Was Epic's App Store battle worth it? | Week in Mobile Games podcast

Hello welcome to the Pocket Gamer.biz podcast a week in mobile games and we chat about the week's news and provide some insights. Craig Chapple, head of content at Pocket Gamer.biz. With me as ever our deputy editor Paige Cook and our news editor Aaron Astle. How are you both doing? Paige, what have you been up to? Work wise there's been some interesting stories so some of that obviously we'll we'll get to. And outside of work yeah nothing too crazy. I think on the last podcast I said about doing gardening at the weekend which I did and then my partner got bit by a spider and had to go to hospital. She's fine. It was more just weird like it was this tiny little bite and then now it's this huge blister. So she's on antibiotics which means no more gardening for a while. Obviously trying to be productive was not the right call there. Other than that gaming and stuff I've not been doing tons but the new Life is Strange game comes out tomorrow.

So I've been replaying the first game like we've just been playing like an episode a night because they're quite long so we've just done like one episode a night before the new one comes out which has been quite nostalgic. So I think I first played that game when it originally came out which god that must be a very old by now. I don't know 15 years or just less than? Yeah maybe a little bit less but yeah definitely a while. All right thanks so Aaron what else what have you been up to? Well so a bit of behind the scenes for people I guess we're we're filming this a day earlier than usual so hopefully no crazy news drops on our usual recording day.
It always does. Yeah cuz I'm off as of about probably an hour after us filming this for the rest of the week. It's my birthday so try and make the most of it. I like to make a week of it if I can. I'm still stuck on that like make a week of it for your birthday like fair play.
Yeah. I'm still compensating for some you know milestone birthdays being in lockdown. So, but yeah, no, it should should be

good. Like I'm seeing family on my birthday. And then Friday, going out with some friends in Oxford. Saturday, I think I'm going to like a comedy show with my dad. So, and then Sunday, chilling out. Resting and
Recovering, yeah. So, yeah, no, I'm feeling feeling old now. People are people are picking on me now. Nice. Well, happy birthday, Aaron. Yeah, happy birthday.
Thank you. Have a great time. Yeah, thanks for that. So, uh as for myself, no birthday. Um and I'm I'm 40 world now. But uh my uh the only thing I've really done, I I saw Project Hail Mary, which is the Ryan Gosling sci-fi film. I highly highly recommend it. I thought it was brilliant. I really liked Andy Weir's The Martian, and the movie was very good as well, uh with Matt Damon. And this is Well, I guess it's the same like in quote unquote realistic science attempts at that. Obviously, it's very sci-fi, but uh yeah, like it tries to keep it a bit grounded. And anything I'd say would

be a spoiler. Even the trailer is a spoiler. So, if you think you're interested, you don't know that much about it, I'd suggest going in without more information and just watching it. Very good. Right, we'll head into things. First thing, we've got a few events coming up. We have Pocket Gamer Connect Summit Malmö, May 27th 28th. We're in Barcelona, June 15th and 16th. That's shaping up to be a really big event. We've got uh Shanghai, July 29th. We've got Helsinki, which we're calling it Pocket Gamer Connect Next Nordics, on October 20th to 21st. Got Thailand, October 27th in Bangkok. And then we've got some uh other events later in the year, including uh Gran Canaria in December. Right. So, uh the first news that we're going to jump in on is, I guess, the big news of the week, unless anything else breaks, as you were saying, is that Epic is laying off 1,000 employees. And in the note that was sent to Epic employees, which I think is from yeah, Tim Sweeney, the CEO. He says, "I'm sorry we're here again." So, if you remember, they did do this before. And

then after that, Tim Sweeney was heard like, "Oh, now we're now I think he said profitable." And now that he's saying the downturn in Fortnite engagement uh that started in 2025 means we're spending significantly more than we're making. And we have to make major cuts to keep the company funded. This layoff, together with over $500 million of identified cost savings in contracting, marketing, and closing some open roles puts us in a more stable place. So, that's interesting that the 1,000 layoffs of maybe are not included in the $500 million cost savings as well. And that some of those some of that cost saving is actually in things that they haven't technically done yet. So, it's future investments in staff that they were going to hire. But obviously, that means that whatever they were going to hire them for, either they're doing with a reduced number of staff or isn't going to happen anymore. And I think as part of this page, we you reported I think with Isa that they were closing down

