Week in Mobile Games E53 - Will Squad Busters 2.0 revive its fortunes?

[Music] Hello and welcome to the pocket gamer.biz podcast week in mobile games where we talk about the week's news and provide some insights. I'm Craig Chapel, head of content at pocket gamer.biz. And with me this week once again, Aaron Assel, as always, our news editor. Thanks for joining the show, Aaron. How have you been? Yeah. Yeah, not too bad. Thank you. Um, my hay fever's been uh getting pretty bad the past week or so. That's probably the most exciting thing going on in my life right now. But other than that, yeah, doing all right. Not too eventful this week. I've been um sort of forced into playing a lot of Pokemon Pocket forced because yeah, um DNA are making me do it against my will. There's an event going on to get like a full art rare Rayquaza card. Whether you know that one from like Ruby and Sapphire days. Don't know that one. It

was the mascot of Emerald, which was like the third. But yeah, basically you have to win like 50 battles in May to get the card, which is quite a lot. And I'm up to like 30 something now. Is that a lot? Well, I suppose it depends how much. Like I usually just go on to open some packs and then close the game again. So actually having to commit to playing engage properly with the game. So yeah, gradually working through those. I've got quite a few shiny cards recently though, so I feel like I'm kind of being rewarded for putting the time in. Yeah, that's kind of it for me really. What about you? You're taking a break for all the partying, you know? Yeah. Yeah. Just just playing on my phone like a a sensible person. Um, as for myself, I've been playing CLA obscure expedition 33 and I must say it's an excellent game. I'm absolutely loving it. The I was trying to explain it to someone earlier very poorly why I liked it without spoilers and I I I stumbled my way to uh well the normal

things that people probably say visually it's a stunning game and it's just a very different look and feel to it. The story I'm sure it's going to go off the deep end very quickly but I am really enjoying it. I think it all comes together very well and thematically throughout the game. The kind of the backgrounds, the history, the world building all comes together really nicely. Lots of interesting kind of shocking moments. The characters I feel like are really well done. The voice acting is excellent as well, I have to say. Sometimes it's hit and miss in some games, but actually this is brilliant. Although characters speaking like I don't know if there's a French language version of this game. They speak just like in like full on like thick British accents and I'm like but then occasionally they'll they'll say I don't actually know if it's a French swear word so I guess I won't say it but occasionally they'll say like a they'll throw out a French word and I'm like that is the most French thing anyone

said in this in this game. But the the thing that I think it does really well is at least not always but some parts it does very much does the show don't tell and I think that's that to me that sums up the prologue which has a lot of heavy lifting to do to give you the whole backstory and exposition of the game but it actually does it in a really clever nice way. There's not really any action. There's like tutorial battles if I remember right, just a couple. And then the rest is kind of story, but it delivers it in a way that's like no one stands there and goes one 100 years ago or whatever this this happened, etc., etc. You feel like you're you you're just put in a world where characters have lived it. No. And everyone knows it, so they just tell you. And then the but through that it still delivers enough backstory and gives you enough mystery for the rest of the game where there is a bit of exposition at times

but they they do pretty good job otherwise. Anyway, there the combat's great I think. Uh I've got to a bit now where I'm having to do the old JRPG grind. My characters weren't leveled up highly enough at all. So you hit a boss battle and you're like, "Oh yeah, I haven't really been doing these battles, have I?" Now I'm just getting absolutely destroyed. a bit of that. But then with the the there's a parry system and a and a dodge or evade system because the when when you're attacked, it's kind of a live game still, so you can still do moves. And in theory, you could probably get quite far through the game. I'm sure some people could without leveling up at all actually get through quite far, but to actually do real damage and really for me to survive. Yeah. Need need more health, need more strength. But no, I I couldn't be more positive about the game to be honest. It's brilliant. Any plans? Sounds pretty good. Any plans to play it? Is it on Switch? I don't think so. I don't actually know. I think it's X as a guess. Xbox PC. I'm playing it on Game

