Week in Mobile Games E55 - Apple faces further EU fines and Trump tariffs chaos continues

[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. With me today is our deputy editor, Paige Cook, and our news editor, Aaron Assel. How you both doing? What you been up to? Yeah, doing good, thanks. I have an update from last week that I finished Claire Skill. I'm very proud of myself for actually doing it. What did you think? I loved it. I think as of now it's currently my game of the year. It's so good. Nice. I think it's brilliant. Like honestly, what did you think of uh without spoilers if we kept What did you think of the story? I liked it. Like yeah, it's a little bit confusing in places, but I kind of liked it. It's it's unique. It's a bit weird, but I like that. And obviously there are different endings and the one I went with after I like checked the other endings and I'm happy with the one I

went with. Like I'm glad. Well, what did you think of the like what were kind of your I guess things that you liked about the game? The music. The music was so good. Even though obviously it's like all in French, I would find myself like trying to sing along to it terribly. So glad no one saw me doing that. But yeah, just the soundtrack was amazing and the combat was so good. Like sometimes I can find turnbased stuff a little bit tedious, but I think with the addition of like being able to dodge and parry, I think that sort of helped a lot cuz it made it feel a bit more active and even when it's not your turn, you've still got something to focus on and it's really rewarding when you do it well. So yeah, the combat surprised me. The story and just like the performances of like like all the voice work is so good. I think visually it was really pretty. Like I think some of the areas were a bit sy, but like that's fine. Yeah, overall very very good. Definitely. I think that and I played Split Fiction earlier in the year. I think those two are currently like my top contenders for

game of the year, but they're such different games. Aaron, what have you been up to? I still haven't been playing Bear Obscure, but I did go to a like War of the Worlds experience in London last weekend, which was pretty cool. So, it's based on the like Jeff Wayne concept album version of the story. So, it was a lot more immersive than I was expecting. I was hoping it was going to be good, but I wasn't prepared for like how realistic they made it. I was really quite impressed. Realistic they make in Alien Invasion. Yeah. Like without spoiling it too much, I think you're allowed to spoil War of the Worlds. Yeah, it's I suppose it's been out for a few years, but yeah, like doing the experience then there's a section where you like taken into a like a big dining room. It's kind of like Victorian setting and there's like an actor there playing the the role of a like housekeeper and um you're hearing outside the room all this like rumbling and gunfire and metallic legs moving

around and then yeah this uh lady playing the like housekeeper is saying like oh you know well well you know we'll be all right if we stay in here it's safe in here and then like the lights all go out so you actually can't see at all and And all around you, you're hearing like these metal arms moving and they're like touching different people in the rooms. You're just hearing everyone else jump and suddenly the lights flicker on and the woman's like dying with metal sticking out of her and screaming and then it all goes black again. So that was quite immersive. That quite horrifying. It was. Yeah, that was quite early on. I wasn't quite prepared for that at the time. I think as it went on I adjusted to like yeah this this is like being in a horror film basically I can handle that now I've adjusted to it but in that moment it was it caught me off guard a little bit but no so I really enjoyed that so not much to report on uh game playing but I did some I guess role playing I've done the I've done the War

of the Worlds before. I thought it was great. Yeah, really as you say really immersive lots of different sections. It's It's great how they try and get you involved. So they like they'll make they'll make someone in your group like they'll talk to you, make you say something and you're kind of roleplaying as well. And the the actors were very good at responding to whatever you say. Yeah. Even when it doesn't make sense cuz I remember right at the beginning they just like put me on the spot, how did you get here? Where did you come from? And I'm like I'm thinking to myself, I have no idea. I think I say I drove and then I and in my head I was like well I don't know what year is this. It's pretty it seems pretty unlikely unless I was very rich I guess driven to this destination but yeah no yeah I agree it's well worth checking out in London if anyone hasn't checked it. Yeah and there were like VR segments as well just to keep it like games industry relevant I suppose it was interesting seeing applied. I forgot about that. Yeah. Yeah. That's very head

