Week in Mobile Games E44 - AppLovin vs. short-sellers

[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 and with me this week we have a special guest is the big man himself steel media CEO Chris James welcome hello uh thank you I'm actually honored to be here I've wanted to be on this ever since started I think you've never let me on so I'm I'm uh basically cuz people are away you couldn't you couldn't hold me off any longer so I'm here to tell it like it is Craig I'm gonna be giving you giving you kind of straight cuts you know No Nonsense looking forward to there's a log lists I got through all of those yeah exactly wasn't available so it's I'm here that's great but yeah it's pleasure to be here and I've been following the cast and that's I know still early days but it's growing nicely so good job yes it's great great great to have you on so

what have you what have you been up to Chris what's what's what's happening lots of things I mean we as you know we do lots of events so uh running this company this year's more interesting than usual we've got a lot of events going on so I've been planning been out to Barcelona recently ahead of our recently announced Barcelona event very excited about that love Barcelona me you know planning stuff in in Asia this summer as well uh Dubai coming up we're going to be yeah we're going to be hitting four three continents four continents I don't know it all works but we're going to be from from London to to to San Francisco to Dubai to Barcelona in like four months so that's going to be fun how hard can that be um and then and then and then of course we be kind of back uh back for the back for games coming in August I think is that right Charlie Charlie uh who who leads the puts together the speakers for the events I'm sure is uh pulling his hair out very happy he hasn't got much hair so we're fine it's okay when he when he started he had uh fourhead well I know right d to hear

it's like being president isn't it being in charge of events it's like one of those things that ages you immediately but yeah know it's fine but no I'm I'm I'm busy there's a lot going on I mean it's it's been a it's been a very exciting I'm sure we'll talk about a very exciting start to the year London with PGT when I was brilliant big love to it came out you were you were fabulous still haven't written my followup post really to thank everybody Mass went to do but which is now end of February so month later but but now was incredible start of the year and there's a real feeling of positivity about the start of the year and I think that still is uh which after the last 18 months of of uh of tough news is um is welcome but I know there are still plenty of challenges and I'm sure we'll talk about some but I I you know I I'm feeling feeling pretty pumped at the moment and excited about about 20125 we've survived till 2025 and now we need to thrive in 2025 that's my vibe that's the new say yeah we'll see we'll see how it goes it's been like uh we'll talk about it in a bit like there's been some good news but there's also obviously been bad news was more layoffs Etc especially uh not

mobile but the water brother stuff was pretty devastating to say the least as for myself I mean workwise we've got got a few events coming got GDC games con latam going to and then obviously our other events Dubai straight after games come the to I think I have a few hours you're hitting another continent that's pretty impressive I'm not getting to that one I feel a bit bad I've not been I've never been to South America been invited hundreds of times and never been so and uh yeah just I'm I'm jealous of that one so um that's cool and then outside of work I I I don't really have much of a life not been up to too much but I did watch a quiet place day one which was actually very good I thought I watched that on a plane my family told me oh you like this they know I don't like Cory things and oh you like is really quite funny and I was like waiting for it to get funny and at no point did it get funny it was quite uh it was quite good but the quite you know it's quite a good but it was a bit TR bit sad wasn't it the whole thing I I didn't know was about my regular life talking about work I've been doing I've

been doing my other business had football I was at stockley Park the other day doing uh helping out with um not the V but helping out with the details for the uh fantasy football I've been I went to brenford last night to watch Everton draw against brenford nice do lots of things in my real my real world but uh yeah fantasy football run runs a Fantasy Football Scout part of the Enthusiast Empire these days yeah but yeah it's that's uh if you do like fantasy football check out fantasy scout. UK plugs right so I guess let's get into it a few shout outs we got events we got another event as well pocket gam connect San Francisco March 17th to 18th by game Expo Summit by PGC May 7th to 8th go to Barcelona June 3rd to 4th we've got Shanghai now the summit July 30th Helsinki is coming at you on October 7th and 8th was that it oh there is more to come we're going to be hitting southeast Asia uh as well bit there's a bit of kink in the plans working out exactly where but we will be