free modes in Fortnite.
Yeah, it was like three modes that they just felt were basically like under performing and you know, didn't have a big enough audience. Yeah. So, it's not obviously not great for Epic. But obviously, there have been major challenges for the entire industry over the last few years. You know, they're not Unfortunately, they're not the only ones doing this. And it doesn't sound very good for Fortnite, a declining declining engagements, which sounds like a declining user base and declining revenue or by the sounds of it. Obviously, recently they also raised the price of V-bucks, if you remember, which I guess was a prelude to this. This all made me think like, I wonder I with the benefit of hindsight, cuz you don't know what's going to happen or is it 5 6 years ago, but if we'll look back at Epic basically getting Fortnite taken off the app stores. I know that was Apple and Google's decision, but Epic knew this would happen through what they did using their own monetization option. If we'll look at that as a mistake for Epic, maybe not, just raising the

question really. So, at the time on mobile, and really only on the App Store it was making a lot of money. It had made $1.2 billion on the App Store. So, the interesting is they've just lost all of that. In theory, that they could have made billions of dollars more. Obviously with the Apple tax. Now, that's good for the industry, what they what Epic did, right? Good for publishers. I think towards the end it's got a bit more murky with like Epic seemingly trying to more look out for itself, like there's that initial So, we had the injunction against Google Play in the US, and then you had Epic then try to do a deal with Google separate from that, which was based on monetization like the type of monetization, which would only actually benefit Epic. Most when we did investigation, most top publishers wouldn't get the best deal out of that. And then And then they've got another deal now, which is like a 5% cut globally to 20 But effectively or to 20% effectively 25, but Epic has its own payment, so they get a bigger cut. I think it makes you reframe that decision

to do a deal with Google now. It seems like they've decided they need to end this campaign and get back to making games, making their game engine, and not investing all this money, and just trying to get the best deal they can now for Epic, which they also said they think for the industry, which may be true cuz it Steve Allison was saying it it could have been like years more until they got like a defined percentage from the courts, even if they would do that before for any revenue share. Um the other thing I wanted to say is like when we look back, you know, in those interview in those years of before this, Roblox, it's I guess chief competitor in UGC spent that time growing massively and you can't and if you miss 5-6 years, you've lost all those users. You can't just now now that the market's open and yeah, Epic can do more things with its own store monetization options, get a lot of that revenue share itself.

Does does that make up? You can't turn back time and say like everybody come back and they all just come back. Like you can't build it and they will come, right? Those users have gone. Maybe some of those went to Roblox. Maybe they did too well. Maybe they went elsewhere. It's a really big mountain to climb now to one grow full stop, people are leaving. And then two, you're also now competing with a much stronger Roblox in that arena. We'll talk about that in a bit as well. I think it's going to be very difficult for them. Any thoughts?
Yeah, like you kind of said, I don't know if, you know, at the time, you know, they just walked the path that seemed like the right one at that time. You know, you can't always look way into the future and know what's going to happen, but I do think, like you kind of said, looking back on it now, I suppose it does kind of reframe those last few years and like you said with the, you know, kind of stopping where things are at now with those legal battles, that definitely could have continued. Maybe they could have kept trying to fight for a higher percentage, but it felt like it makes even more sense now why it's kind of like, okay, like we're we're putting

a stop to this. This is what we've got and we're going to move on because obviously behind the scenes, this has been brewing for a while. And yeah, I think it's going to be hard to play catch up in those lost years, but, you know, they're they're a big enough name that that it is possible, but yeah, that is that's a lot of jobs lost and obviously a lot of very talented people now out there looking for work. And I think the like the timing of it as well with obviously they were taken off the app stores like mid pandemic, which is obviously a real like boom time for a lot of mobile companies particularly. Um and yeah, obviously maybe they can kind recover or kind of restart from there now, but you're also not going to hit the UA heights you might have done while everyone was in lockdown. And as you say, for something like Roblox, it seems like that's kind of just sustained and continued, you know, afterwards. Like it's trying to do that now and compete with more competition as well. It's, you know, it's kind of an uphill battle at this point.
I guess even at the time, I guess I say

