Week in Mobile Games E35 - Facebook Instant Games is back! | Games First 2024 takeaways

[Music] hello welcome to the pocketgamer.biz podcast week in mobile games where we discuss the big news of the week and provide some insights I'm Craig Chapel head of content at pocketgamer.biz and with me today is Paige cook Deputy editor welcome back Paige yeah it's good to be back I've missed a few I've been ill oh it's been going around definitely uh in the UK and I think I think basically everywhere in the world I think everyone I know even the streamers that I watch everybody's sick they're getting um but other than being ill what have you been up to not a whole lot because I've been ill there's been like a lot of games that have come out this month so I've been trying to chip away at those but yeah it's been a little bit rough we not feeling too well but I'm better now and

I've got some family visiting this weekend which is nice because I don't live like close to any of my family so my dad and one of my sisters is coming for a visit so I'm looking forward to that oh that's really lovely it's always nice to see the family especially when they're far away yeah my mom lives in Liverpool so uh to get to get a cheap trade it takes about four four and a half hours something there I just want to pay like 120 are literally crazy now we looked to cuz I'm all the way in like the north of England and my partner's family is all the way in the South and we were like oh we'll go for like one Christmas and it was something like 350 for one ticket we were like no we won't go yeah yeah it it people don't know in the UK just it's insane like it's cheaper like you could probably Fly For Less you probably like fly to I don't know Spain go from Spain to the closest airport and you probably

you you especially it's really terrible really it's like yeah just just fly instead of getting a train yeah it's mental yeah that's but that's how we deal with climate change so make make public transport more expensive unless it's a plane anyway well that sounds like sounds like you're going have lovely weekends glad you're feeling better I've uh I've also been a bit ill I've not been up to too much but I watched the film don't move on Netflix I heard of that yeah I think I've seen it yeah because it sounds familiar it was all right actually so the premise I don't think I'm spoiling it it's literally the name the premise is I won't give any of but like there's there's how can I explains without any spoilers there's there's a woman and then she gets kind of kidnapped uh and she gets injected with something and basically for the rest of the film she can't move she covers a surprising about a distance for someone that can't move

but I I actually quite enjoyed it it's it's just an hour and a half it's quite easy to watch um yeah was wasn't bad especially for Netflix film um but we we haven't had the chance to uh conect about uh Alien robus properly so I yes I met podcast we AG I've watched it myself on page we're big fans of alien I I thought it was really good uh but I mean I but you know I I I think I've just sort of come admittedly OB I'm not like raging on forums or you know messaging creators but I think I've just probably become a toxic fan of the franchise like that it will never be good enough for me I've realized whatever they do I'm pretty sure always going to be the case now if like the first or the second film is your favorite that's it now there's never going to be a better one it's those and so I think they did some stuff really well the face hugger stuff was was fantastic I think that just the story was it was really simple but pretty good they bring in some again

it's spoilers isn't it I don't know they bring in stuff from other films like story elements that's a bit like I wish he didn't bother it's like it's like the medoran in Star Wars it's like actually don't do that please it's just keep it a bit more mysterious you don't have to and then uh I I was saying the other week the thing that I really didn't like though well it was just the cuz every film with a franchise the longer a franchise gets the more nods they have to do to the classic and and there's just this stupid scene where one of the characters is like get away from her you Etc and and I I I just like just wink at the camera might as well like I feel like that scene is so weird cuz half the people I talk to this I'm part of this half like I just found it a little bit cringy and I was like oh no like you didn't need to go there and the other half were like oh that was so cool I was like was it I thought it was a bit like oh no I hated that b it just

totally pulls you out as well you're like all right yeah yeah because I know this sounds stupid but it makes you realize you're watching a film like it completely pulls you out of the ersion you're like oh right yeah wink totally agree what did you f of the film liked it I think it's the best like modern alien film that we've got so that's a big compliment because it's it's been a bit Rocky but yeah I don't think anything will ever be one or two for me but maybe that's just that's just is what it is but yeah I really liked it I thought it was good competing against modern Alien films isn't difficult and one of them is basically alien versus idiots um that's one of my friend's favorite films and I'm furious with him every time every time I hear about it or think about it prus really so bad I feel like it might have been an okay film if it wasn't part of the alien world but wasn't it the premise of that fil I'm sure in the script in the scripting phase so it started off not being an Alien