there later in the year and maybe back in the Middle East as well we'd be back in Jordan in November not the announced date yet uh we might be somewhere else in the Middle East as well so we've got at least that and then there's obviously mobile games Awards and parties at Gamescom all sorts going on right there's a party at Pocket game po party in GDC as well which you can anybody can come to put a link in the description below so uh let's jump straight into the news I have a few things to say my notes always look terrified by the way Chris I I write loads of notes I'm not reading your notes Craig I'm not it's all up so the uh so far the the big news of the week so we've called it on Thursday was the headline I put was at loving labels short seller reports nefarious and misleading as Shar Seck so the short sellers are at it again I guess they tried to do it to a different research I tried to do it to Roblox but it didn't really go very well and actually that Hindenberg is now close so

really didn't go who who comes up with Hindenburg you want to say it was destined for failure right like so you've decided to name your the Hindenberg okay and were you're relaunching as Titanic what what what you doing it's mental this time it was the ridiculously known perhaps fuzzy Panda Research and then Cula research and they released reports on the same day so so I guess there was some potentially collusion there there a number of accusations about appl's business practices so obviously applin has been killing it in its financials becoming a leader in the ad space has a market cap of 10 times what Unity is now would you believe after all that fuss years ago about merging one of the merging with ir Source um the re the claims against app includes potentially inflating its metrics it also cited a class action lawsuit against that Ling of tracking users without their consent and apparently getting data on children as one of the claims and they also make a series of other allegations what I found interesting was some of those claims were just unproven like citing a

lawsuit where the case isn't actually over uh and it's also worth pointing out that there's been like some user acquisition experts in games on social media kind of panning those reports in their opinion saying like it kind of has knowledge of games exactly I've been I've been following this on the social media more than the original story I did read the story briefly but I I I think you can see all of the all of the kind of most respected or or certainly most vocal sort of UA and monetization experts advertising people are pretty much panning this whole story as a non-story and taking it apart line by line and you know the the people I really respect like the guide M from from the um two and a half Gamers and and obviously Eric and others and Seer and other and they've all just pointed out that some of these things that sound awful if you're not in the ads you know already in the industry and you don't you know are actually just kind of pretty standard practice and other things are not really like to be true

like how can this how would Google and apple not notice that this company is you know is the biggest ad provider in this entire space and for it to be going running rough shut of all their policies and it not to be noticed it's not traditionally something that Apple lets go so you know it's it's not like yeah this needs to be debated and and and and I guess challenged and whatever been proven otherwise but some of the claims just seem unlikely one of the interesting things I read somewhere else is what a commentator on LinkedIn was saying that rather than this being a case about up loving what this might be is a kind of a a bit of a a showing the working a bit of a case about the state of advertising generally like some of the things that are poked out about kind of like deceitful advertising where accidentally you know you click the X it doesn't go anywhere the ads are like dodgy you can't really get out of the ad Loop and they somehow end up accidentally downloading something when you don't think you are you know these are practices that that that just do go on in mobile games advertising and there are you know there's obviously

misleading outs as one thing but that the the these circular ad things where you you've got timers and then a link and then another menu and another menu you know there's been a lot of pretty sh sharp practices in that UA world now I don't think any of them necessarily are as far I go as far as saying illegal but they're definitely kind of you know questionable in some cases and and I think our out loving somehow part of the ecosystem 100% but they're not you know it's not like they're doing things that other people aren't is is kind of the case this guy was making he's more saying well this is a time to look at these practices in general rather than just putting on app Ling so I find it interesting there's two things for me one is that surely the legal exposure that these um Culp research and fuzzy Panda have with this surely they must be opening themselves up to some sort of lawsuit if this isn't true because it's a very public claim and as you say it's had a massive impact on the share price down about 20% up to yeah I mean I think it was end down 12 and a half% or something last yday St after a bit of a

