Unity shenanigans, Space Ape postmortem, your games of the year, 2025 wrapped, more

Hello and welcome to the mobile gamer.biz digest. I'm Neil Long and every week I go for a walk and tell you what's happening in the mobile games industry. Here we go. Let's start with this Unity thing, shall we? This kind of fell into my lap a little bit. One source forwarded me an alarming email they'd received from Unity apparently introducing a new fee starting at 250K annually and rising to 2 million. It is apparently called the Unity Enterprise minimum commitment program and it is for those on the Unity Enterprise subscription. This source forwarded on the email which I checked around and some other people had got the same emails. I have asked Unity for an official comment and some context on this and I've also dug around for references to the Unity Enterprise minimum commitment program in Unity's pricing documentation, but there doesn't

seem to be any reference to this online anywhere. In classic fashion, Google hallucinates its existence if you put it in Google AI mode, but when you click through, it doesn't exist. But if you are a studio with an annual gross revenue of 25 million, you qualify. You will be on the Unity Enterprise program anyway. And you are now due to pay quarter of a million dollars every year. If you're earning over 50 million, that fee goes up to half a million. If you are earning between hundred million and 250 million, it is $1 million. And then for studios earning over $250 million, the fee is $2 million. So yes, of course, Unity has previous on introducing surprising new fees with the runtime fee fiasco of 2023 24. The sources I spoke to were worried it's

kind of happening again. I think they want to make a better Q4 financial report, said one developer who received the email. We can pay more for the license, but charging us according to our revenue size is too demanding. This feels like blackmail and they can further increase the percentage whenever they want. There's a couple of other developers quoted in there anonymously. Of course, it's not going to go down well. The threat of termination seems like overkill for enterprise customers. I mean, enterprise customers are already paying the top tier fees. So the additional fees are targeted at those bigger studios and as some developers have noted it is similar to Epic's model which charges around 1% of annual revenue for Unreal Engine licensing although those fees do depend on bespoke negotiations between developers and Epic. So, Unity has been portraying itself as a company

transformed, but these emails will worry developers and actually Unity does still need to make more money out of its customers. Basically, the engine business isn't super lucrative. So, while it has previously announced 5% price rises set to take effect in January 2026, these appear to be brand new. I have also of course asked Unity for comment and explanation of what this fee is and why it's being introduced. The reason I went ahead and published without their input is because I don't think any Unity PR person has responded to me or offered me any sort of comment since before the runtime fee fiasco and I have asked them many many many times. I'm not optimistic for a response from Unity or an explanation. It may well follow in

due course. And sending out emails like this the week before Christmas does feel a little bit like, you know, a good time to bury bad news, all of that kind of stuff. So, the timing suggests that Unity knows that it may well get a backlash here. We will see how this develops if Unity respond. and confirmed this or not. On Monday, I published a kind of postmortem of the studio formerly known as Space Ape Games, now Supercell London, called the life and death of Space Ape Games. This is based on an interview Deconstructor of Fun did with Simon Hay Mishka and Simon. It gave me a heads up on this and I spent a couple of hours turning it into a look back on the rise and evolution and eventual effective closure of Space Ape. I think this is an important UK mobile game

studio. What's maybe most striking is that Simon says the studio was basically founded to beat Supercell to Android, which clearly turned out to be a smart move. So he and John Ner, his co-founder, came out of Playfish, the casual game studio owned by EA, with some backers from that Playfish deal, and they set up Space Ape. And the goal was essentially clone Clash of Clans and give it a samurai theme, get it on Android, really focus on that top 1% of spenders, which I don't think is unique to Space Ape at the time, but obviously has become pretty much the entire model that most mobile game studios are based on, serving a small percent of very high spenders. Samurai Siege succeeded in doing that a couple of years after launch. A space also pioneered this idea

of lean live ops having a small team of people constantly delivering live ops and events content for that small high-spending player base. And that model was obviously adopted and adapted by lots of people, Supercell included. And the success of Samurai Siege led to Rival Kingdoms, which was a darker, grittier fantasy reading of Clash of Clans, which Haid says didn't quite hit the mark. It was really impressive graphically, deep systems made for the hardcore, but the art style was just not approachable enough to attract the big numbers Space A wanted. But that expertise in building battle with two successful games out on the market led to a conversation with Hasbro and Transformers Earth Wars which Hey describes as the most successful title to come from that early period of Space Ape. And then all of that got the

attention of our friends Supercell who bought 62% of Space Ape in 2017 for $55.8 million. And from there, Hay says, "Essentially, Space 8 was turned into an R&D outfit for Supercell. They apparently worked seriously on 25 different games, and there were tons more prototypes that didn't make it." There's a little bit of regret in this passage where Hay laments the fact that Space A didn't focus down hard enough on its winners, didn't kill games quickly enough, which is obviously ironic given Supercell's influence over the company at that time. All the while, SpaceX is continuing to operate this lean live ops model that is hugely profitable for the company. So that allows SpaceX to keep going. Overconfidence is also brought up here given the millions from Supercell, the

backing of arguably the most prestigious company in mobile. They maybe got overconfident says Haid and that led to this refocusing and then obviously Beat Star and Chrome Valley Customs came out of that. This lean live ops program actually was the thing that finally made Supercell swoop for the rest of the company. It bought out the rest in November 2024 and turned Space Ape into Supercell London, moving and applying that lean live ops expertise to legacy titles like Heyday and Boom Beach. Squadbusters was also run out of London for a bit before that project was killed. Supercell needed to scale up at the time and Space Ape was the obvious fit in terms of culture given the existing crossover between the two companies already. So that makes sense. And then it gets a little bit messy. Next Beat spins out with Beat Star and