spinny that bit. If I remember right, there were a few sections like one of them you're in kind of a boat. So you're physically sat in stationary boat that rocks around and then in the headset like you're on the sea and you're actually getting kind of sprinkled with water and stuff. I think one of our group got actually soaked with water, right? Cool. Yeah. Well, that that's awesome. I haven't really been up to anything. I don't think I can't remember now. But the thing I I did want to say that because I've been moaning about it all day and so this podcast is now an outlet. Microsoft Teams is literally it's just the worst thing you could do to someone at work. So, we've had disappearing messages. So, it's really bad at Teams is really bad at syncing between desktop and mobile. I've had this a few times. We've had now one group in that where we just had to start a new group because one member was no longer getting messages in there. It's to do with PGC organizations. So, it's like quite important that we all get these messages. So, we just started a new group. I just it feels like it was built by people that have never spoken

to anyone else online in their life. Never used another communications app. I think I'm pretty sure MSN and MIRC uh are a lot better like two decades ago than than Teams is right now. The search function barely works which is really annoying. So the issue I've randomly started getting today and I've tried to delete the cache. I have never deleted the cache in a messaging app in my life but you have to do that with Teams. And I've tried that. I'll try obviously shutting it down, you know, turn it off and on again. Now, when if someone sends me a direct message, uh, as soon as they send it to me, the entire chat disappears. So, I don't know, unless I see it pop up in the bottom right of my screen, I don't know that someone has sent me a message. And then I have to manually search their name in the broken search function uh to see if they have messaged me. It's a to it is it's the worst thing. And I know before paste it's such a small thing but when you copy and paste it pastes in rich text. There is not a single other chat platform that

does this. You you paste in plain text cuz nobody wants like these ridiculous like random characters or giant letters. You just want it neatly what someone is saying to you. It is I I hate it. I absolutely hate it. I am championing recently moved to teams. I'm championing us very much moving off of Teams. I don't care where we go. It It's like Slack, Discord, something. Anything else but Teams. I'm sure anyone else that uses it can can share my pain. And if you're not using it, don't. Yeah, I can't say I'm a fan. I miss Skype. Honestly, you know, it's bad when you miss Skype cuz even Skype had issues. So, if you miss Skype, Teams must be really bad. I ran over. I guess we'll get on to the actual podcast. I had to. Please email me if you've had similar issues. share the pain. Obviously, before we as usual before we start, we've got Pocket Gamer Connects Barcelona June 3rd 4. So, by the time you're hearing this, that is in just a couple of days. I hope to see you there. It's looking like looking like it's going to be a great event. I think we're

expecting over a thousand people. So, yeah, that's going to be really good one. And I've never been to Barcelona, so hopefully it'll be nice and sunny. Get to enjoy that. Then later in the year, PGC Summit in Shanghai on July 30th. We got the Mobile Games Awards in August. There's been a slight delay in us. I don't know what the reason is actually of announcing I think it's probably because we got Barcelona on of announcing the lobbying for the awards but anyone listening we are doing the awards again absolutely we'll be doing it in Cologne during gamescom so same as last year and we'll be announcing all of that very very soon then we've got PGC Helsinki October 7th to 8th and we've got PGC Akaba which is in Jordan in November right on to the news I've already done a rant so I guess time for another I I kind of give up on saying I won't say too much on this. So obviously the Trump tariffs are back. Did they ever really go away? Did they ever begin? I don't Well, I mean the world economy will tell you yes. Anyone that owns shares and anything will tell you absolutely. So the latest the latest

