Week in Mobile Games E39 - Mobile's hot new releases and the loot box investigation unpacked

[Music] hello and welcome to the pocketgamer.biz podcast week in mobile games where we discuss the week's news and provide some insights I'm Craig Chapel head of content at pocketgamer.biz with me today are Aaron assel our news editor paig cook our Deputy editor and you can't see him but my cat Gizmo is may make a starring appearance whether he actually shows up or you just hear me react because he scratched my leg could go either way but yeah so PA Pon what what have you been up to I missed the podcast last week for my birthday but I did look at last week's podcast because somebody wished me happy birthday and I was thinking how did they know it was my birthday so I looked at the podcast and just you two are like Paige you have to still listen to the podcast even though you're not here so I did I'm glad that made it in that's the proof that's the proof P pae listens to the podcast as well and someone else

listen to the podcast yeah I was thinking like how did you know it was my birthday and they were like oh it was mentioned on the podcast I was like oh well that's nice so yeah I just had a really lazy birthday this year because I'm so busy through December so I just wanted some time to catch up on some games and get organized for Christmas like I am very prepared this year for a change but how prepared what does that mean you've got all the Christmas lights up the Christmas trees up put up a w the lights have been up for like a week and now there's a tree full of presents like I think I've done all of my Christmas shopping minus one of my sisters because every time I ask what she wants she doesn't know so that's on her if she doesn't get anything it's her fault my sister's the same she always has to go at me for like oh you never say what you want and like what do you want I don't know don't get me anything thank you Christmas shopping is so difficult all I I I'm the complete opposite of you I don't have the tree up I have nothing I haven't bought a single present it's going to be it's going to be a tough tough Christmas I'm so in the middle I

think we've not done any decorations at all yet but I'm fairly organized on the present buying front we've got like two or three things left to sort out but I haven't even thought about rapping yet that's a Christmas Eve problem Christmas Eve oh my God that would cause me some stress no I do start before then but I'm such I'm so slow with the rapping anyone who sees me rap presents um it's it's reaction worthy thanks p have you been up to of then sort of a mix of not putting up Christmas decorations but by presents yeah well so I say a lot of um Christmas shopping has been done over the past week um obviously Black Friday period helped a little bit with that yeah just really getting in the the festive spirit with no decorations I suppose they will be going up but um yeah yeah I could tell by the backgroundd yeah real real festive yeah you know there there's probably there's some red you know that's a bit

Christmasy anyway yeah that's sort of it for me just a lot of preparation going on week as for myself yeah as I said don't know Christmas preparations I guess I'm wearing Reds technically that's Christmasy uh um but this week's just it's actually been quite busy for events everyone's finding their Christmas parties in the UK games industry so went to an event by Wigan on Tuesday which which was very good lots of interesting people there and talks about um m&a kind of Investments where the industry is going and a bit on like privacy and kind of child safety in the industry which was fascinating as well and then tonight we've got the Yuki drinks so Yuki for those that don't know is the UK games trade body along with tiger and yeah they're hosting their annual networking event tonight so I'll be heading there straight after the show I'm very much looking forward to that it's always fun and then the Pocket Gamer rewards is tomorrow so we've got

as well crazy is the same venue as wigin so I know where to go at least so yeah lots of lots lots going on this week and actually this is Aon mention for the show this is penultimate week in mobile games uh for this year uh so we started it this year and I think it's gone really well we've been growing the listenership and now the viewership I guess as we started recording actual video uh so it's been really fun and glad to hear that people are watching it wishing Paige happy birthday heard on the show so that's that's really cool uh so thank you everyone for for tuning in I hope you find it interesting at least fun and hopefully some insights so thanks everyone for that um a few shout outs before we get started obviously in January we've got the Pocket Gamer connects London January 21st sorry January 20th to 21st um other things we're doing at the moment we've started a top 30 UK game makers list uh that's actually open for cross platforms at any any company

that's kind of based in the UK or or you know has a studio that's developing in the UK maybe they're based actually elsewhere um I'll put a link for that in the description so nomination is open we're going to start putting that list together we'll unveil it at PGC right let's get to the news so uh I don't I not much from me I'm going to p p AR I'm going do the heavy lifting I think but uh a couple I thought worth noting some of the big launches this week it's actually a big bit a big month or so I guess for launches we've obviously had Pokemon Trader car gay pocket which we'll go into and we've spoke about plenty as well I think along with the rest of the industry really interesting game and Royal Kingdom was out not that long ago I think that's still doing pretty well it's growing so want to watch and then this week we've got Infinity Nikki from infold games and I was just discussing is it paper games or rol games they changed their name as Aaron was saying to to infold so it's