Pass. Right. Well, I said before, I'm a hypocrite. I play Game Pass games now. If it comes to Switch 2 and when I eventually get the Switch 2, I'll um I'll bear it in mind to give it a go. I probably won't be picking up a Xbox or PS5 just for for one game. No, no, that's fair. That's fair. But no, it sounds interesting. You've um Yeah, been a good sales pitch there. I do highly recommend it. It's It feels like a bit of a breath of fresh air. That said, I haven't played that many JRPG games, I think, in recent years, so maybe there's a lot of other games that do it just as well, but this I don't know. It just feels different, interesting both visually and otherwise. Anyway, so uh we'll jump into the news as always. A few shout outs for our events. PGC Barcelona June 3rd to 4th, which is again just looking great. We've got some really excellent speakers shaping up. I think we're about to drop meet match access and we're not too far away. Well,

we we're announcing speaker waves now and the schedule I'm sure will not be too far behind. We got the PGC Summit in Shanghai July 30th, PGC Helsinki October 7th to 8th, the PGC Jordan later this year in November, and the Mobile Games Awards in August during Gamescom week. And we should be announcing the lobbying process this week. If it hasn't happened by the time this podcast comes out, then it is next week. We have been in discussions about the categories, etc. So, I spoke a lot last week. Uh, and Aaron has the big story of the week. So, Aaron, we're going to kick off with you. And what have you got for us? Okay. So, um, yeah, the big news this week really is, uh, Squadbusters 2.0 is here, which is a real like revamp for the, um, for the Supercells game, which obviously launched last May. So, this big update's come a couple of weeks before the first

anniversary. It was May 13th that they kind of overhauled everything and essentially it's quite significant change to the gameplay. They've changed it from being a kind of nebulous squad of characters, hence the name, to being more centralized around a hero character as they call them. So, um, like a barbarian king, for example, which now players control that character instead of kind of all these little characters at the same time. And the the rest of the squad, which are called squatties, follow the hero character around. And basically, you can lose your squatties, but you can't lose your hero, otherwise it's game over for you. Um, and yeah, so I kind of got a bit of an early look at um at this 2.0 and spoke a bit with um some of the Supercell teams. It was head of

marketing Rob Low and um the head of Squadbusters Jonathan Rollins who was formerly the head of studio at Space 8 which obviously got acquired by Supercell. So yeah, it was quite interesting hearing. So apparently this change was in the works before Rand's um kind of made the move to Supercell, but he's been around since like the prototyping phase, which was January time. And they've been the SquadBusters team have been trying to come up with ideas to really Yeah. revamp things and make more of the game because obviously it wasn't the biggest success in the world since. I think that's very polite. Yeah. I mean, most studios would like 100 million game, but then most also don't have a massive celebrity campaign, these small but probably very expensive team supercell expectations and community, etc. Yes, indeed. So, yeah, they've been apparently basically trying to come up with ideas and kind of landed on a vague idea of doing these hero central

characters around like October, November time. So, it's been in the works for quite a while to to bring this change. They said that basically they'd been playing around with different ideas of how to do it. Scaling back the squad element kind of too much they ultimately decided. So then they added like more of the squatties back in and various things I kind of go into in my article which everyone should read. Yeah. Essentially I think they acknowledged really that yeah it's not been the biggest hit in Supercell's library by any means. it's been quite a small title and that they wanted to rework it so that I think they they basically said part of the problem was they thought they could market it to everyone like casual midcore and hardcore mobile gamers. Hence like the Hollywood celebrity trailer which was more to get kind of casual gamers eyes on it but then also more kind of like gameplay focused trailers for more I guess experienced mobile gamers if um that's the right term.

