they've

been working through kind of the regions kind of generations of Pokémon. Like 2021 it was Kanto. 2022 they did Johto, Owen, Sinno, Universe. So this year is Carlos for the sixth generation which yeah, they've clearly gone through in order, but it's happened to time quite nicely cuz um, ZA which came out a few months ago was set in Carlos again even though it's, you know, from 2013 the region got introduced. Um, so that's kind of its own thing, but the real kind of interesting bit to me is that they're doing a Road to Callus um, kind of rewind they've called it. Uh, basically, um, kind of echoing the previous year's tour events for one day each, uh, which they've never done before. So, these events have always been kind of a one-time thing and then they're done and I say then the next year rolls around and it's focused on the next set of games basically. Um, and

their big events since they've started they've always been kind of top three revenue generators every year according to AppMagic. Um, obviously the anniversary is usually up there. The Hoen one in 2023, the tour event out earned even the like anniversary event. So, like they're quite a big deal. It kind of seems obvious like you would want to recapture that. But yeah, they're finally doing that. So, ahead of the February 28th Callos tour, the they're basically yeah, rotating through the previous tours every day. So, February 22nd will be kind of Kanto themed. So, people will be able to have higher chance of finding like a shiny Pikachu, Bulbasaur, Squirtle, Charmander. The legendaries like Zapdos will be in raids. you know, that day will just be very much themed around Kanto. Then the 24th, we'll have the Johto starters like Toadial and Hoo and Lugia as legendaries in the raids. And I say essentially working through um yeah, the previous tours and I guess the

starters are some of the most popular Pokémon. The legendaries are popular. um just seems like a big celebration basically of I guess every tour so far and every generation up to generation 6 with the new event and obviously it's worth noting that Scopely now owns Pokémon Go. So whether that has played a role in this kind of new live ops event strategy or you know I don't know whether they would have planned it far enough ahead that this was going to be a thing anyway. Obviously, it was last April, May time that they got acquired. So, I I wouldn't be surprised if Scopely has been a factor. And also, so obviously, this is likely to incentivize people to play over that kind of week leading up to the new tour, um, which has its own kind of like ticket you can buy. There's kind of the free version and then the full experience is a paid thing. Um, but you can buy like the road to callos, um, like go Pass Deluxe.

Um, so like it's also kind of directly being monetized. So it just seems like they're I guess trying to scale this up and make the most of it because they're big events every year as is. So like why not make a whole week of it rather than just a weekend which it usually is. So yeah, I found that quite noteworthy when I saw that that's a thing this year. And I say whether it's a uh you know whether it's many factors like the Scopia acquisition and because this year's Pokemon's 30th anniversary um whether it's just kind of they thought they would do it as part of a broader Pokemon celebration. Um cuz you know we're bound to get announcements and things kind of later in February as well for other spin-offs and mobile games and you know whatever's next for the main series. So whether this Yeah, I I'd be curious to know behind the scenes if this is a scopely driven thing or a a Pokémon driven thing in a way. Uh but either way, they're they're making a big thing of it and I expect they'll they'll make some good

money out of it this year.
Right, we'll stop there. Thank you everyone as always for listening. Thank you Paige and Aaron for the join of the podcast.
Yeah, good to be here.
Yeah. Yeah, good to be here too.
And uh everyone have a great weekend and we'll see you on next week's show. Goodbye.