of a return Sur that seems like a very rash thing to do I mean maybe maybe this maybe in the modern post truth world you can say what you like it that that feels like you know kind of questionable and then and then I don't know it's interesting this has moved the markets whether this kind of opens up more of this sort of shenanigans is the question I ask is like because clearly yeah if they are short sellers they've got an agenda it's not like they're coming into this then they're looking for the price to go down and the price has gone long I mean the price has been insane like they've gone up these shares in the last year like 446 per up you know I I know people in hisory that that you know were in favor of them they had a massive massive leap in November when they announced some results and then another one around the results in 11th around the mid-February again and a huge huge leaps up and now you going going from trading around $70 to around you know 330 even now you know they were up to 510 at one point obviously they've dropped down a bit since then yeah it's I don't know I don't know it's it's a massive story but I I don't know where it goes yeah that's thing what's the

next thing like it's a massive story just because of the way it's moved the shares and not necessarily like the veracity of the uh allegations and ultimately the very in the Cula research report right at the start has a disclaimer and it basically just says we we'll do this but we won't necessarily take our own advice we could immediately well we will immediately sell and we could buy back but we could buy shares after that so to capture it going back up it kind of like they're revealing this is our game plan is we're going to smash it down and buy some shares well yeah it it's all I don't know their their thoughts but it feels like it's like oh we've missed this massive rise kind of to your point let's capture these concerns about the ad space which some are legit and then we can tank this and then capture it on the way back up I I'm I saw Adam come out didn't he Adam Adam uh fogi um who's CEO and he's he's not averse to get speaking his mind on things right so he kind of came out I didn't I haven't read it all yet but he

was pretty he was actually quite restrained and I guess that's a from a from a from a market and legal perspective that's what he has to be but he was just kind of questioning the veracity of some of the key points wasn't he he actually went through a few of the the points but yeah in the end he just says yeah def farus called it l littered with inaccuracies and false assertions he said claims of financial accounting impropriety I've actually correct and have no basis whatsoever he said we don't track like children's data Etc so he kind of went through a few of the key points not just a blanket we don't this is all wrong yeah so curious to see where that goes his last statements it's also noteworthy that the short reports emerged after our earnings report where we would be in a period of being unable to respond regarding financial performance yeah yeah so the one one thing I will say to finish is that is that actually I think for years specifically when these ad firms had publishing arms that Publishers were actually very concerned about how their

data is accessed and and kind of competition I remember with iron Source One publisher said to me well we just dropped them as as the ad ads company because like they're competitor basically so there have been like other concerns around these obviously appls getting rid of their publish yeah selling it all its Studios right it's like a billion dollar deals so but yeah we'll see how those go I not I'm not sure there's too much rity but we'll see I think the the children's data stuff will probably get investigated just because the I find it amazing it wouldn't get picked up I mean as you say at one point it was down 20% at the moment over the last 5 days it's down 12% notably Unity software stock is up 3.3% over the same time they got Vector I'm not I'm not I'm not like at all there's no there's no I'm not drawing anything from that I'm just saying it's a thing that's happened so but they've got a ways to go to match I mean that yeah I think from a I don't think they're going to be troubling the uh the overall valuation just yet right we'll move on to the next item I wanted to

point out that I feel like we've been reporting on a lot of new Studios and funding stories lately which seems like obviously there's still the layoff stuff we discussed earlier this week the big Warner Brothers news but there's been actually it feels like there's been some good news it could just be I'm a bit biased towards I've seen these and is more sort of a recency thing but yeah some top stories I guess finish startups Seven Star secures seed round to build nextg puzzle game good job game secures investments from meno Ventures Studio Sur surpass games uh secured $1.5 million to redefine the hybrid casual P puzzle jobra I feel like that's always everyone wants to redefine hybrid casual people core SEC secured 500,000 fundings bring tabletop games digital platforms a little umbrella 2 million spoils raise investment playable Factory there's a new studio from X belela stcl the X belel CEO Studio 42 new Barcelona Studio obviously we go for PGC load star and then really quickly