But um then ultimately I think they've ended up with um just something in the middle that didn't quite work and that maybe had a bit too much complexity at times for the really casual people but not enough of upfront decision making before the battles for more of strategic preferring players. So they've now really decided to focus on a more kind of yeah experienced mobile audience rather than the broad casual gamer who doesn't really play a lot of games. Then yeah low said that one of the mistakes that they made with launch was that they felt through testing that the game could appeal to multiple audiences at the same time. Uh he did say they don't regret launching it in the way that they did and that it's you know it still taught them lessons. I did ask about whether keeping it in soft launch for longer might have made this kind of 2.0

transition easier because part of the changes as well have meant removing certain modes and um features and stuff that people obviously will have liked and also really overhauling progression models that is kind of going to have undone work that players have been putting in. Yeah, to me at least I would be less annoyed if I were heavily invested in the game if you knew it was still in soft launch. I guess you're more open to changes whereas a year after global launch that would probably be a bit annoying and so they acknowledged that there is some anguish from players and said that they don't like removing things but when they do it's for the right reasons apparently. Did they give these players like some sort some form of compensation? They said that um players will get like hero points and various items depending on like how much they progressed in the different areas. But I still think we're even if it were quite a wide reaching

soft launch to me I would be less annoyed to have it would still be annoying but you'd kind of accept well it's not the the full launch yet. kind of the deal, right? Like early access, like you know, things are going to change. You might not invest as much into it. And yeah, and they also said like certain skins for characters were being removed, which like I don't quite I'm sure there is a reason, but I don't quite see why that would need to go with like the gameplay changes, but like that would probably be annoying as well if you like work to unlock these kind of alts basically. And then it's like they're not in the game anymore. Uh but all that sounds quite negative but um obviously they're hoping that these changes in the long run are going to pay off and um I guess whether we have another Brawl Stars situation is yet to be seen whether there is going to be a resurgence um and beyond where Squad versus has been before. They said that they've obviously been quite inspired by what Brawl Stars has managed

to do, but it's they've not kind of directly copied what Brawl Stars did then because obviously they're they're different kinds of games, but that yeah, generally that kind of risk takingaking is something that they've taken on board and tried to do here as well. And I I guess the risk is annoying your player base in the the short term to hopefully make a a better game. But yeah, so quite quite big news. So I guess we'll we'll monitor how much of an impact it has. I guess a few takeaways I mentioned before it is it does just go back to and what you were saying about at least what players think of soft launch. You could have they could have gone through all this in soft launch. Wasn't there a there's a quote or or a suggestion that they learned a lot more potentially from all these millions of players? It's just a it's just a surely you get the same results from a slightly smaller sample

like mobile developers been doing for 10 15 years where testing these things again the Brawl Star story long long time in soft launch changes and and I'll say again would Braw if Brawl Stars had been released straight away would it have been as successful as it was ultim ultimately was at launch obviously have spent a few years in in the doldrums in terms of making quite a lot of money but not a supercell level I guess but then they obviously obviously the massive turn around this is what the struggle that they're finding now right and now it also seems they're kind of turning it into I've seen comments people like so you're kind of turning it's a bit more like Brawl Stars then almost you could say at what point does this become a game mode within Brawl stars since that's kind of one of the directions they're going with that. I wonder if that ever just just does happen. I think Supercell like what's

what's the model here? I guess like Supercell has always been known for failing fast. They'll cancel games in soft launch. At some point there was probably going to be a game that doesn't do well for them, right? I guess it happens to everyone. There should have been things in place that mean it didn't really happen, but then that means you don't release a game, but that's probably better, right? In the end, all that pressure that they still be under to release a game, but it's probably better not to do it, arguably. Uh if if the result is poor, but that said, you know, they they've given their reasons before for doing it. But like should Supercell kind of take its advice of kill your darlings and just do it to a live game rather than I mean fair enough they're giving it another crack and they do have experience once with Brawl Stars. Clash Royale is is up again to be fair of like turning things around but it's it's like it's such fundamental gameplay changes that they're making. Is

