Week in Mobile Games E54 - Fortnite’s Epic return and the challenges of launching a game in 2025

[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 pocket gamer.biz. With me today, our deputy editor, Paige Cook, is back on the show. Good to have you back. Good to be here. And our news editor, Aaron Assel. So, what have you two been up to? Anything fun? Just new house stuff for me. Uh, that's why everything behind me is very plain. This room, I need to I need to turn it into my little office/games room. Like, you can't see, but there's so much room over on the other side. So, all I have in here is like my little corner desk and nothing else. So, I'm going to turn it into a games room. I like these subtle brag about how big your house is there. It's not always a good thing cuz I've got to fill it otherwise it just looks like just empty space. So, I'm going to figure something out. But my cat is very

attached to me at the moment. So, he's in the chair behind me. That's why there's a random chair in the background because since we've moved here, he's always quite needy, but now he's particularly needy. So, I'm hoping he sleeps through the podcast of why there's going to be a cat on the desk. So, I'm hoping he stays in that little spot. He's so cute. I was going to make a joke about the chair, but the cat's there. The cat's there. There's a reason. He has to have his own office chair, so he's hard at work. But I um on our little podcast, Doc, I found it funny that for things we've done this week, yours says, "I finished Clare Obscure," and mine is, "I nearly finished Clare Obscure." I was hoping Aaron was going to put something like I haven't played Clare Obscure. Yeah, I I haven't. All at various stages, but yeah. Is it possible to say without spoilers where you are in the game? I know I'm near the end. I'm just I'm just wrapping a few side bits up before I I end it, but I know I'm near the end. Is are those the optional side quests for your gang at the end? Yeah, like your

companion quest. All right. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Yeah, you are. But it's very good. Yeah. I I uh uh I I loved it. I thought it was a fantastic game. Uh the I think the mechanics are brilliant. the story. I don't know how I feel about it at the moment. There's a lot of twists which uh are great, but also I can't say anything to ruin it. Yeah, I was following it to a certain point and even though I saw some of the twists coming, when it happened, I was then like, "Okay, now I have like a lot more questions than answers." It makes sense by the end to a degree. And I think the ending is is pretty good. It's it's interesting. it and it stays with you. I definitely want to talk to you about that next. Well, we can't we can't actually do spoilers, but let me know when you finished. I will. Okay. Yeah, we'll discuss. Anyway, spoilers. So, Aaron, what have you been up to other than not playing Clare Obscure? Yeah.

Um, so I think for a bit of continuity from last week, so I know everyone's going to be desperate to know. I think last week I was saying I've been playing a lot of Pokémon Pocket because there's an event where you can get a Rayquaza. Yes. Yes, if you win like 50 battles this month. And you said 50 was a lot. It It is quite a lot cuz the battles maybe take like 3 to 5 minutes each. I feel like scaled it up. You got to win 50 of them. It's a few hours work. That's quite a lot. Anyway, I finally did it last night so I can finally rest and just go back to opening packs for a while and not actually battle with the new card that I've finally received. Probably the idea of that is to form a bit of a habit, right? So that you enjoy it and you continue doing it and you're just like, "Nah, I'm done." I think the battles are quite fun, but um I think I've just got too much else to play that it's not high enough on my priority list most of the time. Like I'm still playing

through Zenoblade, which has been like two months of being my main. Isn't that like a 200 hour game? Yeah, it probably will be for a while. But yeah, I mean, yeah, the pocket event thing got me building more decks to try out. So, it was a good thing ultimately because uh I played the battles quite a bit when it came out and then kind of stopped. So, I've got so many more cards now from the expansions. It was it was quite fun to go back and actually build some newer decks to play with. Nice. Nice. So, you know, I think it was a good event overall. I would have preferred if they didn't give me a time limit on getting the the cool card. Just done it a bit more gradually. But again, I guess the point is to, as you say, try and get that habit for me. And as for my myself, yeah, as I've just discussed, playing CL and I have this thing where I'll like play there's some games I just play all the time. Kind of stopped playing Starcraft a little bit, but I