Grand games last month raised 30 million dream games apparently he's looking for a big investment round uh it seems like there's a lot going on in terms of new Studios and then obviously there's big Acquisitions like there seems to be musical chairs uh from the ACC the last few years play area has been sold to some other deals like that uh obviously there's a lot of meanor Investments Sai Social Development Bank backs Esports in game development 122 mil skills has announced a $775 million developer accelerator loads going on I'm curious to see kind of the Drake star pars reports and Convoy Ventures uh what they have to say about the the quarter and if that ex act bigger Trend I think Investments kind of slowly been going up over the past year yeah I mean I've been I've been looking at the because I do these little introductions um with the kind of trends of the market and stuff for every other PGC so do come and see the start of the show you're coming and you get to see me there's also some hilarious uh Photoshop work on

PowerPoint but um but but I have been looking it and and it it does feel my my my perception is that the the activity has has grown and there's there's there's two types really there's there's kind of earlier stage funding is definitely a thing again and but that doesn't have to be just angels and uh you know and and super Angels it's certainly you know it's not just a few hundred thousand here and there it is a couple of million there's quite a lot of those stories going around as you've highlighted some of them there so that early stage whether that's seed or preed or very early series a I don't know but that that that sort of level there seems to be a lot of excitement again obviously a lot of people laid off and and those people starting new things and there's a lot of capital sat in um investment funds needs to be deployed as well Angels con angels have been pretty active throughout the whole kind of I don't know investment recession I guess then at the top level you see kind of huge huge acquisition stories obviously we've gotten in the antic I don't know if that was last week you covered that

was in here later on that going through you know potentially by um scopely stroke savv stroke PF whatever entity that goes through and there's the billion dollars of stuff going from from App L that'll be coming through soon to someone we don't know who that is yet and you know as you say there's there's things like play moving around and and those are those are Acquisitions so there's a lot of that and then there's a lot of investment what we haven't seen and where the the grumbles I hear coming is is the investment in the middle like the the A's the B's C's round and and obviously dream games is kind of a example of of we could Buck the trend with that that'll have to be a big big round but then dream is you know it's kind of a pretty safe bet right in they're they're absolutely killing it at the moment and so maybe that's not a super super risky institutional bet but that's what I'm seeing that that that what hasn't yet picked up is that secondary funding where people have got money they've they've gone for two years or a year whatever and now they need to raise again and that's where we're seeing still kind of Clos and cutbacks and layoffs where people because if

you're an investor right now there's a lot of opportunity to invest your money do you want to invest and it logically makes sense I do a little bit of Angel Investing I'm me a few companies very small level I'm not not very wealthy at all but in these things and but but if you given the choice do you want to invest in in something that where they're looking for a couple hundred thousand and you have a little bit of a stake that might be meaningful someday or do you want to throw Millions into something where it's very small and and the risk is higher games is a risky business always you know especially since all the recent changes it's obvious that the money is going to get sucked into that early early stage first so I think but I think it's good sign that it's happening sorry I'm talking a lot it's good sign that's happening and I I just don't think yet we're seeing the secondary stuff dream will be interesting the grand games thing was interesting but again that's Turkey right the Turkish ecosystem is kind of it in you know entity in its own right because there's a lot of very successful turkeys is it Laton is that the late lat ADV Ventures but I think that's actually based in technically that's based in the Netherlands is it okay any there's there's there there's a lot of money that's come out of that explosion of casual and Hyper casual in Turkey which