it worth it? I guess they could prove us all that it is. I am dubious and some of the comments you were making there. So Jason Avent who was the Jason Avid who was the CEO of Boss Alien which made the CSR racing games and they got acquired by Natural Motion. CSR Racing 2 did extremely well. CSR Racing 3 is currently in soft launch. So it is called I think it was called CSR Racing but I'm pretty sure the AR is racing. Um the CSR3 whatever. Anyway, he had a new studio. I think it was called Hard Ball. I'll need to check that and he did a post I think it was today about the basically the studios ultimately it was is closing down and there are some different reasons obviously it's a new studio so it was their debut game and I think they had investment they had a big idea big mass market game that they thought could do really well. What happened was investment dried up. So

this is where it links bit to squadbusters. Invest for dried dirt and so they pivoted and they decided to have the same game release it on PC but for a more niche niche niche audience and ultimately that didn't work. So they they've closed the studio basically. I feel like that what you were explaining from the interview is is kind of the same issue. They had an idea they could attract all these audiences, right? And so they build the game kind of well they're building the game for that and now they've changed it and so they they've got specific audience in mind but now what who have you made this game for now? There's only so much you can change without literally just making a new game. Mhm. You even mentioned like oh you know we were kind of getting rid of the squads so we thought we should bring those back. Was that because they thought they should bring it back because that's a good game design decision or is because it's called Squadbusters and they don't want it to be Brawl Stars. So like who are they

making like have they just lost the audience now and it doesn't make sense anymore I guess is my takeway. It is very negative and again there's a lot of smart people at Supercell and they have proven but is the model can't be we'll do Brawl Stars every time cuz cuz that is Ilka said himself he's never seen anything like it. The game had a massive turnaround. So that is you can't replicate that all the time no matter how good you are. It might happen again but they do say lightning doesn't strike twice. So yeah, I I'm not uh I'm not that confident with respect to the team of the future of this game. I think it could become their first canned game and if I had to make a a bold a bold prediction. I feel like they wouldn't actually just throw it away. They would probably try and wrap it up in Brawl Stars. Yeah, on that prior note, they did say as well when I spoke to

Supercell, Lo said that, yeah, part of the goal with this update is to bring back lapsed players who were possibly interested conceptually when it came out, but not in execution, which I guess how realistic it is to convince someone who already tried it out like a year ago that now it's the more strategic game that you wanted a year ago. I don't know. But that was of a stated aim for this update. Be surprised if those users exist at scale. I know that Supercell has a very like is very close with its community. So maybe it's a thing for Supercell, but I can't imagine there's like a million, two million users that are like, I like this conceptually. I'll come back. I don't know. I think Yeah. I think it's just a lot more expensive UA to get these people back and it probably won't be a big celebrity marketing camp. Yeah. Be more targeted this time. Yeah.

Good luck to them. Any more on that? I guess on a arguably more positive note, you're saying it could be the first like global Supercell game to close or be on a more positive note. Yeah. Yeah. So, there's a butt coming, but it has been bigger than Mo, so maybe that will be the the first one instead. Well, well, Boo is is technically still invit. I guess that is in fairness to Boo. I think we might have said incorrectly before. We might have said it or I mean it is available globally, but it you still need an invite to my knowledge last I watched it. So, it is different. But you're right on the one hand. Yeah. Like that's not a positive. That's That is not a It's positive for Squad Busters that it's not the worst performance. It's not positive for either. If anything, that's a bit of an indictment on on what on Supercell at the moment for for new game launches. They'll keep at it. I'm sure there'll be

another big game at some point. Yeah, obviously we reported they had a big like 2024 overall like three billion across there. Yeah, I mean again they are doing fine, but like are they going to repeat that growth this year? Because you you can only do Brawl Stars once. like by the end of this year, do we does it say it's a decline? Like ultimately, Supercell is absolutely doing okay. Like I say, just what comes next? That's that's the real challenge that they've faced for many years since Rule Stars kind of since and then since its recovery and I don't think they have an answer even though they're trying very hard to find one. Right, we'll move on to the next story. So, one of the biggest stories this week is, of course, the the US China trade war is basically on pause for 90 days. So, they've agreed that they're going to reduce US levies to 30%. From Wednesday, May 14th, so we're recording this on Thursday, so that was yesterday. And China tariffs on US goods