still watch videos. I'm obsessed and I play Apex, but like I'll get really obsessed by a game. So that was Cla Scoo and I was playing like every evening looking forward to it and then earlier this year I had it with Aliens Dark Descent which was which is a brilliant brilliant game. There's some major bugs in it which can be frustrating. Yeah, a bug stopped me from playing that game. What happened? It was this was literally at launch. I got it like straight away and I was doing a mission and all of my people just got stuck and then they all died. So, I was like, "No, that I can't do it anymore." But I knew because it was early, I was like, "You know what? I'll come back to it in a few months time when they've patched some of it." And I haven't been back since, but if it's better now, I will go back to it cuz I really enjoyed it. But it was just like all of these characters that I built up, they all died. One time I remember walking around, I'm like absolutely terrified. And then I was like, "Hang on a minute. There's there's only three of us. There should be there should be four people here." I was like, "Where's the other person? They're not dead." And they were just nowhere to be

found. I think they were in a wall somewhere and and that was it. Like they wouldn't die, but obviously they would not get to the end of the missions. Yeah. So, there were some bugs. Anyone listening, it is a very It is It is a very good game, I would say. And to my point, I'd get obsessed with these games and then once I finished it, I'm like, what do I do now? I was like, it's kind of feels like too much to jump straight into another game. Anyway, we'll get on to the news. As usual, a few shout outs. Pocket Gamer Connects Barcelona June 3rd and 4th. That's very soon. PGC summit in Shanghai July 30th. I should be at that, but I need to get my visa sorted and that is a process. They're like call up. You have to like get in contact at the embassy if you're a journalist. Okay. No one answers the phone and no one responds to email. So, I guess I'll just fill out the form and hope. So, I might be there. PGC Helsinki October 7th and 8th. PC Jordan later this year. Mobile Games Awards at Gamescom. Right. So, we're going to get to the news. The obviously the big story of the week is

Fortnite is back on the app store finally. So five years ago now just just just under maybe Epic Games decided it was going to start this campaign against mostly Apple but also against Google. Uh and then they had that famous video based off of 1984 with a big Apple on the screen if anyone remembers. also kind of reminiscent of HalfLife 2 which I guess is reminiscent of 1984. So that and then in so they put their own payment system in and obviously that was gets up to terms got banned and here we are 5 years later it's back the court case is still going on don't forget but there's it's been a very interesting week I say what was it two weeks ago something like that the judge basically upheld the injunction as we've spoke about on this podcast I think for the past few weeks probably talk about it every week from now till the end of time and kind of called out Apple's anti-competitive practice said

they have to immediately stop anti- steering and allow developers to put linkouts to their alternate payments. Epic submitted Fortnite for review and then Apple just didn't do anything with that. So, effectively blocked it, but they did tell Epic like, well, if you if you want this, you could not include the US basically in your update to the game and you can have it available, I think, in the EU. And Epic was like, "Well, that's ridiculous. We're not doing that." So, so I guess Epic's sort of slant on that was, "We can't release it at all now until Apple does it." So, they're getting back in touch with the court. One other thing that Apple was saying was that actually they had terminated Epic's account when all this kicked off. So, I don't really know what's happening with that at the moment. Um, that doesn't seem to be part of this case anymore at the moment, but maybe it will kind of rear its head again. But Apple did mention it. Then the judge upon I guess receiving like