prequel which makes sense Mak sense and then and then it becomes an Alien prequel the uh I think it's okay to do spoilers now if anyone doesn't want to spoiler skip I don't know 20 seconds ahead but the uh there's the bit so the the twist in the film is that uh is it Mr whand himself is on the ship yeah why is that a Twist it's his ship he's allowed it's just like why why why not just say I'm on the like it's mine I'm paying for this ha it sorry again toxic toxic fan anyway right well we'll move on talking about alien I'll have to start a podcast on that uh so before we before we get to the news a few shout outs as usual so uh Pocket Gamer connects Jordan is just over a week away November 9th and 10th obviously still charts register if people want to go uh we'll be I'll be reporting on the ground from from uh a

man next week by the Dead Sea in fact um so very much look forward to that and then of course we' got Pocket Gamer connects London January 20 21st I think a show of the Year always always looking forward to that one um so yeah if you want to speak there please uh please fill out the speaker form uh if you want to attend yeah grab a ticket early birds are available currently um and you're going to go anyway probably right so you should get you should get your ticket uh one it's cheap that never that's never how anyone does things it's no I'll do it last minute right so enough of that then we'll we'll get straight to the news so uh there's quite a lot to cover this week um one of the one of the stories I wanted to cover because I did actually mention it last week but I was talking about everything is a games platform and i c talk about is the games I used to think it was going to be like a really big thing especially on chat apps didn't turn out to be the case in the west anyway and then suddenly there's a headline literally you could pull it and I checked you could pull this from

2018 uh Facebook instag games finally gets in at purchases and I wrote that exact headline or I think it was me one of the team in 2018 uh the difference is this time it is on iOS uh you see and and when I looked back at the original story it was like oh so in that purchases available on Android and then there was the issue with that where both Facebook and Google tried to take their own F at each which was obviously ridiculous and then and then so so now you kind of Flash Forward six half years later and it's Nate is you can do inapp purchases natively in iOS and they were exploring that six that it they six half years ago they said we're exploring like other platforms iOS it took that long to get it and then uh Alexander Krug who's the CEO at soft games is kind of calling it a game changer uh for instant games um which is

kind of a fair assess I think it's kind of a fair assessment you know that means he's saying that you can do different kinds of experiences now uh you could probably scale those games differently and better so you could do ad monetization before or you could only do it at purchases uh through like the browser but now you're actually kind of more of a Level Playing Field with other native apps so there's a lot more interesting things you could do even though user rqu is broken um but maybe it's a bit different with instant games I'm not sure what the revenue share is I'll figure that out for the next show um but yeah that whole story I found fascinating total blast with the past we'll see how it does I I I think it's really fascinating it kind of feeds into the whole and pays you kind of looking into this moment the the whole HTML 5 web gaming space that's kind of rising again and it makes you realize just how prohibitive apple and Google's App Store rules have been and actually

for the longest time they've probably been stifling to sell I'm in marketing or or an executive somewhere they've been stifling Innovation generally I guess across the internet because the main funnel I guess is is through mobile and they limited what you can do there so it's a real sign that the app stoles are opening up being forced to and and now what the opportunities are going to be um elsewhere supercell has invested in Barcelona Studio penguin Armada they are a PC first studio uh they're from previous omnid drone developers so that was a a company that was acquired by scopely in 2022 uh they're working on a top down PVP 3v3 fix game uh and their CEO Gerard Fernandez said they want to create highly accessible solid balanced and