will fall to 10%. uh the reduction applied to the reciprocal tariffs and not the fentinel tariffs. There's so many different types. So I think if I'm right, I don't have this in front of me. I think what that means is I think the fentinel tariffs are at 20% and the the baseline for Trump's tariffs are 10%. So uh and they're not reciprocal in any way, shape or form, even though they that's what they're branded as. So in total it is now 30%. So was it all worth it? was the economic turmoil which we kind of passed like the decline but like the damage is already done right people's investments are still down etc. So, was it all worth it? Absolutely not. And seemingly from what I have seen, like there was no conditions on this 90-day pause. So, it wasn't like China was like we'll do this that. It was just like America pretty worried about the damage the announcement and these tariffs have done

to I think their own economy in the US like there from this it doesn't do really the core I guess the core two things that the Trump administration said they wanted which is to increase manufacturing and potentially jobs within the US and to raise more money through tariffs so they can lower income tax if that if that ever happens. This is this is the same government that gave tax breaks to the rich at the last I guess there's not too much more to say a 90-day pause. We'll see what happens whether at the end of it there's like a deal that might that'll probably end up being like the UK deal, right? Which was well here's a couple things and there you go. We'll shut up about it. Great. Thank you. I mean we're still worse off than we were before but like we didn't even have a trade deficit I don't think with the US in the UK. So calling it reciprocal again is is mind-blowing. Or if there was it certainly wasn't 10%. I guess it's good news for like hardware manufacturers Apple which again they

what was the story they spent like 2 billion dollars was it to airship iPhones from India to the US cuz they were worried and now that colossal effort also they must be thinking like the what the hell although I think there are still terrorists on India. I can't remember now, but like they must be thinking what what's the point? What is what is the point in any of this? Yeah, it could all it could all go horribly wrong within 90 days for sure. But I I I had this feeling that the Trump admin keeps kind of kicking things down the road. It announces like something massive and then it kind of kicks the care way way down the road. We're still waiting for the tick tock deal in the US. I imagine that will happen, but he's yet to happen. I'm sure it'll be a key part of of these negotiations for some reason. Um, but yeah, good news for Switch as well. And overall, to be honest, no one wants a trade war. And so, well, I guess some people do um in the US for good or

bad reasons. But ultimately, trade wars are bad and this is good news. We'll see what happens. Can't wait to report on it next week. Any thoughts there? Mainly that it's just hard to keep up, you know, like by the by the time this podcast goes out, this might be out of date. Obviously, it's a real worry really. And then it comes shortly after the the film thing, 100% tax on non-Americanmade films, I think it was, but there's no detail. What does that mean? I covered that. Yeah. Like the other week, but yeah. Does that mean if something's kind of Hollywood studios kind of producing it but it's filmed in like New Zealand like I think Minecraft movie was you know was that made in America or made in New Zealand like how does that count or you know it it was just a very ambiguous it's really wasn't it the whole thing I

know that they want I think the idea is ultimately to revive some of Hollywood's fortunes But how do I word this carefully? It's not very for for a conservative party, it doesn't seem like a very capitalist response. Um, so surely what you do is you compete in a in a in a capitalist market, which is ultimately they have to give some form of tax breaks to Hollywood, not like punish competitors for trying to be competitive. Yeah. Obviously in the UK, one of the things that we do here is we have pretty generous tax rates to my knowledge film production. That's how we've kind of got a lot of films to be made in the UK. A lot a few. I don't know. I'm not a film reporter. Just what I've read. And you know, why not just compete properly? And also make sure I guess make sure you've got all the the ecos I guess they have these things, the ecosystem, the facilities, etc. the expertise to compete properly. Otherwise, you're just shoehorning competition to say like,