Epic's complaint about upholding this injunction because Apple is appealing it wants to stay. So that's why it wouldn't it was saying, "Well, we want to wait and see what the judge says first." This absolute legal some foolery. And so the the judge was like, "Okay, well Apple, please tell please tell the court why you think you have the legal authority to ignore our request." And don't forget it was a very scathing assessment from that judge said there's like basically said there's kind of no recourse. You have to immediately accept this and then Apple didn't. And they summoned the I can't remember the exact word but the like representative responsible at Apple for complying with this injunction to say well why not? Uh and then they might have to appear in court. Immediately Apple was like, "Oh no, okay. Okay, we we've tried. We've once again we've got a bit too far or a lot too far." A and basically got an agreement with Epic to

release Fortnite. I guess now that means for everyone kind of officially that for now pending appeal anyone in the US can put these link outs. really interesting that Spotify was one company that has submitted like a document basically as part of Epic's case to to the to the court like supporting it and they've basically tried to show that their iOS revenue has been going up since this decision and since they've implemented iOS payments to their own store payment system and they said like Google Play revenue in that time has remained or Android revenue has remained kind of level and App Store revenue venue has actually gone up like progressively like significantly and so they're saying well you know this is kind of proof that I think basically that they're being stifled in their business right uh Xbox has also done the same thing but they're still not releasing the store I think they're basically worried that if they

release the Xbox mobile game store that if Apple is successful on appeal which it might be then all these rules suddenly get reversed so Xbox has this store and then Apple changes his mind. It's like, well, okay, but now it's not really actually financially viable for us to do properly because they won't be able to link out to actual payments and they don't want to take a 30% cut from Apple because I guess that would be Apple takes its 30% cut. Microsoft still wants its own 30% cut. I don't know the maths, but I think that means then developers make like 49% or less than half of their revenue, which is obviously untenable. I think the the last bit I guess we'll add on that is I'm very dubious if the Xbox mobile game store actually exists in any in any final form. There's been no there's yet to be still unless you count a Microsoft executive so Sarah Bond actually talking about it as an official channel announcement which you can but

otherwise other than like at Bloomberg Live and and another conference I think there's still yet to be an official announcement of this and I remember at the time it was announced developers like I don't really know what's happening there like didn't seem there didn't seem to be and kind of still doesn't seem to be a very clear idea of what it is. So I am dubious I I feel like it's an excuse that Microsoft can put out and if if tomorrow it was like okay for now till the end of time Apple has to do this I I don't think tomorrow or the day after Microsoft suddenly going to release this store they might prove me wrong because I I don't know but I'm just stupid anyway. So that is obviously the massive news a very we talked about its potential impacts a couple podcasts ago but huge rate uh companies can now make a lot more revenue which probably which could mean a few things perhaps that's more money to spend on UA perhaps that's more money to scale up a business could mean loads of things and then there's a wider impact on the on the industry we talked about market intelligence before makes

things actually difficult for them because they can't currently unless they start signing deals track offstore payments or rather they can't provide estimates on off payments because they don't have access to say rankings data for example. So yeah, it's it's a whole new potentially a whole new world that uh that we move into. As last time I spent ages uh talking about that. There's a lot to go through. Paige Aaron, any thoughts? Yeah, it's kind of just never ending at the moment, isn't it? With this this topic, I'm intrigued to see what's next. And like you said, Fortnite is back. Is it staying back? Are we going to get it elsewhere? I don't know. Like you said, it's almost impossible to keep up with everything that's going on at the moment with it. Yeah. I feel like it just changes every week, right? And we don't ultimately know what will happen with the case. It seems likely that Epic wins this. You just don't know. Like for example, because ultimately can a judge I think we discussed before, but can a judge say Apple's not allowed to make money basically which is effectively in a way

what's kind of happening. Although I think but then on the other side I'm sort of arguing with myself now but then the other side of that it's like I guess it's there should be competition basically and I think it's still unreasonable to think that all payments suddenly will go off the app store. It will still be a very lucrative business for Apple but it just has to compete now. So anyway that's the that's the big news of the week. I'd say that's the big Fortnite news. So Paige, what else have you got? I wanted to talk about rather than a a newsy thing, I wanted to mention a Mavens that we ran this week. So, kind of ties in a little bit about what we were just discussing with the the Apple stuff cuz it is a comment that comes up. We asked some industry experts there thoughts on launching a new game and whether or not that's harder now than maybe what it has been in the past few years. Um, and we also asked like some advice for launching a new game in 2025. And the general consensus was that yes, it's harder to launch a game now.