news is that a US trade court has blocked well the initially the story was that uh US trade court has blocked most of President Donald Trump's tariffs by ruling that he exceeded his authority by imposing broad across the board duties on imports from trading partners in the country. We kind of knew, well, we knew this before, but the power for this is supposed to lie within Congress. But I believe Trump has been trying to use a national emergency as a reason for him to basically by himself or the Trump administration itself to basically put these levies on countries around the world. So there was a baseline 10% of tariffs and if everyone remembers that big board that he showed of the so-called reciprocal tariffs that are not reciprocal in any way, shape or form but they had different levels for varying countries generally based well based on trade deficits but it's so ridiculous. I'm not going to explain that again. But obviously then there's a trade war with China which went kind of ridiculous. Was it 125% tariffs maybe

went up to 250? I think it was 125% tariffs. Uh and then that's back down 90day I think it was 60day 90day delay and then uh then he instantly tried to kick it off with the EU just uh this early this week or last week uh 50% tariffs dur in the middle of negotiations and he rolled back on that like straight away and said oh no we've actually made progress in talks because of this it's a negotiating tactic I mean I guess it is but it's a very strange one and then it was going to impose uh 25% tariffs on all smartphones manufactured abroad coming into the country so that would specifically affect Apple which I think he called out but then later said oh that will obviously affect others so that would include Samsung and then and then now the courts like you can't do any of this so it all throws the whole thing into uncertainty which is not good but I believe markets are up today because ultimately if there aren't these tariffs that is good for I guess at least the status quo of the of the

global economy I I know that Trump administration is trying to change that and they have been very open about that from before and they're trying to bring manufacturing to the US. Good luck um to do it that quickly. So there was a bit of confusion. What does it mean? Does it include the fentinel tariffs? And my thought was it didn't originally but I was reading uh today there was an expert that said it also includes it also includes that so that they can't impose that. I'm not sure. Uh, I need to read more about that cuz that cuz I thought the fentinal tariffs were older, but I I could just be misunderstanding that that side of things. So, yeah, I don't know. Just another day in paradise for everyone. And we'll see what happens by next week. This is probably going to go all the way up to the Supreme Court. Trade negotiations presumably will still carry on with countries even though there's uncertainty because I guess you don't know if it's going to go either way. the Supreme Court might decide that actually Trump does have the power to do this which then is an erosion of the power of of other branches of government in the US. So it just it puts more into

the executive branch and and less into the courts and Congress which is supposed to vote on these things. Uh any thoughts on on tariff chaos? It's just never ending. I think we maybe spoke about this on the podcast a little bit last week, but yeah, like that that's kind of the point. It's literally just never ending. He's just there's tariffs here and then there's tariffs on something else. Now it turns out they're like actually is he allowed to do this? Like that that would have been good to check first. But yeah, I I think it's almost impossible to keep up at the moment with it all. Well, I I believe it was he's not supposed to be able to do this. But that Congress just did nothing about it. It's majority of Republicans. There was just no like hang on a minute. Like if it was if it was a majority of Republicans and Kla Harris was president and doing this and they didn't agree with it, I'm sure it would have come up in Congress. That's what as it was, it didn't. Right. Uh enough enough about that. Um what else have we got Aaron? What have you got? Yeah. So first up from me. So I interviewed Gail Tovi.

Sorry if I've mispronounced that. From App Charge. He's their chief marketing officer. So I spoke to him about the epic Apple situation. Obviously there was the landmark US court ruling recently that's forced a change in app store rules. So yeah I spoke to him about direct to consumer web shops various opportunities that the this ruling in the US has allowed. Um and he had quite a few interesting comments about it. So he said that it is a a gamecher. It opens up kind of new opportunities for better monetization strategies and stronger direct relationships between publishers and players. Um, so obviously the the ruling itself means that publishers can now freely link to alternative payment systems and obviously Dodge Apple's 30% fee through the app store. So obviously, yeah, big um big implications for company's revenues if they're able to