like a weird combination of open world RPG kind of like a genin impact with a more cozy game feel and dress up gameplay that the series is known for um we're actually going to do we're GNA try a new podcast idea because we we can't get enough of of Hosting new podcast shows we have the interview week of mobile games and now we want to start yet to be named it's like a book club a game club style but game club's already been taken by by another company but a game club style thing where we're going to pick a game or pick a topic in this case on December 17th we're going to record an episode about all about Infinity Nikki it's going to be myself and Oscar Clark and we're going to look into the game design the monetization the OD boarding just general opinions of the game maybe what it's innovating on and but the the other interesting thing that we want to try is to just get other people's opinions so please reach out to us you can email me directly Craig Chapel at still median

network.com uh you could also uh Reach Out us on Linkin or or wherever and if you want to give us your own if you play play the game for a bit you got a couple weeks if you want to give us uh some opinions of a bit of analysis uh we can read that out on the show alternatively if you want to record a video clip or an audio clip of yourself uh we can we'll also play that on the show as well so we just want to get lots of varying different opinions and hopefully be really good Deep dive into a hot new game and if it all goes well we'll keep doing it gizbo is interested for those that can't see for for the nonvisual listeners he's yeah he's he wants a fuss so anyway that anyway after all that so Infinity Nikki's out so that's Dan in particular on pocket gam.com F that's going to be a really big game it actually reminds me a bit of the way it's come about a little bit I know it's obviously different but when mihoyo did when mihoyo did gen impact they'd

actually had a few kind of hits before that but kind of well flew under the radar a bit more I'd say than in Fall games in fact but they did honai impact third and some other games so they kind of geared up for genin and then that became a huge success really difficult to repeat and it feels a bit like that with infold they built up this IP it is quite well known but I not like I guess Global phenomenon like gen and I actually forgot so I remember love Nikki I actually just completely forgot they did shining Nikki which pointed out as well ear yeah and and it's they've all made like a couple hundred million or a few hundred million so I think with this they've invested a lot I could see it doing really well 're quite excited about that and then also just to add on to that is the other big launch this week which I actually for me feels like it's flowing under the radar I don't people are talking about it but 10 centers released Delta Force the thing that I find interesting well other than that game's kind of got extraction gameplay in it which which has also been

like a it wants to be an industry Trend but it never really gets anywhere um obviously what's most the game escape from tal but I'm talking like I guess pubg levels of success but the interesting thing about this is these both launching the same day are two big launches from Asia and they're both crossplatform which I find fascinating so yeah not just mobile but PC and console so a really interesting month for launches or week for launches and maybe these could be the big hits of next year we're talking last week about uh there's new top grossing games and maybe these will be the next ones as well feels like the industry is changing a bit I rambled on for a while there but P what do you think uh I guess of all the new games coming out but Infinity Nikki Delta Force well firstly the download size is pretty big isn't it on mobile for Infinity Nikki I downloaded it earlier and I think it's taking up like 133 gigabytes on my phone which doesn't sound like a lot but it kind of is but yeah obviously it only came out

today so I haven't had a chance to try it but yeah like it looks really interesting I like that is crossplatform and I'm assuming there's some form of cross progression because when I like logged in it let me log in as my PlayStation account so I'm going to sort of give it a try between mobile and PlayStation and see how seamless that is cu that would be a really good selling point for me because I would like to play it on mobile when I've got like a little bit of time spare here and there but if I got really invested I would rather like sit and play it on the big TV and stuff so so yeah I'm intrigued to see how it works between those platforms yeah I think they did confirm there's like cross save so you can just pick up on whichever platform you want to which I say is a nice yeah benefit versatility depending on how and where you want to play I'm looking forward to playing it just just to see how they actually match the more classic like Nikki franchise gameplay like the dressup stuff with this open world it kind of seems mad I loved that it's the what's the mechanic called so you can change I think Aaron

you're right about this but you can change basically your costume on the on the go and it's called whim which made me laugh cuz I guess just change it on a whb I feel like it might be one of those games that people just download just because they're interested like I had a quick look on social media earlier and I saw a bunch of people that just like I follow that are kind of your more traditional console Gamers and they were like what's this Infinity Nikki thing I'm going to try it it looks like a cool cozy game so I don't know if it's one of those ones that is going to sort of Branch out into an audience that wouldn't usually maybe play those games also around like the festive period a lot of people like to play a cozy game it does feel like cozy games have just for me obviously because of Animal Crossing particularly during Co I think they probably started that became more of a term as a total guess it feels like I've really only been hearing it a lot this past year uh as an actual General Trends not to say that there are haven't been other cozy games but now it seems like a real concerted effort to make this style of more relaxing game which I