Um, some were kind of saying that maybe more so now than ever. Um, which obviously isn't great if you want to launch a new game. I would say sort of the main takeaways, sort of like plucking a few comments out that stood out. I would say most people mentioned that essentially you need to launch with a very clear market strategy. You can't just unfortunately have a great game, launch it, and it's job done. you have to have very clear ideas of what you're doing um because it's it's just so competitive. And then on top of that, there's obvious changes, you know, higher costs, higher player expectations, and you know, you're not just launching a game that is competing with every other new launch. You're launching a game that has to compete with these that, you know, some games have been around for, you know, a decade more. And kind of how we discussed at the beginning of the podcast, I think a lot of gamers, we tend to like have a cycle of games that we go through. Like I know I do. I'll have maybe three or four games that I'm playing and if I'm going to drop one for

something else, you know, it has to be worth it. So there is just, you know, there's just a lot of competition out there. But it's it's not all negative. they did sort of make some comments that you know there are even though there's some bad changes there are good changes such as the Apple thing we were just discussing you know obviously for a lot of people that is opening a lot of doors it makes it a lot easier for people to reach their own users in a much more direct way so that was something that was mentioned quite a few times and other bits I think more than I think two or three people sort of commented on having established IPs not necessarily your game already being on, but whether that's through partnerships, collaborations, that type of thing. Um, so there was quite a bit of talk on that. And then one thing that came up a lot was just, you know, a studio's relationship with its players. Reaching out on sort of like having Discords and things like that and having a really strong community to sort of foster better engagement from them was

something that a lot of people mentioned. Yeah, it was it was interesting. I said definitely the consensus was that yes, it's it's harder to launch a game um at the moment, but it can be done and it can be done successfully. It's just more competitive. You have to have a good action plan. But yeah, do do read the the full article cuz there is some good insights and some good bits of advice in there. I think well I obviously I'm not the one making again but like I I've heard this for like years and um I remember a few years ago one very well-known industry executive said it is now is the toughest time ever to launch a mobile game and then they kind of pivoted their business a bit as a reflection of that still doing mobile and slightly different but I asked the question to Paul Guj who was the playmic co-founder for golf clash so massive game bought by Warner Brothers just before the launch. I heard in a podcast that I think they sort of renegotiated that acquisition a bit because Golf Clash was so much bigger a success than they thought it would be. So it was almost like selling the company for like

pennies on the dollar. So I think they I don't know. I think there was some sort of renegotiation on that. I can't remember the podcast's name. So apologies for that. But anyway, he he was saying that I put the question to him like why launch studio now because he's now doing fourth star fourth company. and uh he was like well throughout my career I've always been told it's the toughest time. So, you know, the last time I was at Pocket Gamer Biz, so I was there here 2016, 2019, what was the big one of the biggest challenges? Rising usual acquisition costs, like just rising cost in general. And obviously, if that keeps happening, then it gets a lot worse. And I know it is different now with like IDFA, etc. But I guess it's always the toughest time in a way and and people generally find a way. I think the quotes that I there's a lot of great quotes in this article. Clara Zane had had some really interesting points. So, I'll read just a couple couple quick paragraphs. She said, "Product first, business second. Monitor art down retention day

one to day 90. Monetization balance. If you're unsure, test outside tier one markets. Ask for benchmarks. Be obsessive with your analytics. I've seen profitability at scale from games launched as recently as December 2024. That's proof the post IDFA apocalypse is overhyped. It's not a crisis of attribution, it's a crisis of execution. Whether you agree with that or not, I think it's a really interesting point and it is true that we have seen games that have launched very well um from big publishers largely. I guess the real question is whether the smaller publishers how challenging it is for them which they do go as you say they do go into some detail on that in the article. So yeah, really interesting takeaways on I guess where mobile is right now. So Aaron, what what stories you got? First up from me, Square Enix's financials have been revealed. Um, and their net sales were at a five-year low this past fiscal year. They were down 9% year-over-year to about 2.2 billion.