migrate players out of the app store system, which Gil also talked about a bit. Um I'd recommend reading the full interview. I think it it was a pretty good one. Yeah, essentially he talked about us being really on the precipice, if not already into the next generation of direct consumer. um he thinks it was already establishing that the verdict of the court has accelerated the shift and notably that he doesn't think websocks on their own are kind of quite enough as we as we go forward. He thinks they're still a great tool for people to use, but um they're potentially becoming kind of the baseline of what companies are going to do and that there's a lot of untapped potential on the table. He said if you kind of only do a web shop as your direct to consumer strategy and um talked about kind of the other I guess hot hot new trends that people are using. So like embedded payments in

particular was something that he discussed um with technology to allow deep linked transactions textual checkouts and personalized purchase journeys within gameplay setting or setting the standard. So yeah, he he thinks that this is is going to be a big thing in terms of like higher conversions, intuitive purchasing and just generally enable I guess improvements to player satisfaction. So imagine if more players are kind of like using web shops as the example, you know, if players it's easier for them to see, oh, there's a better deal there. I guess that is going to that's generally a win for everyone. Whereas, I guess previously perhaps you had to be a bit more in the know and a bit more of a hardcore gamer to to maybe notice or be aware of like the web shop options. I guess a lot of like super casual gamers probably don't even know or certainly don't even know. I know a lot of people that aren't aware that like Apple takes a fee. It's just well you pay some money

in the game and then it goes to someone probably whoever made the game. So obviously, you know, those kinds of players aren't going to be aware of all this and thinking, "Oh, I'll do I'll do my bit to help the developer and the publisher instead of Apple." Um, so I think, but obviously they will be interested in a better deal on whatever items they want to buy. So yeah, it does make sense. Obviously, it's just a win for everyone except Apple, I guess, that um it's going to be easier to get to web shop. I mean I think I might have mentioned last week week before the I spoke to the Exola president David Ser was basically like yeah the phone is off the hook the phone's basically off the hook like like people calling even though it was already on kind of DC was very much a hot trend for the past year or two at least anyway one of the interesting things was right last week's company called revenue cat which I think just raised loads of money actually they ran a test comparing inapp purchases and web link conversions and They said in

early testing, I don't know if they've updated this since. They they did say they were going to. I haven't looked past few days, but they said in early testing from 5,600 participants, it found that pushing users to the web can lead to significant drop off in initial conversions compared to inapp purchases. Uh but it did say it was early days for the experiment, but it could spell an opportunity for Apple to retain revenue. I think I feel like I guess the point in that is uh is that you're not going to get 100% of your revenue off platform. A lot of it is still going to stay on there. And I think even without the scare screens, it's it's it's still it can still be a tough ass get some consumers to think safely and it's still slightly inconvenient even if it's just a few clicks to to go out of the app effectively even if it doesn't look like you're doing that. So there is still a barrier there. But obviously uh in general this is great for the market right that you can finally actually use different payment options and yeah the

the interview is really interesting because now now what becomes of that is is the next step. So yeah well we we'll see what happens with Apple's appeal. Maybe it'll all just come rolling back. Paige what else have you got? So from me is kind of a little bit like a blast from the past but brought back again. So something that we used to talk about all the time has reared its head a little bit. So, in the very long story, there's been Microsoft's acquisition of Activision Blizzard. The FTC has now dropped its antitrust case against Microsoft. Um, I think it was a couple of weeks ago, we had a story that was just kind of going over some of the legal details of what the FTC were still trying to do. And I remember reading it and just thinking like this deal closed in 2023 like and it's still going on. But yeah, despite it closing some time ago, they've kind of um tried to keep a little bit of pressure on and tried to stand by that sentiment that the deal could still harm, you know, competition. They've kind of still raised concerns about the whole cloud gaming aspect of

it, the subscriptions aspect of it. But this latest development is that the latest court hearing that that they've essentially lost and they're now sort of backing away from the whole thing. So, I think the FTC have kind of taken this as far as they can go. You know, they've seen multiple losses in court over this. The deal's already done as well, which I just feel like it's so much harder to have anything actually happen once a deal like this has already been done. You know, things have already happened. They also have the FTC also have like new leadership as well. So, maybe they're just ready to sort of wash their hands of this, pursue new things, focus on something else. And yeah, I just think, you know, there was obviously a lot of leadup, you know, when the the deal originally happened, but it hadn't closed. I think it was more understandable when things were happening then, but I think as soon as that deal did close, it's always kind of been a bit of an uphill battle for anyone that's still trying to put pressure on it. So, yeah, aside from obviously what Microsoft now continue to