actually, no, film should just be done here no matter what. It's like that's not how it works. Well, in theory, that's not how it works. But people sure are trying to make it that way. Anyway, the other I guess the other thing was like you did the article about how it impacts a game made films. She talked about Minecraft and what's to stop it? Games is a big industry, bigger industry. What's to stop that happening with games? So suddenly there's a big 100% tariff on games developed outside of the US. And al by the way, US does uh generous tax breaks in in various states for games. So it' be interested to see if they did that. I'm getting way ahead of myself complaining about something that hasn't happened. But uh I'm intrigued. Like if it happens to feel, why not game? That's quite scary. Anyway, enough about enough about Trump and politics and tariffs. Aaron, what else have you got? Yeah. So, my other story today is that Sega is still aiming for a 2025 release for Sonic Rumble

uh after it's multiple delays and very last minute delay earlier this month. So, I spotted this when looking through Sega's latest financial report where it kind of highlighted upcoming projects. Um, and uh, Sonic Rumble was listed as a an upcoming 2025 game uh, among some other things that had more precise release uh, release windows, but um, obviously originally Sonic Rumble was going to be a winter release and then they pushed it to spring of this year and then they did give it a kind of global release date um, for early May. I think it was the 8th of May it was going to release and then it I think it was the first when they then announced that we're basically they're going to delay it indefinitely at that time. So yeah, it was really quite a mystery at that

point like how long is this going to be delayed for? Um, again, obviously a week before it was expected to release, and they were in the middle of what was going to be the final event for soft launch players, like a crossover event, and then that was supposed to end as the global launch happened. But yeah, then they they pushed it back and said that they they're going to fundamentally reshape the game. And as I say, just saying, you know, we're we're delaying it indefinitely. It was very much when is this game gonna gonna happen? When are we going to hear about it again? But yeah, as I say, I guess slightly positive news that the at least according to the financials, yeah, it's still planned for this year and that is 2025 as in the actual year, not the next fiscal year by the end of December. I guess they're hoping to get the game out. So yeah, that's um that's my little bit of good news, I suppose. In a way, I I think um it was just an astonishing

decision to have the release date and then wow, a week before just be like, actually, no. Like that's that's mental to me that you could get that close. Like what was the data that they saw in the soft launch? And I'm in the Discord community as well. But what was the data that they saw that was like firstly we're confident we can release this game. We feel good about it. Here's a release date and then and then get that close and then just say no, we need to do a lot of work and not just delay it a little bit indefinitely. That's mad. And yeah, to say like the quote was to fundamentally reshape the game which Yeah. deciding that a week before. But I guess to go back to the supercell stuff, I mean in in credit in fairness at least they did that. It is better is surely better to to do that in soft launch say

actually it's not going to work. M cuz you you can only launch once properly. So if they can make fundamental changes and if they make a difference then you would say I think it's a massive if if it happens by the end of 25. no matter what it says because because ultimately it that's not it's probably not going to have much impact when it releases on their on their financials unless it's super mega hit really. So I think they could probably kind of say what they want publicly. Oh yeah, it will release this year and then they'll just delay like it's not material impact. I don't think investors are sitting there going oh it's been moved that was their big release of the year. It's not really uh it's a bit sad for the for the Roio Sega partnership that it's also not happening. Um I don't think it's very good look for that at the moment. But again like as I say better to do it and and just find either as they're doing