It's obviously not not great news for Square Enix. They've been in they seem to have been struggling for a few years now. But on the other hand, their operating income and profit were both up quite considerably despite net sales being down this year. Operating income was up by almost 25% to 280 million and profit was up 64% to 168.4 million. So obviously that's you know those are good results. It's yeah their net sales are still down quite a bit. Um, what I thought was particularly interesting and to bring up here on the podcast, um, was Square's comments about its performance. And in particular, um, they partly blamed quote intense competition um, on mobile in Japan as one of the

reasons for the falling net sales that they they recorded. and they basically said that players are desiring even richer game experiences and um quote a familiar list of titles has continually dominated Japanese gamers time which Square has argued reduces the odds of new games succeeding in the market which I guess ties into what what you were just talking about with it being of harder than ever. I thought it was interesting that they would say that this familiar list of titles keeps um yeah keeps basically attracting Japanese players instead of their own games getting those players. Yeah, again kind of ties into I think we've discussed before about Square having a habit of launching games only in Japan particularly on mobile. Uh like again the financials noted like Emporia came out um like end of 2024. Uh so they said that yeah like net

sales uh went down on mobile despite Embersia coming out again it was a Japan only game and then they're also saying that Japanese players are just playing kind of a set list of games anyway. So it once again points to I mean I guess either trying to make something that does reach those players or actually trying to roll things out more globally. I think like the it's just it's kind of funny just blaming competition cuz you really you're just sort of blaming yourself, right? Like it is their job to beat the competition. That it's the whole point of this whole thing. But like they've had successful games and they just haven't they just haven't been able to I guess make them last as long as they they wanted. Whereas I get as a massive assumption, I'm going to guess some of these games. Obviously, the Pokémon Pocket I think has done well lately in Japan. But the other games are probably Monster Strike and Dragons if it's still a big game like Knives Out from Netis

and they've all done an excellent job of just revenues are for some of those are are way down from from their peaks, but they still done a very good job of making them still some of the most lucrative games around. and Square Enix maybe hasn't been able to do that with with some of its games and so it's kind of need to figure out a way and to your point their whole strategy wasn't it like to make global facing stuff and they keep announcing a country specific games like Mtori that came out in Japan and then we got like um eventually it's supposed to be going global isn't it but Final Fantasy 14 mobile is just coming to to China next I mean that that could be massive for them to be fair. That could be absolutely huge. But yeah, they've obviously struggled. I I I guess I don't know loads about the PC and console side of it at the moment. But I guess Final Fantasy perhaps just not where it used to be other than 14, which I think still

does well, but the actual other releases, they don't they're not as big as they used to be. And then you get something like clear obscure which I know well it it kind of riffs off the class classic JRPG and adds its own kind of mechanics but that and again we'll talk about different levels but that comes out and it's a huge success and so square must be looking at that thinking I wonder if that's like a path forward for Square for their for their big IP. So I've got I I I have cheated. I said we'll have two stories each. So I gave myself three but there was I I had to mention them. And so one of the other more notable stories of the week was King President Shovstad, I apologize for the uh pronunciation, classic Britishness, I do apologize, is stepping down and he is going to be replaced by a Candy Crush franchise GM Todd Green. This hap this will happen on June 1st. Um so I'm sad he's said he's leaving to pursue other passion projects to spend time with his family. He's been at the company for 14 years. There's not too much insight, I guess, for this, but