find really interesting it's not all about uh I don't know shooters or or match for or I don't know whatever it's like well people want cozy games now that definitely is like the specific word that so many games are using now yeah yeah it's like they're part of the brand now for for those sorts of games so I guess it's going to be cozy versus action shooter we'll see which one comes out on top so elsewhere in the news kind of semi- related to that Lilith games another developer in Asia they they make AFK Journey AFK Arena R kingdoms Etc there was there was reports that they laid off so reports in China that they laid a 40 staff and cell project party which again was like a basically like a cozy game it was going to be for both PC and mobile it's like a life Sim and they had a team of 100 reduced to 60 the producer has left apparently it's

not cancelled we reached out for comment but haven't received a reply although we do have an interview with there but about other stuff unfortunately so we we don't have any answers currently on the situation with that game I guess see seemed like that was going to be their new big game the the funny thing when I first watched the trailer it was like Whiplash because it starts off of like oh this actually looks really nice it's like a sort of a little Sims game it's going to focus on ugc so it's I guess it's their version of like it's not the same but like any party doing the whole ugc platform and it's oh this looks lovely yeah I could see yeah it looks and then suddenly like towards the end of the trailer it just like they these lovely little characters they just start like picking guns off the wall there's like an Armory suddenly in the house and then there's all these zombies and then that's kind of it always ends like that and then it ends with oh they were playing a zombie game I think anyway it was it was really the trailer

was odd but it did look fun but it sounds like they've had problems actually making that game work so we'll see I guess if if I guess they're going to redesign it by the sounds of it don't know if it will ever see the light of day fascinating because the interview that we actually had earlier this year they did very much say that we interviewed Lilith games head of strategy and investment Vincent and he said that it once they green light a game they do everything they can to launch it I'm sure every single Studio that green lights a game does everything they can to to make it work and launch it but I think what he was really getting at is like they're not just going to cancel it because it's had a bad soft launch or test they're going to okay take it back to the drawer board make changes and really try and make it work not just give up on it um so I would assume that's going to happen here but again whether it works I don't know um and then last couple quick quick stories from me just

some m&a that's been going on so play G has landed $3 million to simplify HDML 5 game distribution HDML 5 is one of the big trends of the last few months certainly if not the year instant games coming back telegram it's all kicking off in that in that sector and we'll probably see a lot more of that next year and then nazaro has just been in the news like every week uh and twice this week was uh there's that Pacific Rim we're going to get a double event nazara subsidiary nodwin gaming acquired Trinity gaming for $2.8 million and laara also invested in funky monkeys and learn tube and they also increased their stakes in to get full ownership of sports ska and and data works so yeah they're very busy so that's enough from me uh we're going to move on to Paige what have you got um starting with some m&a stuff I felt like the last few

podcasts maybe even for the last month or so we've had quite a lot of like acquisition stories so we got some more here uh tensent has acquired a majority Stak in curo games so they bought a 37% share from hero entertainment which takes up their value to uh 51% so they essentially now own more than what KIRO games does in themselves they they've kind of said that they released a statement and said that you know they will still remain largely independent but yeah just tensent you know they've got their eggs in a lot of baskets but again I think it's quite normal for them to you know invest but let you know the studios remain a sense of Independence you know we've seen it with like supercell but yeah just another one to grow the the list and I don't really think like this is going to stop anytime soon I can expect that in like 2025 I would say that there's going to be more m& activity um kind of coming on to my

my next story in a minute that will link with this but yeah just for ton in general yeah I'm not sure what you guys think of this one uh with them having the majority stake or you know if you expect them to have a bunch more next year because yeah they just seem to be very very busy I think it's a really good deal like I'm a I'm a fan or curo games W waving waves I think is is an excellent game especially when they they did the one of one of the beta phases one of the test phases didn't seem to go very well and they kind of went back to the drawing board and parts the game Bally The Narrative and the combat I believe and the combat actually I I really enjoy when I've played it and they also did previous game punishing Gray Raven so that they've actually had repeated kind of successes and they're probably in that well they probably they are in that open world RPG space and so maybe I don't know in future there could be an either bigger game or just bigger inv investment into waving waves uh to

kind of go for that genine impact maybe it helps with that I don't know level of game that I'm sure 10 cent really wants obviously they've got the honor of Kings game coming out next year which kind of feeds into that but yeah really interesting deal and I think it's a really good one that's why we R them so highly in the top 50 just saying but no congrats to them and then sort of linking on from that story quite nicely we had a feature on the site earlier this week from zad and the the whole feature on sort of Trends and m&a strategies that we've seen throughout the year it was written by zad's m&a manager Yana V Nina um and yeah it's a it's a really good piece I won't go into the whole thing because it's it's quite a long one but it was just interesting how she explore just some of the types of m&a strategies that they've noticed throughout the year so it sort of ranges from Acquisitions that have you know the purpose of quite a quick payback you know obviously Acquisitions that try and look at diversifying a portfol so companies that maybe are really known

