Week in Mobile Games E51 - Regulators poke the Apple and Google monopoly bear

[Music] Hello and welcome to the Pocket Gamer.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 today is Aaron Assel, our news editor for our 51st episode. No longer that special. Yeah. Yeah. I'm back in regular old clothes today. No, no fancy shirt. I mean, I think I was in a hoodie last time. But how you doing, Aaron? What you been up to? Yeah, I'm good, thank you. Not been too eventful really in my life the past week. Still playing Zenoblade Chronicles X cuz it's a very long game. Um, making a few years. Yeah, very gradual progress. Um, quite a lot of my free time's been on that, I think. Yeah, I went went out for some drinks last weekend, but um nowhere too too exciting. I've sort of come down from my, as we've said, my birthday week was just so full on. It's hard to to compete

with it on a regular week now. You've had that high. Yeah. Now everything doesn't feel the same anymore. Yeah. But uh but no, no, all good here. How are you? Yeah. Yeah, I'm good. Uh I've not been up to too much. I'm I'm old these days, so I forget literally what I've been doing in recent memory. I don't I don't know if I did anything at the weekend. I watched film. I watched uh The Electric State on Netflix, which was okay. It's very It's such a I've said this, but it's such a Netflix movie where it's just like I mean, it's done by the Russos that did Avengers and they did some really good stuff on Community, which I love, the TV series. And uh but it was just like all right. Nothing special, just a very okay film. Yeah, cuz I wrote about the mobile game a few weeks ago, but um I haven't seen the film. I haven't played the the mobile game, actually. I had it demoed to me at um by the developer was Buck. There's just like a really small team within this huge company called Burke and I

think they do like animations. I can't remember what they did on Amazon. They I think they did Love Death and Robots. I think they did that and then now they now they've got a games division. They show me that. It was pretty cool. Like the the genesis of it was actually quite interesting. And then they which is kind of like retro feel because the film is set in te it's set in an alternate universe but in the 90s which is an interesting combination. If it's in an alternate universe with a different history why set it in the ' 90s anyway. And then they kind of did the same with Froglets which was the game is like retro from like these. He's 90. So I guess that's just seems to be a random theme with Netflix games at the moment. Other things I've been doing, I've been trying to, as I always, I do try and actually play games. I um I have this separate YouTube channel where I just upload like gameplay videos. So, I play Disney Solitaire, which we didn't talk about last week. It's like I guess one of the biggest launches of the year, so we should give it a mention. There's an interview on the site. Please do check it out with Super Play CEO. you know,

they were bought for I think it's actually about $2 billion um by Play Ticker and this is their third game after Die Streams of Domino Dreams. Interesting to see how it does. Every single mobile games publisher seems to have a solitire game play through it. It was pretty cool. It was a Beauty of the Beast first sort of section, I guess, stage. Um play a few levels of that. It was it was really like it was really well polished. We'll see how it does. Let's see if there's an audience for that. I guess they're pretty confident. And in the interview, it was actually interesting because they were they said it's a top down approach, which you don't hear that often these days, not publicly anyway. Uh where, you know, the management team says, "Well, this is the game we're going to make." They also once they start making a game, at least what they say, I guess, is that that's the game they're going to release, they're not going to not release it. So, which I thought was interesting. I'm sure no secretly perhaps there's been some cancelled games, right? But I think

once it's kind of public, it doesn't go through like a public soft launch and then get cancelled. They they go through with it. And to have three successes with that strategy is well, sorry, correction, two successes with that strategy. Remains to be seen with a tentative bird. Yeah. Yeah. Maybe. And the other big release while I'm at it was Grump Rush. I played a bit of that. I am quite a sucker for these games now. We've got the gate mechanics and there's something about it. I I just get drawn to the ads as well. Like I'm watching like Starcraft on YouTube and then an ad will come up for um like Last War and I'll just watch it. I'll just watch this stupid ad. There was one the other day that surprised me cuz you they actually made it through like the correct gates. They they shot down the the like the new weapons and the in the right amount of time and they actually won the level. And I was like that's quite satisfying. Yeah, usually they lose. Anyway, God, that's a bit of a random, but the the game uh the other game I wanted to mention that's out today is Clare