it's worth it's just worth mentioning that because King is still one of the biggest mobile games publishers in the world. Candy Crush Saga is the biggest one of the biggest uh games in the world. I think it was dethroned by Royal Match. I think that is still the case. I'm curious what happens now like this this this kind of appointment because it's the Candy Crush GM. It feels like well this is just a natural successor. Is the company still going to keep going the way it has been? Which is perfectly fine. Kind of feels like it's not like they've hired someone brand new that's going to shake it all up and we're gonna see some new games come out of King. Um, yeah, I'm curious to see where it goes. I know that they've for a long time the the new Candy Crush games that will come out generally speaking would have still could still do quite well. Talking about the Match Free spin-offs, you know, Soda Saga is like a multi-billion dollar game, right? Ridiculous. But they're they're ultimately it is declining revenue each time that they release one of these. And how long can they keep

doing that? And I I wonder if they've already kind of hit that mark where they can't really do that successfully anymore, especially to the points of launching a launching a game now. It's very very difficult. All eyes on on Royal Kingdom. I guess if that's how you do it with celebrity marketing campaign. Yeah. I I I wonder if there's going to be more focus on new game development. They've done solitaire which I think has been a bit of a failure especially if you compare it to super players Disney solitaire which is I think has already outperformed it and king has always always struggled to do anything outside of candy crush well okay that's okay that's right that's a lie uh casual games it has done some successful games right Hero Saga ultimately successful bubble witch saga as a franchise thinks well like it's it's it's never broken out of casual it was supposed to midcore. You just never hear of these titles again once they're announced. Remember they famously announced they were going to do a big Call of Duty game. Think from a Sweden studio did the announcement and then you never heard of it ever again. So I just want to where

they go here from here cuz they did some other they basically soft launched the games then told us they were oh no we're just testing it was what was it? Do you remember? It was solitaire and then there were two others I think blast and match 3D. I want to say I think those were the games if I recall. Blast was definitely one of them. Yeah, I think a match 3D was definitely one. So they tried those. Two of them fail. One went to launch with respect to the team. Good game, but like it it just hasn't really hit the mark. Especially if you're you're making Cy Crush Saga, which make which is making billions. It's just not not been able to do that. So I think this is just uh we'll carry on as we are make major changes. They don't need to make major changes, at least not in the near future, I would say. Any thoughts? My next story is about a Call of Duty. So maybe maybe King should have tried their hand at a Call of Duty. You actually dive into your story right now because that that wouldn't be true based on this story. Yeah. Yeah, that's true. Maybe

they maybe they dodged a bullet. There's so many puns here and I'm honestly not trying to do it. It's just happening. But yeah, my next story is the Call of Duty War Zone which came to mobile in March of last year. So not long ago really in the grand scheme of things. It's been pulled from both iOS and Android app stores. So, the servers will sort of remain live for now. So, if you've already got the game installed, you can keep playing, but there'll be no new content, no new no new updates, and you can't spend any of the the real currency anymore. So, whilst it is technically still playable, it seems clear that eventually, you know, that game will essentially cease to be on mobile. and they stated the reason for this being that the game's just simply not met expectations. Um, and it hasn't landed on mobile the way, you know, it has on PC and console, which I assume you would know it's not going to. I would assume a Call of Duty game is always going to be more popular on PC console, but whatever. Obviously, benchmark that they hoped it would hit, it's obviously not hitting that, which kind of just shows that even some of the

biggest names, they can still struggle on mobile. Um, and I think for general with shooters on mobile, you know, they they faced some challenges this year. Uh, certain titles do well and a lot of them have been for a very long time. So, you'd still say they're successful, but there's still been some slowdown in that sense. But again, then there's always contrast as well cuz I know this week we did a report on Delta Force, which surpassed 100 million in gross player spending. So, it it can be done. It's just, you know, it it is tough. And obviously Call of Duty does still have. So there was Call of Duty War Zone on mobile, but then there's also still just Call of Duty Mobile, which is still a thing. So, you know, perhaps it is best to just just have the one thing rather than the two separate sort of entities. Just focus your time on one. But yeah, and then as kind of a side note, I I don't know why I did this, but I went on the Google Play Store to look at Call of Duty Mobile and when I typed it in, it was actually the second game that popped up, not the first game. And the first