intuitive full full cart mechanics that are both enjoyable and rewarding we're going to speak to the team a bit more about try and get a bit more of an idea about what they're doing they can say how much investment they've raised or at the moment is super sell is their main backer but that's an interesting one to watch slly more depressing news uh fingersoft which makes the hill climb racing games and they did Lego Hill Climb Adventures earlier this year they have off 14 staff uh and they blamed a substantial decline in ad Revenue they said that these reductions weren't tied to any specific project uh but were said spread across the company uh and because of that kind of substantial decline adjustments to its cost structure became essential to PR to preserve its competitiveness and secur the company's long-term success I feel like you're going to you're going to touch on some of this stuff we kind of I don't know I feel like we we had like a couple a few months where things kind of

felt like they're getting better obviously Mass layoffs last couple years uh and now as we get towards the end of the year I just feel like I'm hearing so much again about uh closures and layoffs there's definitely some like uh even in media at the moment there's uh there's a few going around so yeah it did seem like there was almost like a month where we didn't really talk about layoffs as much and now it seems like it's all picked back up again so yeah it's sort of that thing where you kind of feel like oh it's finally coming to an end and then there's more yeah exactly well hopefully hopefully it gets better you know before the holidays and no one no one gets laid off around then um but I guess we'll see so uh elsewhere 10cent has denied rumors of its own layoffs and restructuring but it has acknowledged that another key personnel changes have taking place at the company including the departure of Vice President Zen Yu a representative

told yakai that rumors about large scale changes are untrue and that no specific optimization plan for the teamy studio group team is in place in fact it's hoping to hire new Talent uh the statement was made in response to rumors that 20% of Timmy's Workforce were being laid off in addition to 30% of the light speed employees developing a power world like mobile game I don't think that means necessarily the power world team I think that's just to how we refer to uh to that um apparently uh 10 cent is already laid off already laid off 5,500 employees in 2022 I guess Timmy's already also currently work obviously they're the team behind honor of Kings they've done Call of Duty mobile and they are working on can't remember what it's called the new honor of Kings game the big open world tile I think it's going to release next year yeah and no one is well actually I

guess according to 10 said nothing happened I mean how do you hear that 20% of people have been laid off like as as a reporter you hear people have been laid off you get the number 20% and then you get told nothing's happened like Something's Happened yeah I I I find those things interesting and then they already admitting that oh yeah no you know they have bit some personel changes whatever um maybe they I don't know maybe maybe it's not true maybe they def um obvious news China has approved 128 new games but the most interesting for me was one of those included uh super squad Busters so obviously need a license to get uh game lodges in China now it's probably a bit easier for supercell with their owner being the afor mentioned 10 cent uh Curious how Squad Busters does in China it's still I think there was like a mini recovery for Squad Busters and it's it's kind of declined again so the superar really kind of struggling currently it's it's

still early earlyish days to to turn that around they I think they would have expected a much bigger launch especially for their expectations kind of as we discussed before really uh I'm not sure a China launch will help massively I I'm sure as if it released as soon as it releases you'll see like a massive Revenue Spike and then as always it will just go it will just plunge I think um I was looking at some uh random games for revenue and on that magic like even it still makes massive amounts of money that they're not I'm sure they're not that worried but like d f mobile biggest probably the biggest game launcher of the year in China is is declining quite quite a lot it's still making an incredible amount of money and this is only Absol R I think if we see oh it's had a massive launch in China doesn't necessarily mean it's a success nice to have all that money of course but uh long term lastly on my list uh Ric has soft launched its Barbie merge

mystery mobile game in the UK so they announced it earlier this year the and it's like uh I think it's like one of those it's like narrative driven it's like puz a decorate kind of thing that's the Avenue they're going down I don't I don't know I don't know what to think of it it's like okay yeah merge merge is Big at the moment um like when we covered the top 50 you kind of saw that uh Travel Town from magmatic games I want to say and I'm forgetting the name I think it's Seaside escape and another one from really testing my memory here merge fun something like that microne uh they're now like the kind of the dominant mer players in the merch space ahead of metacore Stills as well from merch Mansion so I guess Zinger Ric want to get in more on that area obviously Zinger generally has experience of games and merge dragons uh