it with hindsight, but it was obviously probably seen as a risk at the time. And kind of like people supportive of Epic. And you can't But then you can't foresee yeah how long this would it take. So, like Google and Apple really really entrenched in their position. So, but it's still good on Epic for doing it, but it's just a shame. But now now they've just got a lot of hard work to do. All right. So, that's that story. Um Aaron, what have you got? Uh my first one this week is about Duolingo, which is experimenting, sort of testing, with a new optional feature that's apparently designed to block access to other apps until a user has completed like their daily lessons in Duolingo. As they're calling it a focus feature. So, yeah, basically a Duolingo user can select uh like specific apps, particularly like social media stuff like TikTok or Instagram, to basically block until you've done what you're supposed to do in Duolingo that day. Uh so, you kind of grant the app access

to your screen time setting or equivalent. And then yeah, sort of set, you know, I want to complete this many lessons today before the restriction can be lifted. And I think you can override it. Um like there's a a system display of like um I think it pops up and says stay focused. Um if you try to open like Instagram before you've done your your lessons or whatever to, you know, try and prompt you to go back to Duolingo instead. But yeah, I guess yeah, you can override that if if you wanted to. I know a few people that use like screen time limits anyway for like certain app because they spend too long on social media. Obviously like this is noteworthy because you know it's Duolingo doing it, you know, it's an app trying to keep your screen time. It's not really about reducing it then it's about spend it on our app.
surprised if Apple and Google let this happen because if they let this happen like in this in this format Mhm. like if surely everyone else was just find a way

to do this. Like that where where it's relevant. I I don't know who or how cuz like I guess like a TikTok they don't have a good reason to say you can't use someone else's app until you've done this. I feel like it opens up a can of worms a bit. It is very clever though. Cuz I thought like with games, I guess you know, if they're things you can opt into, I guess it's not it doesn't really hurt anyone, but I was imagining like a game saying like you know, oh, don't don't go on TikTok. You haven't completed all your dailies yet. You know, you got a quests to do on our game and trying to like redirect you there. I can't see that working as well as it does for something like like Duolingo probably make it work. But yeah, I see it's funny kind of the the can of worms it might open in terms of like everyone trying to stop people from going on any app but theirs.
Yeah. I'm not saying it's a bad thing to do this. But like I guess what this also does is it's habit breaking and habit forming. So it reinforces your habit to

use Duolingo every day. And it tries to break your habit of doom scrolling or or just scrolling on a TikTok or social media. And so what do the platform holders want? Do they want you using lots of different apps and spending money so they make money or do they want you using this one app? I don't know. I just feel like I have I guess I haven't quite thought all this through, but there's something there that I just feel like the publishers on the platform in general would probably be like what is this? This this is a bit weird, isn't it? And again, yeah, you do like you say on the actual device, you do have you can set that manually for yourself anyway for certain apps or just screen time. And in this like you said Aaron is you you're selecting the option yourself. It's not being forced upon you. But I just I just wonder how other publishers will feel and if any of them will then reach out to platform holders and be like this is not cool actually. Yeah. Like I don't know if anyone would acknowledge it, but it would be interesting if we started seeing in like financials like social

media companies complaining of like well, you know, our screen time's gone down and then we're blaming Duolingo for it. It's not a small number of users though, right? Isn't it? I want to say it's yeah. I think they have like 50 million daily active users or something, is it? Right. Duolingo. I might be might be wrong.
I think it's like yeah, 50 million daily I think it's 50 million daily users, but then it's more than 10 million of them have a year-long daily streak. Yeah. So yeah, and we're not talk I I know that there's billions of people, but my point is it's interesting because then other apps could start doing it. Like a Calm might do it or Headspace or any number of other productivity apps or relaxation meditation apps will start doing it. Again, I'm not like against it. I just think it brings up some strange things that I think the platform holders will have to look at. All right, really interesting one that. Thanks Aaron. Paige, you've got another very big story of the past week. Yeah, so we sort of