game was a sponsored ad for Delta Force. So, I'm sure they love that. Anyone that's now thinking, "Oh, go and download normal Call of Duty Mobile." The first thing is just this big banner for Delta Force and it look like it looks great. So, if I was going to download it, I probably would have clicked that one first. So yeah, maybe not great for them. I I I know it's by design. It's not broken, but that is abs absolutely how these stores are broken. That the first thing you search for isn't what you s Sorry, the first result isn't what you search for. I hate that so much. It's awful. Said it was second, but the one for Delta Force was like much bigger and it had like pictures of the game, so it looked great. So, if obviously you're looking for a shooter and then you see this game first, I was like, it just ironic that they've just essentially lost War Zone, Delta Force is kind of doing okay right now and that's the game that pops up at number one rather than the game you type in. I was going to say I bet on Google Play it does it differently, but actually, yeah, it's PUBG Mobile and then actually the second result is Call of Duty. I thought it was

going to be like the first four results are the game you're searching for and then below that more sponsored stuff dealt with forces on them. My thoughts about this is that it it always appeared to me, I don't know how true this is, they already had a successful Call of Duty game on mobile that was making loads of money super like people loved it and then but but they made that with Tencent and so they had to give revenue a revenue share to them and so it always felt like Call of Duty War Zone Mobile didn't really have its own identity other than being called War Zone because I believe There's a battle royale in Call of Duty Mobile if I remember right. And so yeah, I think so. So why why do it? It was simply for Activision as a way to try and make more money out of the Call of Duty IP on mobile. And I think they hoped that maybe in the West at least it could replace it. Um that never happened. And and it's it's not

difficult to understand why. It's because people already had a game that was good but don't need to play War Zone. It was a weird endeavor. It's not, and this isn't talking about the quality of the game or anything, but what would appear to me, I could be completely wrong, just the whole thesis behind doing it. Um, that that's my take, but maybe they just thought, well, we want to bring the War Zone IP out on on mobile because it's it's doing well. We release Call of Duty every year on PC console does well, but none of those seem to be good reasons, right? So, Aaron, you've got another story for us. Yeah. So, my other big story for this week is about Pokemon trading card game Pocket. Um, there's two mentions for it this podcast. So, it's surpassed or surpassing, we're in the process of surpassing 1 billion in gross player spending in the game, which by the time this is out, Yeah. by the time this goes out, we're about dollars. It is

basically hitting. Yeah. Which although, you know, even that is a lot. Yeah. estimates. Obviously, $50,000 is quite a lot of money, but by Pokemon Pocket standards, it's probably like a few hours, if that. So, so yes, by the time this goes out, Pokémon Pocket will have surpassed 1 billion in gross player spending. Uh, so this is on Google Play and the App Store. So, it's achieved that in 204 days since it global launch, which means it's reached the milestone more quickly than Pokémon Go did. um which uh yeah got to a billion in 282 days. Um so 78 days longer than Pocket, which um obviously is it's crazy really that it's been this big. I had my hopes for this being quite a hit game, but I didn't think it would actually like get to a billion faster than Pokémon Go, nor was a billion ever, you know, guaranteed by any means. um as we've or as I've

discussed a lot on the podcast, you know, it's not like just making a Pokémon game means it's going to make a billion. There are quite a few that Magic Cart jump. Well, yeah, maybe maybe one day it'll get there. Um I'm not sure if that's actually live anymore. Anyway, uh yeah, so obviously this is so it's the Pokémon Company DNA and Creatures Inc. Um they released Pocket back in October October 30 and it very quickly yeah um got a lot of attention. It got 10 million downloads and so officially it got 10 million downloads within its first week. Atmagic estimates say that it made about 43 and a half million in its first week and then by the end of its first like 30 days it um was already well on its way to a quarter of a billion. Um so on that basis obviously it has slowed down a bit since launch. November 24 was its best month but it hasn't just been an ongoing