but anyway I don't know I I I don't know the I don't really know the fit Bobby it's the art style that kind of gets me I'm obviously not the target audience but I I I I just don't really I don't know when I look at it I'm just like oh I I don't know if you've seen it Paige yeah I've seen it I also don't think I'm the target audience for that yeah I I I just don't I don't get it um so that is it for for my section of the news but Paige you've got a few big stories what you got yeah first up is uh a little bit about Animal Crossing pocket Camp I think we did talk about this on the podcast maybe a a few weeks back um just the fact that the free-to-play version was stopping and that it was going to go premium which is happening now so the free version will end at the end of November on the 28th and then it goes premium shortly after on December the 3 um and I know we kind

of discussed that like was it like kind of like a good idea like if your free game is coming to an end and inevitably sometimes these live games they do just sort of fizzle out is it a good idea to you know make it premium I guess it's another way that they get to have a second wave of income from it and I think I mentioned how like it might even be a you know not maybe a direct way of doing it but kind of like a way of preserving it at least players can still play that game and they don't lose all of the things that they've had for all of these years um but essentially they're not they're not just taking the free version and putting it straight as a premium game they're putting a few new things in it um I think it's essentially like taking one thing out which is their Leaf tokens which I guess was like a a live thing for the game and they're then putting something new in to replace that but they're putting some new features in I think there's a whole new location in it and how they would have like their

yearly events they're still sort of incorporating that into the game so it almost feels like the game isn't just stale like it's just one thing so it is interesting that they haven't essentially just took the free version took all of the live elements out of it made it premium and it's that and that's it so yeah I just thought that you know that's it's not really what I was expecting it's it's a good thing but yeah I was kind of expecting them to just put it over there maybe it's a bit of a bit of extra cash I guess but I guess for some people it's still a shame that the live version won't continue but I do think this is kind of as good as it could get for an alternative yeah I think this is pretty interesting idea I mean they're not they're not going to make much money at all from doing this but um it's good for the fans uh you know and it keeps uh like pres game preservation right keeps keeps stuff going and uh I don't know if you

just said the uh the one thing that I think is going to be missing is you can't visit someone else's Camp yeah I don't think you can do sort of that live aspect of visiting other people which I guess is a shame but I don't know is there many other games that have been free and then they stopped their free version of went premium I can't really think of one off the top of my head like it's a strange concept that I don't really think I've come across before yeah maybe I can't think of one usually hear like a premium on maybe different platforms but like a premium game going free to play yeah like a pubg or something but not the other way around but yeah Kudos Nintendo interesting idea yeah it be intrigued to see how much it does sell but like I said I'm not expecting anything massive it's more just of a it's a it's an interesting way of flipping your live game I guess um but Second Story from me is uh it's a big one so Sony has closed its mobile Studio neon koi uh they were working on an action mobile

game but obviously that's now cancelled in addition to this closure they also shook firewor which is the studio behind Concord which I'm sure most people in games know about Concord the PVP shooter that just it was kind of a a massive failure for them really um but as for neon Koy they used to go buy Savage game studios but they were required back in 2022 they underwent this sort of Rebrand but it's it's kind of not being great for them this whole time they lost their CEO they lost their general manager so it's not been a great run and ultimately it's it's now led to the the studio closing apparently the decision comes down to an evaluation of the potential of this uh mobile game that they were working on and whether it would meet the expectations and kind of you know the the standard of what they're looking for for you know a Sony and you know

PlayStation type game um and I I guess it it wasn't what they wanted it to be um in the statement they said obviously you know the the usual we you know appreciate all the hard work but the you know they they want games to be in line with PlayStation Studios pedigree which I don't know I kind of feel like that's a feels like a little bit of a blow blow but it is what it is um and despite this closure they're still saying that mobile is a priority for their growth which not really sure I'm seeing that anywhere but obviously they've got their uh Destiny game that's going to be mobile so see how that does but outside of that not a whole lot going on and I know we had uh a story today as well that the CWA they had kind of criticize these closures and they sort of went along the lines of saying about how you know they're trying to you know build their Monopoly and we