mentioned Roblox a moment ago, but pretty big changes coming. So from January 2027, Roblox is going to start taking a share of revenue from like in-game brand deals. They've kind of essentially said it's you know, about making the system more fair and there's better transparency and all these kinds of things, you know, it's to help creators with their integrations and like knowing what they're worth, all that kinds of stuff. And so, you know, kind of reads a bit like, you know, it's it's not about the money, it's it's about everything just being great. You know, and obviously that's that's Roblox's side of it. But, overall, it's it's pretty controversial. You know, so like I said, like so from 2027 they will take a cut of these paid interactions. And these are like things that was like this is 100% just for creators. So, it's gone from you get 100% of that to oh, now we get a cut of it. So, obviously, creators just, you know, they're they're not happy with that and they're not seeing it in the way they're presenting it is like, oh, this is, you know, good for everyone. You know, from a creator's point of view, this is something that

was private to them and it was part of their income that was solely for them. And now it won't be. I looked at like quite a few comments on things and kind of scrolled around on the internet and I've seen actually a couple people doing like YouTube videos on it. Um, and yeah, like creators are just they're not happy. They're saying it's like the worst proposed update to the platform that they've seen. And yeah, like as which as they Roblox may want to frame it a certain way, it's it's not really going down the way that they would want to. And if I was a creator, yeah, I think I would struggle to see it that way, you know, it's easy money for Roblox, but it's less in your pocket, right? So, it I would see it that way, I think. And I get that, you know, Roblox is the platform, that that's what they provide, but at the same time, what is the Roblox platform without the creators making games for it? So, you know, that there are like two sides to that. And I know the other day like when I think it's the day this news broke, um, that you were saying in the call, Craig, it's kind of like, you know, like when you watch YouTube, like yeah, they take ad

revenue, but obviously, when you watch YouTube videos, they've always got, oh, you know, thanks for sponsoring this video and that sponsor is their sponsor, they've secured that deal and they get the income from that. Imagine if all of a sudden the private sponsorship deals you were getting on YouTube, YouTube were just like, oh, we're going to have some of that. It's like a very similar line there. So, yeah, really not surprised to see a lot of pushback on this. Whether that will change the outcome, I don't know. Probably not. But yeah, very very big changes are not being taken very well.
It's so It's such a stupid decision that it comes across as greedy and I think someone in the industry, I don't know if we can name them, was was describing it like a well, I hope it's not their like Unity runtime fee moment. Mhm. You know, it it's probably that well, I don't know if it's that bad, but it's very bad to like absolutely completely destroy trust in your platform. That's the point you're saying like what is it without the

creators? Right, we'll move on to the next stories. I did an interview with Savvy Games Group CEO Brian Ward. We spoke about a whole number of things. So, I'll go through some top line stuff. I asked how they deal with or I guess how they manage the companies that they acquire. Brian kind of said this like it operates like a federated operational model, which effectively means that they they generally let the companies they acquire operate kind of autonomously and independently. That said, they're on like Savvy is on a call with like Scopely like weekly, sometimes daily, apparently, about kind of mutual goals. But he wouldn't say necessarily what those are. Uh but Scopely basically has the power to do whatever it wants. And actually through from the acquisition, I think even in the contract, it said that Scopely can conduct its own transactions with its own cash and approval process. However, under certain limits. We don't know what those limits are. They didn't say what they were when we asked. The

recent uh Loom Games deal, so valued up to $1 billion, was entirely on their own. Brian did say they look at 800 or 900 deals a year, Scopely. So, from Savvy's point of view, he said we couldn't get involved in it and be useful in that process even if we wanted to. But, there are limits. So, maybe if it's like many multi-millions, and maybe they need Savvy's back in, and maybe Savvy gets involved. It's kind of interesting. And then there's like layers. So, they're like maybe some other I think ESL FACEIT Group slightly more involved in that, and they were a very involved more involved in the restructure and layers that they did last year, he said. And then you have like their internal like studios like uh Steel Studios, and they're a lot more a lot more hands-on there. That's what I thought that was interesting. Check out the article there. So, one of the other things, so Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund did own shares a bunch of companies like worth like $12 billion at the Take-Two was worth $3 billion, and that's before GTA 6 launches. Those