decline. So January this year was actually the game's worst month and then it's sort of picked back up. Obviously May isn't finished yet. So that's currently um kind of behind where January was, but may overtake it by the end of the month. And um yeah, just hugely successful game has only just celebrated its 6 month anniversary. Like we still aren't 7 months on from launch yet. Right. I wanted to uh we're getting on in the show, but I I really did want to say this last story because um it's just really interesting. So, Supercell, if you've been you follow them on LinkedIn or follow Ilka on LinkedIn, you will see a lot of stuff seemingly by a lot. I don't know, a few posts about AI. Uh, they're really into it. I think they they've done a I think they've had a few people at the studio doing doing AI maybe like game jams or something. They they've done a pilot innov AI innovation lab at their Helsinki HQ. So, they're really on it. And uh they've just put a job listing out for an AI innovation lab program leader in in San Francisco. And so

they're basically going to open a new space there. I believe they already have a California studio which if memory serves I didn't prepare this. It's a console developer potentially or PC console something like that. Anyway, I guess this is separate. So the hy for that they're opening a new space. So they're really doubling down on it. And the job listing literally starts with this is a lot of marketing experience. I apologize. Revolutions surprise and unseat incumbents. That's what makes them revolutions, not evolutions. AI's impact on gaming brackets and the rest of the world will be a revolution. And then they start quoting, "No, it's just language pattern recognition. Why would someone play something made by AI? AI technologies can't ever make fun gameplay." And then they say, "The list of doubts is endless. We are not doubters." 15 years ago, Supercell emerged from the belief that something special was po possible in the realm of games, entertainment, and mobile phones. We believe again that something spe special special is possible again. Get an editor on that. This time emerging with a this

time with emerging AI technologies. So very bullish on the whole AI thing. I guess specifically what it could do in development, right? A lot of there are studios now using it for ad creatives and marketing etc. And we hear adjust just launch some AI powered tool. Apploving puts a lot of it success down to kind of machine learning and AI and Supercell wants to get in on that action with his game development. We'll see what happens. On the um subject of Supercell, just to jump back in, there's been too much news this week. We haven't mentioned the Clash Netflix show. Oh my god, I I'll be honest, I forgot. So that that's a thing. Yeah, there was some details. There's like a famous showrun on it. I can't remember who it is. I need to look this up. Yeah, I think he he's done some like Clash of Clans animations before and then was it like Intergalactic or something was um an animated film that

he's done. So I'll read I'll read the story. So it says the show is set to feature the barbarian and other iconic characters bringing elements of Clash Clans and Clash Royale to television screens. And then it says it's expected to be a comical twist. Sorry, I'm reading the story and I'm like the classic is expected to be to take a com comical twist on the politics of war. I assume they don't mean a real take. Yeah, probably not real war. Hopefully that would be wow. Imagine like a proper serious like undertone to the to the show. Uh Rob Weiner, Rob Weiner has confirmed has been confirmed as headwriter. Previously did Arrested Development and Futurama. So that's pretty cool. I love Futurama. Arrested Development. I love the earlier seasons. Put it that way. Uh yeah, we did a story not that long ago, the last few months, about they were hiring for a trans media person to basically negotiate, I think, these deals and or at least seek out

opportunities like this. So, I think we said before they they they've got their fingers on a lot of pies at the moment. They're basically doing everything and they rebranded whe they rebranded their investments. Whether that means they're just carrying on as usual and they just thought we'll give it a lick of paint or that or that signal more investment. But yeah, there there's a lot going on at Supercell, not just game development, boat games coming out. Cool. Right, I think we're going to end there before before we think of another story. So, thank you everyone for tuning in as always. Thank you, Paige and Aaron for being on the show. And we'll see you all again next week. Have a good weekend.