mentioned in our morning call that's a it's a weird way to build a monopoly to uh close Studios and shut down games I'm not quite sure I understand that angle on it but yeah bit of a bit of a weird one yeah maybe I have just totally misunderstood what the CWA is talking about I don't really get it don't really find the point in it like I I guess you know the statement is you know with the whole you know trying to keep it in line with PlayStation's pedigree you know and obviously talking about how strong their exclusives are so you know maybe they just felt like this doesn't match with our portfolio it's m to a standard that you know it's maybe not great but I get it but yeah the whole Monopoly thing I'm not that's the comment from um that side of things so yeah I just I don't really see that I get the point that you're making though the uh I don't know why it also reminds me that once I was told once I was told told that uh you know EA

kind of bought one of the reasons that EA bought respawn at the time I think they were working closely together anyway uh but they were kind of pushed into it because Nexon wanted to buy them um so I don't you know again it's kind of like or will we better get it before someone else does and then you close if we don't do anything with it we we've got that and nobody else can do anything with it well you just don't want your Rivals to have it I guess especially if you're working with them interesting the but one touch but that the thing you kind of as you kind of said the when they're like oh mobile mobile remains a high remains a priority growth area for the company H and they're in the very early stage of our mobile efforts i' been doing they've been looking at mobile for a long time like in different ways like Sony I mean within Sony Music they have a very success like hugely successful game and fake ground order kind of so music anaplex stuff but you know as far as the actual playst business goes just totally not really

got anywhere with it U remember they released like an Uncharted game years ago they used to have uh I forgot about that yeah they used to have Sony forward Works uh Playstation Mobile they kind of released some quirky games I don't think that exists anymore the neon Coy The Savage game studios was acquisition was I don't know it's just I think they had like the talent but which was proven but then as a studio they hadn't actually released anything yet so why did they kind of purchase that I guess they saw some potential in a game that they're working on in the team and now you know the destiny mobile game the thing is is that surely that mobile game has been in development since before Sony's acquisition because net the tire with nettis that invested 100 million into bung years ago most likely to make a mobile version of that P um what else maybe they are secretly I

don't know but what else are they really working on that's going to come to mobile I have my I have my significant doubts that Sony really cares at all about Mobile gaming unless it's a partnership to get a game released in China it's kind of a weird comment to me because if they don't want to do mobile or they're really not that interested in it that's fine like obviously you're focused on conso so it's a it's an odd comment to make if actually there's not that much interest in that area yeah I endlessly fascinates me these massive companies wherever it's platform holder or a big publisher that just kind of seemed pressured into oh we better have a mobile division because it's the fast gr sector or it was you know Etc and they and then they finally do it like EA bought glue for2 billion do even though they don't care really about mobile uh obviously F done well but it's just

like why why did you do that like in the end it make why did you do that you just press it into it like did you have a fullon strategy for this and then glue mobile just doesn't really seem to please someone correct me it just doesn't seem to actually exist anymore they've C they've closed a bunch of games I think some of their hit games are now you know nowhere near as big as they used to be at glue obviously you've got the foundations for a mobile business there maybe that has helped elsewhere but yeah sometimes yeah like to your point it's just you don't need to if you don't really care about it just don't bother just focus on what you get it yeah so one final one for me a bit of a a quicker one just the monument valy 2 is now out on Netflix and I love these games so I felt like I just I just wanted to talk about Monument Valley really um so yeah the first and second game are on uh Netflix now so obviously

if you've got your subscription you can play it for free and then this is essentially to set up the December the 10th is the release of Monument Valley 3 which will be exclusive to Netflix um I I just think it's interesting that obviously these games before they were like premium titles then they were tied to Apple arcade and it's interesting to see the shift into they're now just you know they fully with Netflix but but it it does make sense they obviously had their partnership with uh Netflix and us two did Desta the memories between so kind of makes sense they had that partnership now they're doing this um yeah I just I just really like these games and I think it's I think it's kind of a fitting home for them and it's nice to see these games have a place that does work for them um I would be really interested because obviously it is it is like quite a popular like few games I would be intrigued if anyone would