shares, as has always been the plan, is to move those into Savvy. Brian said theoretically, but maybe no plans to do this just yet, but theoretically, you could use some of those assets as liquidity for funding M&A deals. So, maybe if they need more cash that's not coming directly from PIF, even though technically this is, but it's not coming all all coming from Scopely or whomever, they could sell some of this and buy buy a company, which I thought was really interesting. He said it also represents like, you know, potential collaboration commercial opportunities. And then I asked about consoles, they're interested in that, but they're actually interested I think in basically something that matches their mobile live ops expertise. So, they're not looking at single-player games. They're not really looking at UGC. they're studying it, but there's no plans to make investments there. He said there's probably no acquisitions left for esports, but he's still very bullish. And we talked a bit about Eastern influence on the games industry now that the kind of power is shifting a

bit to the Middle East a lot to the Middle East. So, yeah, Brian says um but culturally it was interesting cuz he said "He's learned a lot more about say ancient Chinese battles and history through games over the last few years because of increasing kind of success of Chinese games or even just companies trying to tap into that market." He said the Koreans have done this very well. And he said there's an opportunity then for the Middle East uh to do the same outside of say Aladdin and and Alibaba and the 40 Thieves. But yeah, it was a really interesting interview. Um Aaron, what have you got? Mhm. Yeah, so I've got an interview as well uh to talk about. So I um spoke with Kuro Games about Wuthering Waves, some of its recent updates like the big version 3.0 which launched in December. Um and then we sort of discussed keeping players engaged and kind of keeping the momentum going after a a big update like that as well. So like into version 3.1 and

and beyond. Uh so 3.2 has just come out. Um I think it was like the 19th of March. Uh but we mainly talked about 3.0 and 3.1. Uh so cuz like a lot of gacha RPGs in particular, we sort of see they they'll introduce like a major version update, you know, the 3.0, 4.0, whatever it is, once a year, and then there's kind of iterative updates that expand on that. Usually they're kind of set in a new location so they you know, 3.1, 2, et cetera would explore more of that setting and the new characters and things. Um generally, we kind of see things trend that you get the big spending spike, you know, when the big version update comes out, and then it kind of gradually declines and then, you know, until the next year when there's another big spike again. Like quite a lot of games seem to do this these days. But Wuthering Waves has kind of subverted that rule. So like version 2.0 which launched in January 2025, that triggered a big spike at the time cuz

the game had declined quite a bit. This is based on AppMagic estimates, but it didn't just decline for like the month 2.0 came out. It actually carried on growing from January to June. And then similarly now with this 3.0 update in December, there was another spike, but the game has kind of carried on growing and February when 3.1 came out it was actually the game's second best month ever on mobile for revenue at over 46 million. And again, that's all AppMagic. I asked Kuro Games if they could share any official KPIs. Though they couldn't say anything specific, they did acknowledge that there was a new revenue peak brought by version 3.1. Um which was interesting to to sort of have them back up the what AppMagic shows as well. And they also said that Wuthering Waves when 3.0 launched, it hit top rankings on iOS revenue charts across multiple regions globally. And apparently smashed, and that was their

wording, the concurrent player record on Steam for the game. So like 3.0 and 3.1 have been quite a a big deal for Wuthering Waves. Some of the new features, one of the big ones is that um its setting is like the Hai Roy. I don't know how you're supposed to pronounce it, but it's kind of the new location. So like 3.0, I think it was more of like an academy setting. And then 3.1 introduced some more places to explore, like a frostlands area. And the other December update also added a motorcycle, so players can like traverse the world in kind of new ways with that. Um And um that's also opened up opportunities Kuro Games told me about kind of crossover potential. So like when when they introduced the motorbike, they also did crossovers with Sonic and Persona. And that meant basically having like sticker designs that you could put on the motorcycles. And also I think when you ride the motorbike, you can

hear music from the collaborations. So like they mentioned like a Persona song that you could hear in Wuthering Waves while on the motorbike. Um and they said that they're going to sort of continue exploring this um and doing more collaborations in the future. They've got one with Cyberpunk Edgerunners coming up apparently. So I thought that was a kind of noteworthy little addition they've done that's kind of opened the doors to more um more opportunities like that. But yeah, it was quite an informative interview I think. They went They went pretty in depth particularly yeah on the narrative stuff, which does sound like they view that as a kind of a big draw for the game, which is quite cool to see as a as a writer, you know, that um they're valuing the story as well as like the gameplay and stuff.
Thanks for that, Aaron. Page round us out. What have you got? Yeah, so uh quick one to round us out. Uh so a big acquisition story is that ByteDance is set to sell Moonton. Um so they're the