Obscure Expedition 33. It's a PC console. It's It's on Game Pass, which I uh after slagging off quite a lot, I I actually use Game Pass a fair bit now. So, I'm a total hypocrite, but I don't know that much about it, but I've I've been following a little bit, but since I don't necessarily I don't cover those games like specifically make sure I'm aware of it, but I don't actually want to know the details cuz the story the story, the look of it, even some of the gameplay all looks quite unique. So, I'm just kind of intrigued to go through that world really. Yeah, looks nice. You should check it out. Yeah. Yeah, I'll have a look. Anyway, I guess we have a podcast to do. As always, a few shout outs for our events. So, Dubai Game Expo Summit coming very soon, May 8 May May 7th to 8th. Also, next week I am in Brazil for Gamescom. So, again, if anyone wants to reach out, I've had a couple people for meetings, then then please do. Pocket Gamer Connects Barcelona, which is which is looking great already to be honest. And I've

never been to I've never actually been to Spain itself. I've only been to Iba as a kid. I wasn't there part. Uh so PC Barcelona June 3rd to 4th, the PTC summit in Shanghai July 30th. Got Helsinki October 7th and 8th. Jordan later this year, some other events, mobile games awards in in August during Gamescom and probably some other stuff. So with all of that, we'll go we'll actually go on to the news. This week's big story is the headline, the EU slaps Apple with a $570 million which is about this $500 million fine for violating the digital markets act. So we this is the fine that has been coming since well for a long time. It was I think it was reported in November or December that the fine was going to come by the end of the year and then about a few weeks ago, a month ago, I was like, "Oh, it's about to come." Like in this week, it didn't.

It's finally here. Call was found to have breached anti- steering rules following an investigation into its business practices. So, under the DMA, app developers must be allowed to inform users of and direct them to alternative offers outside of the Apple App Store, which under the previous well, under the general rules of of of the App Store, you can't do under the alternative business terms, you could actually do linkouts, but Apple then still demanded a cut of that revenue uh for like the next year, which is just dafted. I can't actually remember if that was for the first purchase or subsequent purchases. I imagine it's the latter because they like basically they're like, "Well, we give you that user so we get that money." Which is obviously ridiculous. And Apple didn't change in their business terms. And I was saying before this like, "Do you know what? I'm confused about some of the the rules that one the DMA is asking for and what Apple's terms are because they managed to like muddy the waters and confuse it

enough with their ridiculous and everchanging terms. You could argue they were doing it to try and they weren't really but like to try and adhere to to the to the DMA or rather maintain the status quo but try and get around it somehow. But yeah, the the European Commission has found that Apple restricts linking out preventing developers from fully using alternative distribution channels and stopping consumers from accessing potentially cheaper options. It said as part of today's decision, the commission has ordered Apple to remove the technical and commercial restrictions on steering and to refrain from perpetuating the non-compliant conduct in the future, which includes adopting conduct with an equivalent object or effect. So, kind of what I was saying, trying to maintain the status quo by just changing the rules a bit. The fine imposed on Apple takes into account the gravity and duration of the non-compliance. Which is funny because this fine is probably lower than it would have been had the

Trump administration not come in in January and just suddenly like treating I I try not to skip people but like like effectively just treating allies and the rest of the world like crap for some reason about anything. Part of my reason for saying that is JD farts obviously came over and just basically ridiculed the EU for some reason. I'm still not really sure why they did that other than speak to people at home. And I think it was Roy's reported like their sources claimed that was one of the reasons that the EU was going to impose a lower fine and it is lower than previous fines that have been dealt out and 500 million is not nothing but this is a a multi- trillion dollar company. Like the fine itself doesn't matter. I think they will get if they don't adhere to this they are going to fight it. If they don't adhere to it there will be like further fines. So we'll see how that rumbles on and we'll see if Apple actually complies or not. We've reached out to well Aaron you've been reaching out to a few people and you've had a few comments. What did you