actually buy like someone who doesn't have a Netflix subscription would they buy one even if it's just for the month just to play the new Monument Valley I mean they might they would because you could you could get it for a month play the game and then cancel it I think the issue is just with one and two I guess the issue is like the issue if you're a subscriber it's great it's probably a reason to a small part of a reason to keep your subscription going even though I think we kind of touch on it last week with subscriptions in general you you kind of keep those subscriptions rolling anyway don't like you don't really think about it too much until one day you're like I haven't actually watched anything for a few months like it takes a long time to like actually actively cancel a subscription but like I think Monument Valley free coming up that could be like people that want that could yeah spend a bit of money just even if it was just a mon just to get that play it because ultimately I don't I know the markets moved on generally from premium although

we've had some discussions about that on this as well uh recently money Valley is such a a big IP and a beloved one and the previous games have sold well that yeah I think people it would actually T people to finally a game that would T people to buy Netflix so we're going to move on to the weeken view section and you've got uh everyone's pay well one of the everyone's favorite legal tussles at the moment yeah what you got we we we we have spoke about this on the podcast before but now we've got actual legal people talking about it so I feel like I can revisit it and just put the legal stuff on them rather than us constantly being like I'm not a lawyer um but yeah basically it's the um you know Nintendo and the Pokémon company they're filing a lawsuit against creators of power world pocket pair um so we discussed it before

that obviously you would think that if they were going to file a lawsuit it would be on a copyright infringement because obviously you look at the two games and it it is kind of glaringly obvious that yes these games look very similar the powers and the Pokemon they look similar but it's actually really hard legally to win something like that because you know like in art things can look similar and they can be inspired by but unless it's an absolute carbon copy of something technically you could just say that oh well you know it's inspired by and it's incidental and that's something the futur in this uh feature that we had on the side this week that's what they kind of point out so they were like you know it's obviously intentional that they've decided to not go down that route but instead they're going with filing against uh one of the patents that they've got and we touched on this because they still haven't said which one it is that they're filing for um but futur like they did a little bit of

digging on some of the ones that they do own and I just this just kind of blows my mind because I know like there's I think Craig you mentioned last time and we spoke about it like a few other video games that have filed these before like the um shadow of war the Lord of the Rings games like their Nemesis system they filed that and now nobody's ever used it so that kind of feels like a total waste but some of these ones for Pokémon it's just like I'll read one of them so so obviously this might not be what they're what they're doing but one of them is someone can transition between ground and air movement the patent explains if the automatic switching of a character from the air to the ground or vice versa like I could probably think of a hundred games that surely like obviously there might be more if you to read the full thing maybe it's more in depth but just a few of them you read it and you're kind of like well couldn't you apply this to lots of other games I know

originally there was speculation that maybe they had a patent for the the fact of like having a device or a Pokeball that you throw at something and it captures obviously a Pokémon maybe that's the maybe that's what it was but I think I mentioned that you know other games do that Arc survival has something that you throw the ball at a dinosaur the dinosaur goes in the ball you throw the ball the dinosaur pops out so I think I just find it a really weird one and as much as obviously Nintendo a huge Pokémon company huge and I'm sure they've got an army of great lawyers but I feel like even going this route it still must be a really hard win and in the future from Futura who are do actually have legal expertise on like us they've even said that like this is going to be a tough one for them to win because essentially you would have to prove that the mechanic that they're using is exact the same like there can't be one missing feature from it because

if there is they can essentially say Well it Well it's different even though it's super close to it um so yeah I just I kind of wonder if there's going to come a point where they're like do we just give up because also since power worlds came out I'm now seeing more games that are saying oh we're a power world like game so it's kind of like where does it ends so if they sue power world do you then sue all of these games that are kind of copying power worlds it sort of just seems like one of those ones that could spiral into something bad and if they were to win then I don't know there's probably about a thousand other games out there you you should be filing lawsuits against because yeah I don't know some of these things they just sound like well aren't they in a bunch of other games yeah I think the thing I do know is that if you want to keep well at least copyright like if you want to keep these things you have you have to in every single infringement you have to that you