people behind like uh Mobile Legends: Bang Bang, and they're being sold to Savvy Games Group. The deal's set to be worth around $6 billion. I think like part of the interesting bigger picture with this is, you know, the whole ByteDance part of it as well. Um they bought Moonton back in 2021. That was for around $4 billion. That was around the time where they were seemingly very all in on games, and that was going to be something that they really wanted to pursue in a more serious way. And then, you know, over the last couple of years that strategy is like absolutely changed. I think it was like 2023 they started to scale things back. There was sort of like the restructuring of their games divisions and things. I think there was even talk then of selling Moonton even though they they hadn't actually had them that long in the grand scheme of things. Um they seem a lot more focused now on like AI, generative AI, that kind of stuff. Um so yeah, this sale actually happening is obviously just another big step towards that yeah, this is just a them trying to fully pull away from uh the games

market. But then you've got the other side of that, which is Savvy who's snapping up this deal and they're continuing to do essentially the opposite. Like they're very much so expanding their presence. You know, like you said Craig, obviously mentioned about the acquisition of Scopely and now having Moonton on top of that, you know, it's definitely going to strengthen that overall portfolio and that the reach that they have. So yeah, it's it's a big one. Interesting that one side of it is very much so a company being like we're not interested in games and then another one being like well, we very much so are. Uh it feels like a bit of a polar contrast there, but yeah, um acquisitions are always a weird one because it's like obviously there will be changes, but on the surface you don't always see them, at least not straight away. So what we actually see next, not too sure. Obviously I know like Craig, you've got some like other insights maybe to share, but yeah, I don't know. Uh what what do you guys think that we're going to actually see from this now? When I asked Brian Ward about the deal, he couldn't comment on it. But what he did I I then tried to ask the question in various different ways,

obviously. So then he I didn't he didn't comment on it, but he said Savvy strategy is to look for, find, and combine with his existing assets genre or category leading titles, especially where it doesn't already operate. And then he said, "Quotes, so in that sense, if you look at Moonton's business, yes, it would be correct." My I I did this in our weekly news. I when I was thinking about it cuz 6 billion is like it's a 50% extra for what ByteDance paid. Has Has Moonton and Mobile Legends grown by 50% by 50%? I think I don't think so. Yeah, it's more than what they paid for Scopely, right? As well. So that's interesting. Yeah, it's a billion more than Scopely. It's more than Um that Scopely paid for. So, it's really kind of crazy. I guess my couple thoughts were Brian Brian said that they're interested in China very much so and they're looking at acquisitions there. So, I

guess this this would fulfill that. Gives you an in in China to develop, publish, and it kind of fits in with the rest of the portfolio. Maybe they can help out there. And Saudi is also Saudi Arabia have invested heavily in esports of which Mobile Legends is in the esports world cup and is very much in the competitive gaming space. I was also surprised that ByteDance getting 6 billion out of a company that it doesn't want. Like it's not even a fire sale. You just you're just getting more uh for for what it for what it's for what it was. Like you talk about inflation etc. I guess. I don't know I don't know what that will do. I also don't think it'll bring it up 6 billion. But anyway, they obviously assuming that is the value which is all but confirmed, right? But I guess they obviously think it's worth it. Um maybe maybe they have something else cooking in the metaverse on or they just think Mobile Legends is big enough. Cool. All right. That that brings us to the end of of the week in mobile games. Thank you everyone for listening. We're back on track doing

these weekly now. Thank you very much Paige for being on the show. Yeah, good to be here and obviously Aaron happy week-long birthday celebrations ahead. So, have a nice time. Yes, thank you very much. Yeah, have a great birthday Aaron. Thanks for being on the show and have everyone have a great weekend. We'll see if any big news has broken that makes this this podcast irrelevant. But hopefully not. Hopefully you learned something. All right, have a good one. We'll see you all soon. Bye.