get? Yes. So Ilia from the games fund said that the enforcement of the digital markets act is a meaningful step towards creating a more open competitive digital environment. So he thinks the the verdict is a fair one considering the longstanding concerns around like walls garden policies obviously like the control over app distribution and data consent. So he thinks that Apple and Meta are going to comply with you know what the what's been ordered basically and he yeah suggested that while the the change may be complex for like platforms of that size there's kind of a clear direction of um global market shifting towards transparency user empowerment and interoperability. So we yeah we also had uh Martin spans from the Dutch games association. So, thanks for sending in these comments. They'll be on the site possibly by the time this podcast goes

out or if not early early in the week. Yeah. Martin said, "Considering the time of the news, it's not hard to see this verdict in the light of the recent tumult around the imposed USA tariffs and the discussion around the dominance of California based big tech." Yeah. She says, uh, "Judging by Apple's first public statements in reply to the verdict, I think they won't just accept these fines without a fight. certainly help if game developers, publishers, and platforms share any finding on Apple's further non-compliance with DMA uh with the European Commission, which is quite a fighting talk. I think we actually spoke when Chris James, our CEO, spoke a couple weeks ago, sorry, about a month ago when he was on that actually it feels it's a bit different these days cuz like with this comment and I wouldn't be surprised if others already do speak up 10 years ago maybe, no one would no one would say a thing publicly about Apple. I've certainly had in the past people like can you comment on this and they're like there's no way I could comment on that not not publicly as their name anyway whereas now I think people are much more comfy with that and then she goes on to say and now after

Apple Meta it seems likely that Alphabet is next because the commission has also found they are not fully compliant with the DMA so we'll go into that in a bit as well Google is in hot water in the US kind of like a potentially a bit of a breaking up of of Google we could discuss whether that's good or bad. Just worth saying uh in regards to what Martin said there about Apple's reaction to the fine, they've said today's announcement are yet another example of the European Commission unfairly targeting Apple in a series of decisions that are bad for the privacy and security of our users, bad for products, and force us to give away our technology for free. I mean, all right. doesn't really I don't believe it does that at all because ultimately ultimately Apple still makes a tremendous amount of money from their platform and like for a 30% fee which is is crazy high like I feel like they could have you know I guess as a public company it's very difficult to

do this but if they had been able to lower their fee like properly to 10 15% or or whatever or or make scale it so like Steam does, you could argue they they've kind of scaled it the other way where they've gone, all right, it's a lower cut if you make under a million. And then Steam, which are private companies, you don't get that much insight into their revenue. I'm sure they're doing absolutely fine. Steam's more popular than ever. They scaled it the other way. So the more money you make, the the le the less percentage revenue share you have to give. They could do something like that. the money that they make is kind of if you're going to make even like billions really off of one game, is the service you're providing that worth it? Surely I don't think they do enough to to warrant that money. And then well the whole privacy thing just makes me laugh because it's a whole man I I mean privacy does matter to people like it does like matter to me for some reason

even though like what are they possibly going to really do to me with with some of the information I have on me? Obviously, other than obviously advertise products that probably don't. I was gonna say they're going to advertise you more like Godzilla merch. Yeah, that's true. Yeah, but um it is kind of like a manufactured issue in in some ways, but obviously it comes off the back of big tech probably back to Cambridge Analytica. Whatever people think of that probably birthed that kind of issue with privacy. Anyway, I feel like I'm getting off topic, but that was uh that was kind of the big news of the week. Uh Aaron, any thoughts? I mean, as you were saying with the whole privacy thing, like that always feels like the argument they fall back to as if it's, you know, there's no disputing it. It's like, yeah, fair enough. You know, you've won. So, it almost makes it feel like, yeah, the walled garden for their consumers is also like their shield against the Yeah. anyone criticizing them. Um, yeah, obviously. And as you were saying like

the amount that they've been fined currently like whether that is really gonna make a differencely like 500 million uh euros sorry is a a crazy amount of money but as you were saying for a company of Apple's size yeah whether that's going to be enough to change things and I was reminded as well of a story I covered earlier in the week where you were saying about like the 30% fees there that we wrote about uh Roblox's revenue from the past year. Um it was interesting looking at that apparently 80% of their you this is relevant but 80% of their users are on mobile and they contribute 46% of the Robux revenue. So 30% of Robux revenue is from and uh it was interesting reading through that that they noted like app store fees are one of their major expenses that they just obviously have to accept which makes sense but it was