know about you you have to basically start legal action or warn warn people not to do it otherwise uh because you can't pick and choose like what your patent sorry you can't pick and choose who's who's infringing your patent it has to be like kind of cart launch everyone so that's interesting they are they picking and choosing or not but the uh but I think it's just been reported people saying that you know Nintendo when it's fared this kind of lawsuit uh they've never lost so I mean they they must they've got something right they must have like pretty I who knows in the end but it you know yeah I suppose that's the part that we can only speculate because they still haven't said which thing it is that they're filing and even pocket pair said we don't know like we don't know what they've said said that we have used so I suppose it will come down to that and if

it's something very specific that they have used maybe they could win but if it's any of sort of the ones that we have been able to see that they have I just feel like not that they couldn't win but if they do it just seems like there's definitely other games that also use these exact same mechanics so for me it's just interesting of like where does it stop because you've got games coming out that are now more power world so if you're suing them not that not that you want them suing everyone but like you said you're technically not allowed to just pick and choose like oh they're quite they've actually been quite successful so we'll we'll do a lawsuit against those guys but not bother with anybody else yeah I I can't wait really until all the stuff actually starts coming out about it I think it will be an interesting one all right thanks for that page um so for my week of views uh I just wanted to go through a few takeaways from super cells game game's first Helsinki

event um now I haven't watched it for a couple years so I I've been there I think a couple times of years ago they've held it at different venues I think well definitely when I went it was different venue I don't know the way they did the show this year was just seemed a bit insane but I I kind of love it in the sense that it's very like like I've not been to slash but I've been told just how bombastic it is and you can see the stage like how it's just very dramatic and and you yeah like the stage looks incredible the lightings just kind of Bonkers and then they had you know you got The Two Hosts coming out treating it like a proper like TV show or something like almost like an awards show just without the awards it was just yeah it was interesting like style wise how they did it it definitely I guess it does add a bit or I don't know I hate to use the word bit

more pizaz to to proceedings rather than I'll he's just I'll here's the next speaker you know uh yeah that's cool uh there's a few talk like I think they had a few great speakers said trip Hawkins uh former EA CEO and the founder there ASU games game director and director of Monument Valley 3 Jennifer EST starus uh and there's some really good talks I just wanted to go through some of the takeaways so I'll L at article in the description for these uh trip Hawkins had some good points to make mostly on broken business models which I found fascinating and he he kind some of the things talks about kind of things you already know and one of the things was the fact that 98% of players don't spend any money mobile games he said that's actually kind of a rejection I guess of mobile and he said one of the reasons for that is that the platforms of these wood Gardens are taking a 30% Revenue share and with we discuss but I guess like this is

something you know but when someone just tells you the number be like oh yeah okay and it kind of goes back to what I saying earlier about how Rules by Apple and Google make things so much more difficult to kind of innovate or do anything new or really do any just really impactful on developers and then users so he said if I want to get one EUR from the customer I have to charge the customer $143 you then take 30% of that it's 43% that's 43 cents so that's what Apple Android or or Sony if you're looking at other platforms would get then I get the dollar I was looking for said but you as a consumer had to pay 43% more money and then he's like if you think the most recent years of inflation are bad how about 43% so that is a serious serious problem hard to disagree uh with that he he said some other uh interesting things he kind of talked about his uh you know how most of the game again things we already know most of the games top grossing games cross platforms are just games that

probably haven't been released within the last year uh you could push back on that a little bit where on mobile there's actually been some surprise successes we talked about some of the merge games earlier um that are doing pretty well not a massive scale last year youve had doigh mobile I appreciate that it's a massive IP of course going to do well uh and then you've had like last war white art survival uh you've got all these games are actually doing pretty well and kind of breaking in and every now and again you get a new big one but you can yeah within the top 100 many of those have been out for many many years but one of his uh interesting points which I can't remember if I said earlier but he he goes on to kind of future forecasts and he talks about um well one of the things talks about is like government pressure on on those on those 30% taxes uh they said browser gaming offers a great opportunity for developers he goes on to say I believe browser