redevelop it or just find a new project basically that will work uh to carry on with. Um but yeah, it's a very old one cuz yeah, I guess as well kind of an example where that worked I think isn't it weathering waves um kind of got reworked a lot. I I know it wasn't like a week before launch but they sort of went back to the the drawing board and reworked the story and changed quite a lot and then that kind of paid off because it became a pretty big thing last year I think. Yeah. And again is that's what that's that's why you do testing and software to to see these major issues really. So again credit to them but it's just slightly different from that and slightly different supercell in that you're confident enough to firstly cuz they did it in phases right it's in soft and then I don't remember if at the same time but I think it was later I'm not sure then they announced like a vague release window like the spring or something. Yeah actually was winter wasn't it? Well, yeah. I say it was winter and then they

delayed it spring and then a specific day. So, it's kind it's a problem of their own making now marketing PR wise. And then you get so close and it and it just gets CAD. It's probably not great for the community though cuz they probably feel a bit lied to. Yeah. Well, cuz like they did a big um you know pre-registration campaign as well with like various rewards based on the pre-registration numbers. Oh, the special uh what was the uh event though? What was the character? They did a whole like, wasn't it the 30 days building up to launch? They had a special character. Yeah, they did a crossover with a couple of IPs. Um, it was uh is it like Super Monkey Ball, Rumble, something? So, it's like tough to do that again potentially. Yeah. Very. So, they were obviously very confident. I'm just I wish I was in the room. Like, what what was the moment? What was the thing that was like we can't do this guys? It's gone offline. Really interesting. Right. final couple fairly quick stories. So, uh we talked

at length before about the app store epic ruling. I won't go on another 20 minute don't know TED talk about that, but we we uh we did say about getting leaked some comment from from lawyers. So, we asked Futura Digital who did kindly uh write us, it's on the website now, they did kindly write us an article. Basically, a lot of it is about the buildup, the background to the Epic Games versus Apple case, which obviously, just reiterate a little bit, a US judge ruled a lot of things, but effectively that um Apple was acting anti-competitively and they must now allow linkouts to alternative payments directly, which they couldn't do before. And Apple got a very, what's the word? A big slap, I don't want to say slap on the wrist. It was a big smackdown is what they got and potentially criminal proceedings from one of their executives. That's a very very serious stuff. So we asked um Futura you know

what I guess what what could happen now? What's like the next steps? And there was a couple things that were interesting. Uh one of the things that I found interesting was uh well the the I guess there's two things that they put here. be for the lying under oath accusation. Apparently, the potential term for imprisonment is up to 5 years. Then it said a thing I wasn't actually aware of. It said while Apple was appealing the injunction, it had coded activities for dodging the court's injunction, referring to them as Michigan and Wisconsin in its internal communications. They have these code names for trying to talk about things secretively but through like internal cult. And if you remember, part of this case, the judge thought something was up with Apple and demanded, I believe it was demanded contemporaneous documents on their internal communications, which then brought up all this stuff about really maybe they're not being so genuine with what they say to the court versus what they're actually doing

behind the scenes, which is really interesting. And then I guess the other important thing is this is just the perspective of one legal firm. They said Apple will appeal this decision. We know that considering the context it's unlikely for Apple to succeed which is as a lawyer saying it is a bit more gravitas and it's just the one at the moment that we have we have asked around for more but that that is quite significant because the other side of it is really Apple does a judge have the jurisdiction to rule that Apple can't make any money from its app store business when it comes in our purchases and that actually if you think about this again not a lawyer this the seeming legality legality of that that's really really harsh on Apple a decision that costs billions of dollars obviously Apple shot itself in the foot or in the face frankly with their action so maybe

you know maybe you should listen to the court when there's an injunction and this is the consequence of that But as a decision, if if it was to if Apple was to lose its appeals, it's quite shocking. Um, so you kind of can see both sides in a way, but yeah, apparently unlikely for Apple to succeed and then really we'll just see we'll see what happens from here. It's uh I think as Rich noted, you know, there could be many it's quite unpredictable really in the end. Various things that could happen. That brings us to the end of the week in mobile games podcast. So, thank you everyone for listening. Thank you very much Aaron for your insights and we'll be back again next week. So, we'll see you then. H have a great weekend everyone. See you soon. Goodbye.