just yeah I was a bit by surprise to kind of see it in in writing that um yeah like that is a major expense for them which makes sense at their scale and if you know basically a third of their revenue comes from the app store and if they're giving nearly a third of that away. But that is obviously a lot for Apple to be taking as you say like what kind of service is Apple providing to to warrant that. Yeah. Yeah, it's like well what's the price tag that Apple puts on a user and apparently it's infinite cuz after you know they have the platform I mean the whole thing gets ridiculous right because user acquisition so or Apple search ads so Apple provide Apple sorry charges a 30% fee generally I know it's different in the EU which kind of disgusting but it gets stupidly confusing the alternative business terms but say we were just talking about 30% they charge 30% And then on top of that they if you want to use Apple search ads so if you want to appear at the top of the search for

Roblox you have to spend you have to give Apple more money right whilst you do appear whilst sorry Apple does obviously provide a service and it does deserve to be paid right for what it does but they don't give you user acquisition for free you have to pay for it obviously there's some featuring and that and then obviously you spend loads of money on elsewhere. So, it's just the the the fine margins that developers end up getting just a bit insane is basically we're getting at. And don't forget, I guess one of my last thoughts on generally of kind of the app store in particular is that you know other company big companies have complained about it in the past and have not launched their products, right? So, you've got I think it's like Xbox cloud gaming or the Xbox marketplace isn't really launching because well, this is allegedly. I I still don't believe it exists. They're not really launching on the app store because or or at all because they can't cuz 30%'s too much

and they can't there's nothing to get around it. And then uh Facebook instant games. I was reminded earlier I think was it last year? It might have been this year. It just finally got like inapp purchases on the app store. And I'm just thinking why I was reporting on that. I don't know. I don't know when now. Seven, eight years ago. And and and Instant Games has kind of really faded away. Maybe it's coming back. I'm talking specifically about Facebook because it used to be the messenger then they they stopped that and it would just be on the Facebook platform itself. Yeah. It's like Apple has really stifled so much innovation in the industry because of these terms that they really need to start relenting on it a bit to be honest. But this this is how it goes I guess when you're a monopoly. I would like to say that if they don't relent then, you know, they'll be end up becoming irrelevant, but that that's not going to be the case ever. Right. So, I spent ages talking

about that one, but uh Aaron, you've got you've got more about monopolies. Yeah. Um yeah, a bit of a theme today. Uh so, yeah, as well as Apple's legal goings on. Google has been found guilty of illegal ad tech monopolies. So basically they were found guilty of willfully acquiring and maintaining monopoly power in publisher ad servers and ad exchanges that sit between buyers and sellers. So this was reported by Reuters. Um and the ruling was made on April 17th and it stated that Google's publisher tools basically excluded rivals and violated antitrust laws. The US District Judge Leone Brinka wrote that in addition to depriving rivals of the ability to compete. This exclusionary conduct substantially harmed Google's publisher customers. The competitive process and ultimately consumers of information on

the open web. Uh obviously Google has plans to appeal the decision. They're basically arguing against their tools having adverse impacts. So they already or at least their um spin on it was that they already won half the case because the Department of Justice failed to demonstrate uh how the advertiser tools um or certain acquisitions have been anti-competitive even though they they kind of lost on the the grounds of um monopolizing. I guess their argument was that well just confusingly yeah they half won half lost because the department of justice couldn't prove that it was anti-competitive what they had done anyway yeah probably a bit shorter than the Apple news but just yeah they've been found guilty but they're going to appeal it trouble with Google is is um in the Fortnite case against them as well right their behavior is is the issue it's not just