is then being kind of invested kind of back in not just money from Turkey but that that is kind of like a micro kind of climate that's a bit separate from some other ones I think um and and you know the same way that Finland has been and will be you know when you've got the success of a supercell and then supercell has so much money that it can go and easily invest in all these other things then that's that's kind of a macro micro I don't know what the right words micro I know micro I guess it's a micro thing happening rather than the broader industry thing but but yeah it's good news though it's good news it's good to see new stuff you know new things starting and there's a lot of people looking for you know there's a lot of talented people out there right that that have been laid off I think it's like 40,000 people we've talked it depends on the metrics you go the last 18 months or so've been lost from the industry maybe the last two years that's huge a huge amount of people right and um you know they're looking for somewhere to go so yeah so kind of following on On from that we recently did our developer Trend survey mobile game developer Trends so a winter 20

2425 uh take the temperature of the industry obviously as we've been saying you know 2024 and really the last few years been tough um and then we said earlier we from survive to 25 to kind of hopefully kind of thrive in 25s so I guess what does the indry really think so I've got a couple key takeaways I'll put a link in the description check out the full report it's quite long like naturally layoffs will high up on the list of key trends on responses mind the biggest trend of the year for 20 I guess yeah the past year at 56.7% of those surveyed um that was above Rising UA costs Absol regulation and the crossplatform shift I actually found it interesting that web shops was down at 20 like still reasonable but down at like 23.1% and third party payments 17.9 I thought that'd be a lot higher thought people would be well into that and then a few other quick on privacy changes and Rising UA cost were highlighted as two of the biggest threats to the business as well as high marketing and and development costs and a lack of

investment hopefully investment is is improving we have seen kind of something like quality growth already and development costs has been a big topic of the Year particularly in kind of AAA console we ask companies how many games they've released over the past 12 months and just over 40% said none the second most popular answer was one game at 22.2% uh We've obviously seen like previously famously plka said they weren't going to release a game and then now I think they well they are back to with woer and big fish is no longer releasing games but I think that's very specific to Aristocrat Leisure strategy and seemingly that they couldn't sell big fish but desite despite everything that was kind of negative the outlook for the mobile game sector is is a positive one I say that when when the answer is less than half but but just over 44% of those surveyed had a positive to very positive outlook for the next 12 months 34.3% were neutral and then 13.4 had a negative to very negative outlook so so that's not quite the 75% positive

outlook we saw in 2021 but it does show a more hopeful hisry as you move to 20 25 Chris I don't know if you have yeah yeah Sor I was I was listening I was actually checking out because I did some presentation slides for a couple of different things on this I think firstly it's the best looking survey in the world it's beautiful very colorful uh good work jesson Paul but yeah no it is interesting isn't it I used it as an example in my um intro at London to sort of say you know that that most people think the are neutral whether the year will get better or or worse that that was that was the best positive sign to come out of this is like everyone's uh everyone's bit May about the year ahead but in reality there is a lot of kind of interesting Insight in it and kind of some some positive positive kind of angles like you said I think it's interesting how yeah things like kind of web shops stuff come up I think it's interesting about kind of HTML 5 or web based gaming is an interesting thing you know I I I think ex alternative app stores I think there

there are things that people come up that people are interested in um and yeah generally even though neutral was the probably the biggest biggest perspective on the next year the negative bit was was relatively low right and as you say the good thing about that survey one of the many good things about is it does these comparative things for for you know the last few years as well and and yeah you can kind of get you know obviously different people fill in there's always some variants but you can see negativity is definitely against 2021 last time we did it we haven't done one during the I couldn't believe it was 75% were positive I was like what but too British to be that positives I know but it's not just British it's Global isn't it I mean that's the thing but yeah me person I think I think generally yeah and it's interesting we had people from all across the ecosystem developers Publishers tool service people investors media you know Consultants advertising PR people all sorts so it was kind of an interesting good cross-section and and yeah yeah know interesting all different