for one genre acquiring something that's a completely different genre sort of Branch out a little bit but it was also interesting that she highlighted some things that maybe you know years ago maybe just even a few years ago how you know things like day one to 30 retention would be something they would really look at if they're doing Acquisitions whereas now that's perhaps not a metric they're seeing being looked at as much it's more maybe you like daily active users and apparently there's a much bigger emphasis on kind of faster returns obviously if you make an investment in something you want a return but you know as with all things sometimes it is kind of a long game but there's maybe a little bit less of that so you know I suppose that kind of makes sense with how the games industry has been for the past few years maybe even though m&a is on the rise there might still be a bit of hesitancy of you know these sort of L haul commitments they want something that you know I think she said in the feature between sort of like 2 to 3 years for maximum that they would

want to see like Returns on an investment which sounds like a long time but it's it's really not but yeah it's a really interesting feature she covers a whole bunch of things even like how AI is impacting the market so say if you're making relatively simple games say like I don't know a chess game a soduku game those titles might be valued at less because there's this I don't know air that maybe AI will be making these things in the future maybe the investment in that isn't looking as lucrative so yeah do do go and read that for some much deeper Insight than just what I've shared now it was a it was a great article and actually as well we we interviewed Drake star parts's Michael Meo on the pocket gave it up his podcast for for the interview Series this week talking about m&a and many of the things that you just said one of them was like looking at profitability and sort of the different things that investors are looking at into 2025 um but yeah but otherwise as you said before as well like there's just seems to be so much m& going on again at

the moment it's really really fascinating time yeah it's it's strange especially with the contrast between obviously all of the unfortunate layoffs but then seeing so much m&a activity in the last few months so yeah it's a it's a strange sort of contrast that we're seeing but final bit from me and it's still about sort of buying and selling so my games has sold the publisher and developer Mambo back to its founding team so it kind of marks a bit of a move away from the hybrid casual genre for my games they did sort of state that they want to direct their focus back onto what their core is which is you know publishing midcore titles you know this acquisition I think was originally made maybe like three or so years ago when hybrid casual was you know having like obviously quite a big boom so you know kind of made sense at the time but if they're looking at a different sort of refocus I could see why this is maybe a move that they're doing Mambo will obviously carry on doing their hybrid car ual stuff and they'll just be able to do that more independently but yeah I

just thought it was a bit of an interesting one in the sense of is it as simple as it looks is it just you know you're focused on this genre we're focused on this one so that's part ways or is it a short-term fix for something else you know I don't know is it a a money thing for my games you know just short term this is a solution for them right now but yeah like I said it's either it makes sense that they're just looking at different aspects or just given market conditions it's just not something they want to hold on to right now how was just saying about the longterm things maybe in the long term my games of Mambo would be a good fit but maybe they fa shortterm not so much we've seen a few deals like this right which I think is obviously it's where it's possible much preferred that just sometimes I think a company just gets closed and then it's like well okay could have sold it or I don't know done something else with this company but okay close it get rid of everyone but didn't uh saber interactive so they they kind of got an investor and then they they took it private again from embracer

there are other examples that I can't think of now off the top of my head but maybe it's just kind of simpar fig of yeah they just kind of take it back private yeah interesting interesting Trend it's interesting as well because I think um so you say they were acquired in 2021 obviously hybrid casual was becoming this big thing but I think they were founded in 2020 so they were only around for like a year before they were required and then they've had like three years under my game so it would be interesting I imagine for them as well to go back to that kind of Independence that they didn't have for all that long in the grand scheme things yeah yeah we'll see how that goes and uh it's it's a weird one of a company just moving away from hybrid casual whil others move into it um but I guess it's if they got their focus then that's what they're going to put all their money fact that page so Aaron you've got a few stories what have you got yeah so nettis has

indirectly accused hooe of plagiarism they pointed out some similarities between oni's jenio trailer apologies for my pronunciation and honai star rail soloist so these are like two trailers for benetti's game and Y hoo versus honai Star Rail and certain CG shots do look kind of similar between the two particularly like one scene looks almost inverted and in onoi there's all these people in like beams of yellow light shooting up into the sky and then in honai Star rail there's all these people in blue beams of light falling down um so yeah n's post didn't directly named but used characters from honkai Star rails Chinese title when saying that someone had plagiarized this video and so yeah it's an interesting one I gu

it feels sort of like a small part of a broader conversation that's been going on this year with stuff like Pokemon and F world to do with like what actually counts as copyright which obviously being no legal expert I can't um can't answer that certain but it is an interesting debate when it comes to like designs and things and at what point there's an idea you know cross over from just being a similar idea to actually copyright infringement and you know taking what someone else has done again using like Pokemon power world example you know there our world or pocket there are currently um you know being taken to court for um like infringing the patent around how pokeballs work that you throw something and catch a monster in it and it's like you know can Pokémon actually own the idea of throwing something to capture them maybe they do but again it's like at