that they have formed a monopoly it is that they have been as in these cases is found and ruled at least to kind of be actively suppressing competition and in ways that is anti-competitive. That's their big issue. And now they've kind of really brought it upon themselves. Whether they get broken up, I don't know. It does seem maybe some of the remedies for these for this case might be breaking up Google a bit. I don't want to pretend I know loads about about kind of the ad space to be honest, but I have been reading around comments and one guy that used to work at Google and he was saying, you know, basically is it was a monopoly. They had an unfair advantage really over everyone. He said it was obvious back when I guess they made certain acquisitions. There's but there's the other sides. Again, I'm trying to I'm basically trying to make sense of this through what other people through what actual experts have said, but some people are like, well, is Google I think this might have been through Eric Sufoot

or someone in commenting on one of his posts perhaps? So, Eric Su mobile de memo the expert on this stuff. They they were saying that well maybe is is Google like okay is it's kind of like a bad in a way it's like a bad actor. Um, I don't think that's the way they necessarily put it, but maybe Google is also what was because it was making a lot of money and doing so successful out of it. Was were they also the ones that are propping up like the open web in face of kind of app stores, which I thought was interesting. If they're not powering the internet as a kind of money-making source for ads, like who's doing that? Obviously, there are companies, but like that at such a scale to make it worth worth your while. Does does someone else step in? Does it does it make the web as it was less interesting? The the other thing with Google is obviously like if you work in the media uh it's so it's just so tremendously you rely on Google so much for everything and anytime they ever change anything it

could be devastating. So usually that's to do with search but it could end up being the same with ads if something changed that could be devastating. So I'm keen curious where this what this leads to and obviously because again this is a US ruling a breakup is is on the cards but we'll see what happens. So moving on the next story the Discord CEO Jason Citron has stepped down. So he so the the messaging platform itself was launched 10 years ago. Origin originally discord was actually a game developer and then they had this platform and then they just decided to roll it out and just become this communications platform that has really since taken over the world for games. Like I use it I imagine most if not all really people that play games on their PCs at least use this to to chat with each other. It's it's such a good platform for that and it's become such a good platform for building games communities as well. So, but after

building it and they want to go public, they've made no secret of that. In his leaving post, he mentions that their future of potentially going public. They definitely are. But yeah, he's stepping away. The games guy is gone. And in his place is the former king president and Activision Blizzard vice chairman Ham Sakini. I think he also used to work McKenzie as a consultant. I think it's it's quite a surprise that Jason is leaving before all this happens, but I guess that's the route they want to go down that they think's best. He's still on the board of directors, so he's not like going far. He's still he's got to be an adviser to the new chief exec, but yeah, they've just gone a different way. Apparently, Discord now serves 200 million monthly active users. The company has a focus of pursuing opportunities beyond its core consumer subscription service including advertising microtransactions and providing social infrastructure to developers. It claims to have a positive adjusted bit a bit for the past five

quarters. Yeah, really really interesting. They're obviously going to go public. I hope it turns out well for Discord because it has become important to both developers, publishers, and consumers. And so if they start, you know, as a public company, the fear will be that they really start, they've reached scale now and now they've got to increase investor value and so they start squeezing everyone for as much money as possible. That's my fear. They can't obviously well they're a bit just growing. They can't obviously be uh money like they can't lose money, right? So, they deserve to make money, but I think what everyone have to watch out for over the next few years is what are they going to do to drive revenue further, which could be concerning, especially those tight margins we're already talking about earlier. Uh Aaron, what have you got next? Yeah, so next up from me is Ubisoft has partnered with Immutable to develop a mobile web 3 Mic game. So this new one, it's the 12th

game in the series apparently and it is Might and Magic Fates. So it's also the second game in the series to be on mobile following 19's Might and Magic era of chaos. So this is one that I wrote up earlier today at the time of us recording and it was interesting when I was looking into it cuz there were various press releases about it. reminded me a bit of when the Niantic Scopely news was going on and like everywhere you looked was another kind of official source explaining it. But um so obviously Immutable as like the web 3 blockchain platform. So um you would already imagine them partnering up means there is a web 3 element which there indeed is. Um, but Ubisoft seemed I got the impression at least from reading their press release that they were a bit cautious about telling people that even though they're trying to like advertise