I was things like the different business models it's a good survey to do download it just you know will it doesn't necessar going to shape your business decisions but it's good to kind of get a sense of where other people are thinking and there's a lot of what it said to me was that the broad sort of directions the tendrils of our industry and this is one of the reasons I'm kind of positive is there a lot of there's a lot of different areas in which video games is kind of growing whether that's geographically whether that's new technology whether that's going back to dist distribution platforms or monetization platforms you know whether it's it's people getting around the problems we had before and know whe it's investment from different regions this whole idea about investing in Asia or Asia investing in in the west was one that came up as interesting terms there was just a lot of different opportunities listed I think there was about like 20 that all had a meaningful kind of percentage so it was kind of that to me is good news you don't want to you know it's great to go this is going to be the big trend of the year but I'd much rather have like you know eight or 10 or five even micro trends

that all are capable of growing the industry and I think that kind of goes back to which I won't go into detail but goes back to Matthew Bulls uh 700 page tone which you know is interesting and definitely worth looking at but you know it is subjective like any bit of data but you know it's not he's decided which bits of data to to take and which conclusions to draw from it but his his whole argument is around growth engines and what are the engines of growth and what what drove the incredible growth particularly mobile but in the games as a whole what then you know how those run out of steam and what what new ones didn't kind of work and that's that's a really interesting angle to think of and I think one of the things our survey does show is there's a lot of potential growth engines that people are trying to pursue and and and I think for me some of those I think you know mobile UA seems to be getting back to us not where it was but they seem to dealt with the the what's been threaten so far and found some sort of ways to to to work in that space and kind of create a bit more predictable growth again and

then the distribution is the huge thing for me whether that's uh different app stores whether that's you know web web shops that different way of getting games out you know entangle with that in company with that is the App Store the app store is the is the web distribution is is like having games just straight in your browser or streaming onto your phone or TV from cloud gaming I I think I think there's a lot of things kind of happening that will could could drive the industry massively forward you know I don't this time we're not on things like Esports which I think was always a bit was quite it's interesting space and there's lots going on but is it actually really driving revenue from the industry web 3 which didn't really deliver arvr brilliant technology and it's is making steady progress but it's not a mobile like you know big Force but yeah but that's what I took from the server I thought it was really good so good job uh I didn't do anything for it so I just read was really good but yeah please do download it there's uh it's not quite 700 Pages uh next year Craig next year uh uh we hopefully it's like succinct to

the point and really interesting kind of takeaway so thank you for everyone obviously fulfilling that in very quickly I I do want to touch upon these actually first I'm going to quickly talk about the Amazon App Store so it's to close on Android set to close on August uh 20th I notice of developers went out at a new support page said they can no longer submit new apps and they're discontinuing the coins program I forgot even what that existed to be honest but anyway the the point is going to continue on like Amazon Fire devices but the the point to me in kind of extending on what you were saying about one of the growth enges and opportunities in alternative app stores I wonder if that opportunity actually exists because I think it's so incredibly difficult I've said this before to get people out of their habit of just using the App Store and Google Play That's where everything's set up that's just what they're going to default to and I think I know Amazon these big tech companies can just on a whim say ah we're not going to do this anymore they probably haven't invested in it for a long time

but I I feel like it is a sign that it's a struggle for big companies you've got Samsung and haway kind of offer shouts about how well it's doing but ultimately globally it's just just nowhere near the App Store and Google Play and then like last week or the week before we had epic come out and it's PC but it's the same sort of situation you're dealing with a monopoly with steam and third party Revenue was down year on year yeah for the whole year and it's like the amount of money they've invested in that and is it going to get better on mobile I think I agree there are big challenges ahead for alternative app stores and and I think I don't think I think it is a tough battle especially on mobile because yeah you know your phone operating system runs the thing and everything is geared towards pushing you towards that store and to deter you regardless of what people might legal legally try and enforce to deter you subtly one way or another from going another one so I think that's diff I think that's I think that's tricky and I