what point does something become owned by someone versus a general concept I know that's sort of an aside to the whole n HSE thing but um yeah it's all quite interesting I I think the saying people who live in glass houses shouldn't throw stones comes to mind a bit a bit harsh on know the different teams technically you know from Net's side they wasn't there a case was it with n that pubg was basically suing them over either knives out or think more so rules of survival so basically Knives Out rules of survival were two games initially that n is very quickly put out to the point where I think rules of survival barely had any sound or like uh it didn't have any ambient noise you're just playing like a silent game at times it was very strange because they rushed it out so quickly because they wanted to beat pubg to be the Battle Royale or mobile and and it's kind of just the same game right and then later they have

massive success with dies out of Japan I guess turn into their own thing and then I know they're accusing HSE of of something I can't sa either way but the you know and then obviously gen impact very much his own game but it also takes a lot of inspiration from uh uh breath of the wild obviously and a lot of the mechanics and I I don't know I'm not saying it's kind of besides the point I guess to what they what they're actually saying I I don't know if it is kind of plagiarism or if they're right to say well hang on a minute this is very close I think it happens a lot particularly in marketing that there's quite blatant copying because people copy developers copy what works and user acquisition generally uh I guess bit different when it's big triaa title yeah I I don't know I'm interested to see if this goes further into action legal action or they're just saying O don't do this just calling it out to win win a few points maybe with the fans yeah I'll go back to my

original point about glass houses yeah um next up from me we've got Nexon and tense dungeon and fighter mobile which has surpassed 1 billion in Gross by spending on China's app store it's done that in just over six months that's according to app magic estimates so the game hit 1 billion on December 1st and that's without including any player spending from third party store on Android and again this is just in China so yeah a billion in 6 months pretty good going I wouldn't mind that um it did very well give us a f mate thanks yeah um at least but yeah the title was China's most downloaded game over its first 30 days and it already made a quarter of a billion in that first month just on iOS um there were reports at the time from Nexon and sensor tower that it had made half a million in its or half a billion

sorry in its first month including the Android stores yeah like 250 million on iOS 250 on Android whether that's sort of held true since then is sort of unclear if it has then that would mean it's already made like two billion it's made 1 billion on iOS but yeah we don't currently know whether that's the case but yeah obviously huge success I guess worth the wait after that were of issues getting out a year or so ago various Chinese legislation Hoops to jump through but yeah it's clearly paid on yeah it's probably madej yeah whatever the multiplier is when you add Androids yeah like you said could actually made 2 million probably three billion 4 billion yeah gross why not five quite amazing I guess we'll find out more in the next financials as well from from next one they'll be pretty open about it it's pretty important to them because before do fighter launched

I think Nexon wasn't in like the best spot with uh I think do fighter wasn't even in the best spot actually let the online version they had some issues they did an update and there had some issues with the I can't remember since the monetization it might have been the I there's a Marketplace or something it they messed something up basically and there was big problem as they really needed this to work and it has it definitely declined a lot but yeah now it's kind of picking up again so yeah one of the big launches of the year and again it's a new a new game currently at least in the top grossest yeah and last one for me is another new game which is soft launched in Colombian the Philippines and that's Disney solitire this is by super play um it's sort of a reimagination of the solitar solitire card game it's got scenes from like Disney and pictar proper is characters like Aladdin Elsa Mona so

yeah it's currently out on Android in Columbia and the Philippines it feels like there have been a few Disney mobile games this year but we had Joyce City cors Disney realm Breakers uh back in the spring I believe and then gungoose Disney Pixel RPG came out a couple of months ago I want to say and yeah now although it's um only in soft launch there's a Disney solitire as well best uh they got the one of the the hottest developers around with the IP super play worth2 billion so I'm excited to see that the the one king game that wasn't that was in soft L that wasn't cancelled is the soliter one candy cross soliter there's something in soliter is that an emerging Trend or in the I know there's a few already very successful like Tri Peaks solitire games out there but maybe we'll see more of it from more of the major players next year all right um thanks that Aaron so we're going to

move swiftly on to the weekend views section so paage if you got this week well it seems like I can't seem to help myself anytime there's a Ubisoft story just this year I'm there you're like Aron with Pokémon and know I don't know what's happening I think CU we were saying in our morning call like sometime this week that yeah you beof just seems to be something I'm talking about a lot but I think it comes from my LoveHate relationship with them like I still love them a lot and now not as much but I would like to get back there one day so but yeah in terms of mobile stuff I think we mentioned this on the podcast maybe a few weeks back that Rainbow Six mobile was making a bit of a comeback but they were planning on doing it in sort of these three phases which that is now underway so the first phase has begun and that's after eight months of the game you know just sort of being put on a bit of a a back burner and then readdressing how they want to handle things going forward so they have done a