their game because their press release and Immutables didn't clearly say what the web 3 elements were at all. So, it's a a trading card like deck builder game. So, obviously logically you would think that the cards are going to be the NFTts which does seem to be the case. But yeah, neither of their press releases clarified that. Um rather like Ubisoft's um basically explained that the trading is going to be possible through immutables marketplace and only in eligible regions. But basically don't worry if you can't trade. There's no competitive advantage to trading. So if if you don't want to be part of it, then you don't have to worry about that, which yes, really seemed like kind of tiptoeing around it. Anyway, so then I was reading through Immutables press release, which still didn't really clarify that the cards are the NFTts. So I then went on Might and Magic Fate

website and read through all the stuff and the front page doesn't mention it anywhere. It just says it's a trading card game. So it was like the last point at the end of the FAQ page on their website confirms that the cards are NFTTS. It says it explicitly. So yeah, right at the end of the FAQ page, basically it's it confirms Might and Magic Fates is a free-to-play card game at its core with an optional web 3 layer unlocks digital ownership players who want it. This means you'll have the opportunity to freely trade your cards using the immutable blockchain, but it's entirely optional and offers no competitive advantage. So yeah, the cards are are the web 3 element on immutable blockchain. But yeah, you really have to dig quite deep to actually um get that confirmed, which yeah, maybe not a great sign for their confidence in doing a a web three entry. I mean I know I know for a fact that it's kind of the PR

mo for these things particularly when it's like a big IP is really NFTs is either don't don't or web free but particularly NFTs is don't do it was company level but the PR thing is now don't tell people we've had a few people we've had a few speakers at at pocket gamer connects that I think because it's so it's such a toxic or NFT partic so toxic as a word in the industry now amongst consumers. You just can't be open about it. That isn't to say necessarily that users would actually in a game that some users would even notice or care about these things. Sometimes they will and rightly so with previous examples cuz some it's I think it's often looked as some of the poor implementations that there have been sometimes it feels like a cheap cash grab, right? But you know this tech could be interesting interested to see what happens with this. I don't think well we'll see what happens with Immutable. I don't think Ubisoft is the one to make this work. I I don't I don't

think we'll see much of this game in in like a year's well whenever it comes out in like a year's time. It's again just kind of Ubisoft doing some strange things. Can't can they not just make a good mobile game like using an IP? Did it have to have this this layer? Did it did this did this enhance the game, I guess, is the question. I I don't really get why they've done this. And also I I get they were already working on it, but they've just gone through this big they've gone through some really like kind of tough times as Cresello has it looks like it's been pretty successful, right? But then they had the uh the kind of the 10-centent investment and then they've got this new this new subsidiary just happens to have all their IP. Very strange deal. Looks like they're trying to stop but anyway they uh what am I trying to say? that they were going to focus on like their core IPs which which was not Might and Magic. I just don't really get why they keep doing this stuff. Why don't they just focus on some other things? At

least this is the road I RP. I don't know. It it it seems a very strange project for Ubisoft to be doing. You could argue at its best, probably people won't agree with this, but at its best, I'm talking about many many a moon ago, Ubisoft was actually great because it would come out of some sort of quirky project that's really fun, like Mario uh and and rabbits. That's kind of kind of wacky. And I was like, oh yeah, you know, it's kind of good that Ubisoft does that because they don't just do at least they don't just do their big AAA games. They will do some other stuff. But then it kind of spiraled a bit and then the the AAA stuff wasn't as some of it wasn't as interesting anymore. I'd argue outside of maybe Assassin's Creed. Far Cry is getting a bit tired in my opinion. And so and then they look like they kept doing more and more of these other projects. I need to maybe tighten the ship a bit. But unfortunately it's all a bit too late and there's been loads of layoffs and Ted investment. Now we'll see what happens. Yeah. Anyway,

moral of the story is strange project for Ubisoft to be doing. Yeah. And it just seems strange to me to I know as you're saying they don't want to kind of shout too loudly about the NFT elements, but I guess surely they're in there for the people that are into NFT stuff to, you know, for them to get on board with the game. But surely to be a meaningful a game with meaningful returns, you you can't just go for those people. You have to go for fans of that IP. if they how many of them there are I don't know still and then yeah you just have to go for a wider audience. The last thing I did actually want to touch upon and I'll I'll do it very quickly is Drakear partners has released their g their new report the global gaming report for Q1 2025 and looking at M&A it was interesting that they said M&A has rebounded in Q1 with 48 announced deals totaling $4.4 billion in disclosed value. This marks the highest quarterly