I don't think it's an easy thing I I think the differential like maybe maybe is going to be a web experience maybe it is web shops maybe it's going to be you know the the problem is they can't even do price variants obviously with with freeo playay games really so that that's the challenge and and you get that kind of chicken and egg kind of situation where if the big developers don't really get behind putting offers or whatever on these stores to drive people in then you don't get the masses and then if the mches the big developers aren't interested the the counter I'd say to that is I think you know I I think Amazon it's not a great sign but I do think Amazon's whole gaming strategy hasn't really worked right and I don't and I think you know the thing that's worked for them is Prime video that's been hugely successful but gaming even when you went ever went to Amazon it was always kind of Hidden Away it wasn't easy to find you know it wasn't like a I don't know how the Amazon music things going but I I know that games was always seem to be a bit of an afterthought like uh we should be in games somehow I I know they invested chunk of money they bought the um what was the what was the

development tool they bought lumber yard lumber yard that was I've heard fig about that that was something else wasn't it that was that was bought that was another tool that was cry engine cry engine yeah that turned into lamb so that was interesting but yeah and then they had all these things T obviously they had twitch they've got twitch which is a huge platform for gamers there's supposed to be kind of benefits there and it never really added up and I kind of my son's really twitch he's do I don't know it didn't quite work somehow so I'm not I don't think we take that as as you know the fact that Amazon just because it for it to be interesting it's so far from their Core Business that it's like yeah I'm not you know I can't be bothered with that however if one thing I think you should look at is flexion now flexion entire business and there coming is taking big games typically or biggest games they can get two alternative app stores like not just one to all of them that you know to and they've been signing bigger and bigger players people like King and and and and B whatever they they've been putting out release release their figures are going up so somehow something positive is

happening in this space but I guess it's probably such on a still such a small percentage compared to the the the pie that's being generated through Apple and Google and and I think the other thing to say is that there is a bit of host you know the open hostility towards policies and approaches from certainly Apple I don't know Google so much but is you know is it's never been stronger than than it is now I remember when we used to start to get someone to say anything about about Apple or the question them it would just wouldn't do it maybe behind closed doors but don't don't report that right now people are coming on panels scale this is outrageous you can't do this so yeah so I think yeah there's challenges I definitely agree but I I think I don't think it's over yet and then last one very quickly but I have to mention it so super cell has revealed its latest game boat game simply called Alpha test is coming soon and our story was like I've watched the the small trailer there's not much detail but there's like sailing boats you're exploring an island or walking on it and then you're kind of engaging in shooter gaml it also has a

MySpace page for some reason the marketing is interesting I'm CU that's that's part of the marketing right that marketing was kind of part of this weird yeah AI created it was a very AI sort of zeitgeist thing I didn't really understand what was going on yeah had maybe that's the point I I I think supercell yeah I mean supercell game great they've announced it and whether it will actually properly see light of day and and and a long period cu the difference is supercell's been doing this for years it's just normally you wouldn't really know about it you know they would do it under a different brand under a different thing they test the things somewhere soft launch and then they'd kind of you know just quietly kill stuff off right and then and then theyd probably tell you was killed off but they've been doing this a lot and and and and I think yeah I I you know I I think it looks interesting they've got the same problem everyone else has in the mobile industry Revenue drivers are the existing games right the big games it's the The Clash Royals it's it's the brawl Stars it's The Clash of clown of

course and to a lesser extent I guess hey does Boom Beach still I think Boom Beach I mean Boom Beach qu es doesn't really do much at all got handed over to to sort of to to spaceape for a bit and then didn't or something like that but but I mean those are all billion me know are huge games but you know and I think they've had the best year ever I think brawl stars and Clash Royale had the best years ever you know and these are games that like what brw stars not not Clash Royale did Clash Roy have its best year it was I it was so that every single game in their portfolio was up year on year okay best royale's best was I think at the start yeah but but I saw really interesting talk in robocom from from Clash Roy they they're very bullish and a lot of interesting plans for the future I love I still play that game now and I think that's kind of the problem so I know I'm excited I I the thing with Squad Busters I I I kind of loved super so I love the people there I love the games they make I didn't get it I just kind of played it and thought this is bright shiny but what is the