bit of a overhaul there's a new game mode that is kind of a bit faster paced so maybe works well for mobile they've got new progression systems in there but in general I just I find it quite interesting given just some other stuff outside of mobile that's been going on with Ubisoft in I think it's literally just this past week so they've had some more layoffs they've had Studio closures and then they sunsetted their ex defiant game which is if you don't know it's a like a free-to-play shooter and that only came out I want to say in May of this year so it hasn't even made it through a full year and it just makes me think that surely at some point with Rainbow Six mobile there must have been a very similar conversation like do we keep this going and obviously they have decided that they wanted to keep that going so you know hopefully that is a good sign of things that you know they at least have you know this this phases these plans in place for it and they

obviously have some kind of hope that it is going to be a success for them because as of right now it's not like Rainbow Six mobile has really had any contribution to you know Ubisoft overall but you know they they have some kind of Hope in it but yeah just thought it was quite interesting given that they also had another shooter game that they've just sunsetted after not even a full year I don't know obviously console Market is very different so maybe with the new Call of Duty coming coming out and things that was maybe the final nail for that um but yeah I I would love to see Rainbow Six do well um I I do sometimes wonder if maybe they're hoping that if it does eventually get to a good place if there's like a a home for it in Esports um obviously with like Rainbow Six Siege and stuff like that game has been going for years and there is still quite a a big following for that so yeah I'm not really sure like what their long-term plan is for it but they obviously have one because like I said I I can't I imagine that it hasn't been a discussion to close it or not and

they've opted to keep going your point about Rainbow Six Siege it's their isn't that like one of their most is that one of the most successful games ever for you besid I think so I want to say that that's got we've been going for over 10 years now shortly super like super successful game and for some reason they're trying to replicate it with Rainbow 6 mobile maybe it'll work I doubt it but personally no no offense to the team they might have make a good game but I I I just I kind of wonder why Ubisoft bothers with mobile to be honest because now already have so many other issues at the company and they refocusing on what the what the core tells they got to focus on it was like open worlds I think was one and I can't remember the other one they had these core Focus areas does this match that I don't think so and all their mobile Investments have been really scatter shot over the years bought cchat like really good company but why and then they bought um calbri fantastic

studio why is that that a Ubisoft company bring in Rainbow 6 to mobile didn't if it wasn't going very well in testing why do they think they can fix it to be honest you could go back to like earlier Lilith games like it sticks with titles now and maybe that's probably been a bit more of a thing in the industry this year where it's not as much fail fast it's itate and we'll do what we can to make it work but I imagine there still the same tenets of mobile gaming hold which is if you're not getting good feedback you're not getting the kpis you wanted soft launch you ultimately have to kill the tile and I think it's May potentially supercell finding that out with Squad Busters they obviously believe in that and would you better get supercell not really maybe the is I don't know I think I'm confusing my points now but like there is an issue I think with just got to cancel it some sometimes I think this is one of those and I kind of I don't want to see layoffs obviously

but I think Ubisoft just doesn't seem worth doing mobile anymore for them unless they've got a very clear strategy I I I probably can't make Siege cross platforms with mobile unless they can maybe that would be better maybe if things were stronger elsewhere you'd be like okay if they're trying something on mobile they can afford to do that but with how things have been especially the past year it's kind of like maybe just refocus on what is their core these core points that they said you know I mean you usually think like your Assassin's Creed and things like that so yeah I am just intrigued to see how this pans out if they go to all of this effort go for all of these free phases and then this game still just doesn't work it's kind of well it's like you said nobody wants to see layoffs and things but you do just think well you know why all the effort well yeah I mean I don't redeploy those people to other projects I don't know that's what Ubisoft does with most of Studios right they always work on something else like uh red leagues just cancelled their mobile project and they just do other stuff now again it was

like cool that they were working on that game it looked pretty good but it just as as it happens G's Get Away it didn't work out but I I do just keep coming back to you why and I think it's something that some of the big console Publishers probably maybe all of them kind of B guilty of in the end maybe maybe it's just invest pressure thing to start with you give you give in like all right we'll do mile here's a big acquisition that keep you all happy and they don't do anything with it or it it just completely has nothing to do with the rest of the business not saying it's never worked out see aition and King worked out very nicely but that said and again that worked out amazing so I definitely would have criticized the acquisition but axus has never been able to use King to leverage its IP so yeah it's a big question mark sometimes over a big Publishers venturing into this space all right thanks for that page uh Aaron you've got uh as as we mentioned you've got Pokemon yes once again um