deal value in nearly two years and a strong recovery from the dip seen in Q4 2024. Obviously, there's one big deal that kind of takes over. Uh Scopley's $3.5 billion acquisition of Niantic powered by Savvy Games Group was the largest gaming deal in Q1 and the biggest in Scopley itself was acquired by Savvy for $4.9 billion in 2023. Other notable M&A activity this quarter included Triple Dot's reported $900 million acquisition of Apploven's games division. Although that's not gone through, right, as far as No, that's not gone through. It's just reported and Triple D is the buyer. We'll find out this quarter. I thought it was supposed to be at the end of Q Q1, but I guess we'll find out this quarter if that's actually going to happen because even in the stuff that said publicly by app loving, it's like triple dot might not have all the funds. Although Applo's got a dead fund itself. It gets very strange a theme with this

podcast a lot of strange things happening. And then other deals were mini clips acquisition of German mobile studio lemore and Crafton's purchase of Nautilus mobile. Q1 also saw 149 private placements totaling $3.5 billion in disclosed value. The largest was a reported $3 billion investment received by Infinite Reality at a valuation exceeding $12 billion. Notable rounds, Grand Games, Good Job Games, etc. And then there's new gaming funds. I think we've probably gone through this before. Tilting point 150 million. Arcadia gaming advisers which is actually uh triple docks Aken uh their former president 100 million skills 75 million l ventures 50 million. I feel like Leighton was last year. I might be maybe I'm confused. Uh which wouldn't be a surprise. Yeah, I guess a good sign for M&A. Obviously there's the big deals that are kind of powering it. So once again we'll see how it goes for the rest of the year. Drake's outlook is we anticipate a gradual uptick in M&A

activity over the rest of the year. Key buyers to watch include Savvy and Scopley, Tencent, Craftton, Keyword Studios/EQT, Jagex/CVC. So they're like the owners of those companies, Infinite Reality again, Sony and Asthma. Private equity firms are expected to remain very active with several publicly traded companies potentially being taken private. Interesting. Key growth segments are expected to include AI, tech platforms, and blockchain. Still, we're still banging that blockchain drum. It's like it goes, comes back, it sort of goes, it's still here. Blockchain ones are always the ones that raise ridiculous amounts of money. Said later stage financings will likely continue to be challenging. If public markets stabilize, we'll see how that goes. Surely, surely that is not a theme of this year. Unless in the next 100 days the whole tariff situation is sorted. No more trade wars, which good luck.

But if public markets stabilize, Drake said coffee stain is expected to go public soon. So goat simulator as part of a spin out from Embracer. Oh yeah, of course. Is that coffee stain? You know, I forgot all about it. Coffee stain and friends it asian friends. Coffee stain and friends and middle earth and friends were the tentative names I think for these companies. Anyway, uh other gaming companies including Discord are reportedly preparing for IPOs as we've discussed. So, could be a big year for M&A. Some money's flying back in. See how the year goes. So, we've chatted a lot today. Uh but that brings us to the end of the Pocket Game Adopt this week in mobile games. Thanks everyone for tuning in again and listening. We hope you found it interesting. As always, please do uh leave us some feedback if you have any. Thank you very much, Aaron, for taking part in the show. Yeah, thank you. Yeah, very excited for to be here for the 51st episode. For the 51st, real milestone this week. It's

going to be interesting how we do this over the next couple weeks because I'll be in Brazil and then Dubai. Hopefully I can find somewhere where we can record. Yeah. So, we we will be back. So I guess um whilst joking about the 51st there like 52 episodes you that is a full week full years worth of weekly episodes. Obviously we've been going longer than that but um yeah there's some some value to 52 is some some value we keep making it up like oh there's some value to 53. Yeah 57 what can we link that to? So anyway thanks once again we'll see you next week. Goodbye.