game here I don't really I'm not I'm doing it I'm not sure I'm enjoying it I'm not sure I'm getting any better or worse but I just stopped playing it and I I think that might be the same it didn't feel like the cor Loop made a lot sense you know I'm I'm kind of with brawl star I'm a bit bad with sort of two two shooter thing two thumb Shooters so my son plays it a lot I'm not great with it but I do get that at least but with I didn't really get Squad Blas is what it was I thought it was very glitzy and shiny look great and production values was super high and it was kind of fun but I kept playing it and going I'm unlocking new guys but what am I what am I really doing here I don't know I'm just kind of running around and then sometimes I win sometimes I don't I don't feel I'm totally I don't get what what I'm doing wrong or right wasn't yeah I'm curious if the lesson from that will be like like back to what they used to just more longer testing more testing will they maybe but then they've put this out with a big you know new boat game they've put this out with a bit of not they've not they've not B loads of Hollywood stars in a I think right but

uh but they have I don't think though that if you look at what supercells achieved in last year I don't think they're going to be discouraged massively from thinking that the strategy they've gone down that's markedly different to what they did in the past is wrong they they had the best year you know and and they've now like like three times as size they were or something crazy like that they've they've certainly twice as big in terms of staff and their approach is just markedly different and I think they got didn't they get the guy I think the guy was on stage speaking at Ron the year before who was their new marketing guy presume he still is he'd be worked at Burger King or something and and you know it was big Brash marketing it was crossovers with celebrities like the John Cena thing and SpongeBob and brawl stars is huge yeah so I I don't think they're gonna go quietly I don't know what's happened with Moco and I don't know where I don't know they're still going still testing I think it looks quite interesting I watched some gameplay I didn't quite get it just from watching it but I think it looks good looks really yeah that's it I think game play Loop yeah their polish is always good

whether the gameplay Loop is all a lot of their games seem quite similar now I would say there there they're multiplayer action games like that seems to be the road super C's God deal yeah and they're kind of leveraging a lot of the time the same characters right the universe of characters and I think this idea of a toy set of characters they can use in different ways is kind of seem to be a theme that's going through the company I like that idea and I I'm I'm waiting for the Super Soul movie whatever is The Clash movie it's got to be got do I mean they've had the TV they've had the little video shots where it wasn't TV but it was on like YouTube whatever was really pression but like surely they're looking at you got roio and Sonic you know Angry Birds Sonic doing this surely they're going well we've got enough here to is Barbarian strong enough as big as red as big as Sonic he's not he's not that's fair I think you know Angry Red was a Angry Birds was a genuine cultural phenomenon that went be you know people in the you know went beyond anything right that was the biggest that you know

it was Rio and angry Bir was our our Sonic you know Sonic or Mario for the mobile there's no doubt about that and that was partly down to Vester Backa and and and people and the great people at roio dumb luck as well but it just took on and it became you know you'd be playing on chat shows and stuff in America and it was on the space mission they did these kind of crossovers with Star Wars and various things and it was it was yeah it was great um but his question is barar that big no no no so no so maybe it shouldn't be I don't know I just I guess I'm someone that's vested in that space and there's a lot of there many millions of people are invested in that so yeah I don't know I wouldn't say it's League of Legends I mean they did maybe it's the Netflix approach they did that I'm not League of legs player I'm aware of what it is obviously and I get it but I still watched the uh the the you know the TV show and I thought was quite good right G to wrap it up there thanks thanks so much Chris for joining the show and for your insights really appreciate Absol pleasure anytime you want to elongate this by another 20 minutes invite me on

I'm that was that was perfect and thanks everyone for tuning in really appreciate it hope you enjoyed it uh if you got any feedback drop us a line and yeah check out links below for our survey and events and we'll see you on the next show have a good weekend everyone goodbye