Pokemon convers alterate between this yes Pokemon Trading Card Game pocket has skyrocketed to 200 million in Gross player spending in its first month according to at Magic estimates so yeah it hit its first 100 million in just 17 days since Global launch and then he managed to double that and more since so as we've said a few times on this podcast now it's a very successful game you it's been a huge lawn um a lot of money and um it's averaged about 6 and a half million per day in player spending consistently since it's come out obviously some days Peak higher at like 8 million plus others go a bit lower but yeah it's doing very well and so I I've written a feature that I suggest um people check out on the website about sort of what pocket's done right how

it's managed to achieve this because um as a comparison to Pokémon go which obiously was you know a worldwide phenomenon when that came out Pockets made 91% of what go made in its first month so you know very successful easily the second strongest Pokémon mobile lawn I sort of put some graphs together which help kind of visualize it um in the future and they go and pocket have just like blown away all other Pokemon mobile launches and um pocket's been kind of gaining ground on go as well so like comparing their first week um Pokemon pocket made just under 60% of what go managed in its first week back in 2016 which was still impressive but you know it's about 60% where whereas as I say for the full like first month it's made

over 90% as much as what what go managed so in actual numbers for the pocket that means it made 202 million and Pokémon go made 222 million uh so yeah very close and then yeah as a comparison to that uh the third biggest mobile Pokemon game which Pokemon Masters made about 31 million in its first month um so yeah there's quite a lot of factors at play that I believe are kind of responsible for how it's done this well CU clearly it's not just a case of you kind of slap Pikachu's face on a mobile game and then suddenly it's like making hundreds of millions a month um you there's more to it than that um in particular it feels like there's a sort of sense of playground rumor that's come back in kind of an online form on like social media and in forums and things like there's been a lot of speculation going on around like the packs that you

choose from to open some of them randomly have like a bent corner so there's a big like fan theory that the bent Corner means it's got better cards in it and then so you got some people you know spreading that quite confidently you know why would they bother to make some of the packs a bit bent if they're not any different to the other ones then you got other people saying well you know they want you to spend money on packs why would they tell you which which one's the best one to open and then that those kind of theories have sort of been fueled by other kind of secrets that have proven true like there's a secret Mew card in the game which you the game doesn't tell you anywhere that it exists or how you go about getting it but once you hit the proper requirement Suddenly It's like oh you did this thing that we never told you to do so now you get the special new card so I think things like that are yeah kind of encouraging yeah this kind of I say playground rumor feel of people

trying to work out what's real and what isn't and coming up with theories and stuff even though it's not quite the same as how go had everyone out in the real world building up a kind of social element it feels like this is kind of doing it digitally is quite interesting to follow I think it's really insightful to to put it as like I love that the playground rumor sort of thing and I think this absolutely spot on I think there's a lot that other companies could learn from that and I know that it's there already quite popular I I guess Minecraft being the big one in terms of like they just drop you into a game without much of a tutorial and you just kind of explore find it all out yourself game's doing that quite s for a while but this is just a bit different and then the way it kind of builds those online communities and people and discussions I think is really really interesting yeah I think as I said a lot a lot of lessons can be learned from that and actually the one thing I did want to say is like it kind of blows

blows my mind to how how close the revenue is to Pokémon go considering how much a phenomenon that was I guess the only caveat to that is these are estimates and it is very uh so I guess directionally like well you still say it's directionally but you still say it's a really really successful game and and it's a lot closer than all the other Pokemon games Pokémon go uh it's very hard for data C prop is to measure the success of a number one Revenue generating title launch cuz how do you measure that there's nothing to measure it against unless unless you there's like public info and I think they do other clever things with downloads Etc so they're not like they're not made up there's people behind the scenes like working on it very very very clever people but in the end it's very difficult to do so it's 91% of Pokemon Go's Revenue I wonder how much both of those titles actually made

in the end but that's that's the we have to go on I guess it's also worth um pointing out obviously inflation since then is going to have affected you know how much you know comparing a 2016 game to 2024 it's quite a big gap but again at the same time uh Pockets made like 700% of what unite made at launch and that's from like 2021 so that's not quite so long ago which is mad as well really really insightful piece thanks thanks that Aon so I'm not going to go too in depth on this cuz I'm basically still working on this peace I doubt anyone really realized but I I always wonder like people wondering why we didn't report on this story when everyone else has so there's a story from the BBC the headline was top selling mobile games break rules on loot boxes and then the intro is the most popular mobile games in the UK are being advertised without disclosing they contain loot boxes random ingame purchases which critics say are exploitative and Foster addiction the

regulator the advertising standards Authority the ASA says it bans and removes ads which fail to make it clear whether or not a game contains a loot box and then it says and and and so okay I think the rest of the story like so I'm basically investigating an investigation how po think that is but it is what annoyed me about this story and is because it basically starts I think the the point of it is true that there are developers advertising G boxes and they don't say what it is right like that shouldn't be allowed and the ASA should do stuff and then the story kind of goes into they have no teeth so I think the premise of the story is true the numbers aren't correct I think so but it's because of the way that they've reported it that I particularly kind of got my backup and that's why I held off reported it while we kind of looked into it and so the paragraph says but a BBC