Country Star, but the complexities of the music industry mean that it became fairly quickly apparent to Simon that it might be too difficult for Next Speak to operate as an independent company. And during that period, it was also talking to Duolingo about helping out and they were aqua hired. The casualties were Beat Star and Country Star. Of course, there were some layoffs in the transition from SpaceX to Supercell London. Some people were offered jobs they didn't want and they left. A Chrome Valley Customs found a new home in Off-Road Games and Transformers Earth Wars found a new home at Yodo 1, the Chinese publisher. There is a Space Diaspora. So, it leaves quite a legacy actually. And it's a shame to see a UK built mobile game studio close. It does speak to the realities of the current market. bigger fish swallowing up smaller fish. I found this fascinating and I thought

this might be the biggest story of the week and then that unity thing happened. So, well worth reading the article and listening to the podcast and watching the video from Deconstructure of Fun. You are halfway through the podcast. Here is a commercial break. I'll be back after this. Exola connects developers with the resources they need to build, fund, launch, and monetize their mobile games globally with Exola web shop. Sell virtual items, in-game currency, subscriptions, and custom offers directly to players while driving up to five times the revenue growth. With the industry's number one web shop solution, Exola provides the tools for developers to focus on what's most important, creating great games. Visit exola.com to learn more. That's xsol.com. On Tuesday, I published three articles featuring 18 different mobile games industry executives, all picking their

game of the year. There's some interesting picks in there. Obviously, you should go and read the articles, but you've got Fun Plus's Bob Slin picking match villains. famous author Naomi Alderman who also runs and writes Zombies Run. She's still playing Balatro. There's a bunch of other people in there. I I'm pleased that Battle of Polytopia got a shout out. That is the game I have certainly played the most this year. It's got me through a lot of playing journeys and also quite a good thing to play before bed. It's kind of predictable and unpredictable and not too taxing. Infinity Nikki, Gossip Harbor, Spooky Express, an indie puzzler, Monument Valley 3, of course, Sonic Rumble, Genchin Impact, a load of other choices there. I think as a wider bit of context, not to go on and on

about this award stuff, but it does also confirm to me really nothing in the last year has come out of mobile that is even close to being in contention for a game award outside of the mobile category or really in genuine contention for a BAFTA or a Golden Joysticks if you're that way inclined. There's no real outstanding artistic work that has come out of mobile. They're very successful games in terms of downloads and revenue. But yes, I think with this game of the year stuff, people in the mobile games industry look at games very differently to how the game awards and BAFTA judges look at games. So yes, you can find a load of familiar faces on the site describing their game of the year this week. And the same cast of characters will also be

offering their 2026 predictions in early January. So keep an eye out for that. In the regulars this week, a massive edition of jobs update led by Supercell's new president Sarah Bach. She is taking over the live games unit which includes business operations, marketing, community, people and game tech. Supercell boss ILA Panin described the move as the next evolution of Supercell. There are also moves at Netflix, Scoply, Play Ticker, Tik Tok, Unity, Stillfront, and a load more. Paramount, Beach Bum, EA, Mini Clip, Epic, Lego, Trail Mix, Pragma, etc. etc. Lots of people switching jobs before the Christmas break. So, have a look at the jobs digest article for more detail on that. You will probably find someone in there that you know.

In the final data digest of 2025, Fallout Shelter hit 230 million downloads. There's a bit on 2026 predictions from Sensor Tower where they suggest downloads could fall to prepandemic levels next year. Anetis's where winds meet has peaked with 15 million players across mobile PC and PS5 but mostly driven by mobile. There's a bit on Micro Fund and Gossip Harbor which is raking in record amounts of inapp purchase revenue. There's also some stats on its other games. Mob Vista's XMPP has a load of data on the first three quarters of this year where they outline downloads revenue, monetization model, game genre by revenue, and Jigsaw Ecapes and Vita Maharjong take the top two spots in terms of most advertised.

Resident Evil Survival Unit has earned about $2.8 $8 million to date. According to At Magic, that game's been out for about a month or so. It is the end of the year. Everyone's doing their best of articles right now. I've not done mine yet. I will probably formalize these thoughts into a proper wrapped article, but I think it's worth loosely talking here about the big trends of 2025. It's hard to ignore the influence of Saudi Arabia. The biggest story of the year is the Saudi takeover of EA, but you've also got Scopely acquiring Pokémon Go, which happened earlier this year. Apploving selling up its games business to Triple Dot which has quietly emerged as a really really significant mobile game business run out of London.

You've got the transition from Space to Supercell London. I think there were three versions of that King layoffs and AI story over the summer. The AI angle in particular has been a really big talking point. I think the consumer games media in particular is absolutely going bananas about whether game X, Y, or Zed has generative AI and the mania around this. I just cannot understand. If you actually speak to anyone who makes games rather than listening to what people are screaming about on the internet, you quickly realize that any tools that make making games easier are really welcome. I think people just need to calm down if the opportunity to make games faster

and more easily does arise. And that seems to be what is happening. Game developers are going to take that opportunity, whatever that opportunity looks like. And the sort of screaming around AI from both sides is really just quite tiring and boring in my opinion. The main thing to do in true British person style, keep calm, carry on, adopt the tools you think are useful, don't adopt the tools that are not useful. Hopefully, it will speed up the process of game making and we can all make better games and more money. In terms of wrapping up how people have been reading and using the website this year, the website is now got a momentum behind it. We've run

seven off thereord events. We launched a podcast which you're listening to right now. Financially, the site is on firm footing. And thank you for listening all the way to the end. Goodbye.