crossplay with HTML 5 and webg I think that's one of the next waves new Hills to go after it's not really crowded right now you can't really think of a leading company that's doing that period I'm sure someone could but i' to his point uh it's definitely a big space that developers can go to so that was a really fascinating talk all of this is actually on super celles YouTube channel you can you can see the whole live stream that still on there so if you're interested in in seeing kind of the whole talk definitely check that out I'll quickly run through just some of the other interesting talks that they did so I mentioned Jennifer star she took the stage to kind of talk about the illusion of iteration but I I I just really love kind of she goes through like for example Monument Valley to the lost forest which was part of the playing for the planet green game jam and they go through kind of the different iterations of the art styles that they were trying to go for and it's just

really fascinating to see how you end up I'm sorry how you start with all these various things and then slowly surely you kind of get to where you want to where you think you want to be um so she one of her quotes was think about iteration as a tool for transformative change not just tiny refinements and maybe not as risky as wildly you can still do those but think about also including C change jam it to your course which means um game Jam just kind of prototyping stuff and play test play test to confirm she said she added later added sometimes you end up back up go back to the drawing board that's okay embrace the uncertainty of iteration but also see through as many Illusions persist and resist yeah a really great talk there was a talk uh I am not an artistic person really at all so but I I do appreciate how people because I I just don't have a

terms of like drawing I I I just don't have a single bone in my body that's good at this so when I see other people talking about it and they're really good at it I'm like that's that's amazing like how do you do this and and so there was obiously that talk and then super game artist Fernanda Olivera she works on braw Stars it's gave an excellent talk about the creative pillars of how they create all the characters which I thought I just thought was really fascinating is basically the main takeaway to distill it was basically think about the character first you know what are who are they like what's their story and then from that you can kind of build out what they look like and then you you get a bit you get a lot more personality that comes out I I just thought that was yeah generally a a fascinating talk that but you want to know the Five Pillars I won't go for them all now but read the article but they were basically if they make sense out of context humor creates connection so using humor which which was really interesting one of the ways they use

humor I think the character's called shade is basically had like ghost mechanics but there's no magic in brw Stars so how do you make a ghost in that context so she thought of so F rer she thought like oh what about like the clothes you have dumped in the corner of your bedroom and at night you see it for a moment you're like oh that's quite scary oh that's just the clothes uh and then they kind of came up with what if there's like a character like eyes and so now this character just has like a jacket a cat glasses that was kind of the inspiration so humor and then they can kind of get a lot more from that that's interesting uh Nostalgia everything does nostalgia these days uh diversity she just has really interesting thoughts on how you actually do that meaningfully um iconic simplicity so I think basically that means in instead of having a character with like a 100 items on their clothing to explain every single thing about their history that

you might see in a Zack Schneider film uh she didn't say Zack Schneider that's just me it's like well less is more and and so I think the less you have it maybe you get more out of the character that was really interesting and then Timeless tribute was the last one um and and just a quick quote she said creating with Legacy in mind is precisely that when we're creating we're almost leaving this Bible for the Next Generation that will for INSP them in everything they will create which I was a nice qu and then lastly very quickly so there was the there's a couple panels about emerging markets and Latin America Africa and India basically just kind kind of going into the opportunities uh Studio Bando CEO and carea director Juan castanada said it was a very exciting time for Latin America's games industry Mario games founder Hugo Obi he said there's a lot of opportunity in Africa like a lot of the population oh and and lart

co-founder Toya said same thing like there's a young population and and there's like a lot of opportunities to kind of tap into that in the coming years U so definitely check out those as well uh but yeah it was a really interesting event and they do it every year uh hopefully it comes back to London as well uh but yeah that was it was it was a good show I enjoyed that so that brings us to the end of the pocketgamer.biz podcast week in mobile games uh thanks very much Paige for for joining this one yeah it's good to be back and uh thank you everyone for listening we'll catch you next week see you then bye