investigation found only two of the top 45 highest grossing games of Google Play Store actually followed those rules and then they got someone an executive from Young gers of gambling education trust calling the findings deeply concerning right but you can't okay before I actually get to it then if you go way down the report towards the end of those 45 26 were labeled as including loot boxes 22 of which were actively advertised at the same time so two out of 22 is the story of Publishers that we looked into it's not 2 out of 45 because you can't say that if like you might as well you might as well say two out of a two out of a thousand mobile the top grossing mobile games advertise that they have loot boxes but loads of those don't have loot boxes so so that's that's what frustrated me about this report and

again the premise is true so the industry kind of Damages itself but and and that and that's what leads to these stories but I think I I want to word it carefully because the one one of the things I hate in the world is where people start going the media as if it's like this conglomerate thing that's against it it's anyway I thoughts on that but in this case it it's like I think in the UK there's just longstanding of like misunderstanding of games and a bit of a negative attitude particularly towards mobile games and now you might say some of the things historically like it deserves some of that reputation that again that's kind of another debate but I I just think this was this was just misreported and I don't like the way it was done so yeah I I really didn't like two out of 45 talk rossing games I think that so misleading and you just saw it kind of just saw it repeated everywhere and it's just not it's not true all so I'll be doing I'm writing a piece on

that that will probably be in the newsletter but yeah I was really unhappy about that and then uh so I I have data from set Tower and game Refinery which I'll go to more in depth in the newsletter but what what I do have for the data side so 78 this is from game Refinery 78% of the current top 200 grossing games why did the report choose 45 by the way I don't know of the the current top 200 grossing games in the UK on iOS it's not Google play uh have GAA mechanics they they couldn't share us Androids the report also picks out uh Monopoly go um the highest grossing game on Play Store to contain loot boxes Monopoly go was among those not to mention random in game purchases in its adverts so I was looking into this cuz I was like loot boxes in monop go so it does have this sticker system and then you

can get like these vaults and then you can get random stickers for your album I was like you can't like I I I guess this is part of the issue if I'm talking about the granularity of what is you know specifically what do you and then maybe that's part maybe I'll just part of the problem here and and the issue is It ultimately it has a loot box and it doesn't say right but anyway I asked game Refinery about it and then they I said you know does it what do you think does it have loot boxes and they said not really super directly the main source for the stickers is from other events they are used to give extra incentives for players to grind through other events often more guaranteed rare cards as top rewards from events create incentives for engagement so they create incentives for purchasing sorry for purchases for the extra dice rolls so you can get through those events sticker packs are of course also part of the bundle offers but I see them usually

more as a side offering when the dice rolls is the main hook on them you can't ever buy sticker Pats directly Alone um so you know what I guess what are the two sides of that one it's not like a typical loot box system the other is it is a typ it is a loot box system and it just does it differently in a way they think could make more money that that was really getting into the granular details but I I thought I'd ask them see what they said the other thing is that I'm also looking into is that um and again like again all of this like really the reports largely kind of the point of the report is correct but I'm not sure what the BBC report is based on I don't think they say like a data provider I think what they've done for the report is they've looked on a Google Play Store page and on there in the about section it has the type of Ina purchases it says may incl I can't remember the exact term FR but may include like

random item or or includes random item drops or something like that and I think that is then what they've extrapolated from that to say well that gave us loot boxes which if that is the case I'd say that's not true either for loot Bots specifically oh yeah I think there's a few issues and maybe I'm just being pedantic uh but yeah I I just thought I'd discuss it and yeah I think the industry does have a problem here but it's not to out 45 yeah I think like you said it's it's the thing of the actual story is like it it has its point but the numbers you're sort of reading it and you're like that's what doesn't really add up so like yeah I get like the frustration at it and I think there's like a whole separate conversation on what is a loot box yeah obviously use different G systems and then I am definitely being super pantic about Monopoly goes effective loot box system it is a loot box it's just a different way of getting to it but is it the same outcome yeah so I guess it's loot box but yeah all right

so after after that rant that gets us to the uh to the hour bark so that brings us to the end of the weeky mobile games thank you everyone uh for listening thank you very much Paige for joining the show yeah nice to be here again I'm looking forward to our final podcast it's going to be festive Edition we're going to talk about uh we haven't really discussed it properly but we're going to talk about predictions I guess Trends and be a special episodes of the podcast which means obviously that loads of big stories will suddenly break next week we don't have time to any of it so thanks Pa and thank you Aaron for being on the show yeah thanks as well as always it's always a pleasure to talk Pokemon to be here there'll be more of that next week no worries we'll bring we'll bring them all out we'll have Starcraft sper Hunter Pokemon anything Ubisoft we'll bring We'll have it all and uh and thank you obviously to Gizmo for his star appearance on the show I think his insights were fantastic we'll see you again next next week goodbye