do with the assets from that acquisition, I wonder, have we finally seen the end of the legal side of this? Is it something else going to pop up or like is that it now? Is it done? Because I think there was a point maybe like a year or two ago where it probably was even on the podcast where I think every other day we were talking about this. So it's just crazy how much is dragged out. But I guess if you have the biggest acquisition in games is is a big talking point. But yeah, interesting that they're finally now like yeah, okay, enough's enough. We're we're done pursuing this now. It's got to be the end, right? Also, this it's got to be about subscriptions in cloud gaming. I I don't even understand the the concept because cloud gaming is just not it's just still not a thing. So I don't know what's the point in investigating that. Subscriptions seems quite weak and there's I don't know there seem bigger concerns of the deal which is which was the biggest gaming IP on the planet basically in Call of Duty being potentially

exclusive. Microsoft promised they wouldn't be I think for 10 years. Am I making that up? Yeah, that was it. I think they also promised that they wouldn't interfere. They followed through with like a lot of the things that they said in terms of like where their games are distributed, they have followed through some of that like Call of Duty, you you can play that elsewhere. So yeah, like a lot of the concerns like you said that are maybe actually bigger than cloud gaming and subscriptions, you know, that that's kind of it's already been happening. So it's just strange to still try and combat something that's literally happening and they've done what they've said that they were going to. I can't remember if it was they said that they weren't going to do layoffs or they weren't going to they weren't going to interfere with Activision's independence. I know there are two very I think something about like they assured that there wasn't going to be too much like overlap on jobs or something so they wouldn't need to lay people off and then they laid people off which it did happen. Yeah. So that even that didn't even the courts decided not to pursue that seemingly unless that's a different case. I guess

it's all over now. I mean, in the end, I don't know how how well is Microsoft doing out of it. I don't know. I I I guess I'm a bit of a Game Pass convert, but I don't think I don't think is generally good for the industry to have that kind of business model because it it's going to drive down, in my opinion, it just drives down value, right? Do you want to keep spending on premium games when you can just use these? You could just use subscription service and get it within that. And then how much the developers make from that? Not as much you'd presume. Obviously, it's good for some developers like with if you're working with Netflix, maybe even Apple that you'll get a fixed you'll get a fee for your work and you might get extra based on other terms. But so it does obviously work for some companies like Super Evil Mega Core works very well for them, right? But the color titles, I remember Apple saying it wanted I know it's changed t a little bit. Well, a lot since, but it was like, oh, we want like these kind of games that people will keep playing. It's like, yeah, but that's called free to play. It works much better. Uh um much higher ceiling.

Yeah. I Yeah, but basically the next generation of whatever Microsoft does, which is play anywhere, right, is make or break for Xbox cuz at the moment it's just not there in the console race at all. PlayStation's very much far away from that. Nintendo's doing very well obviously with Switch and maybe now we'll see with Switch 2. So, it's it's kind of weird that you had there was one point it was kind of like, oh, you've got Microsoft and Sony, Nintendo does its own thing. Now Nintendo's kind of creeping back in still with a less powerful hardware. Um, but anyway, I worry for Microsoft's console business. Maybe they realize that and that's the whole strategy. Well, they do they really just want to be a publisher? I don't think so, surely. Um, and then they and then they do mobile, which it was the was they kept saying it was like a key part of the deal. It's like you don't care. You literally don't care about this mobile business that you have. And I I still don't think we'll I still think we're far away from seeing an Xbox store. They'll come up with another reason. Oh yeah, we discussed that last week on the podcast. The Xbox

store on mobile that doesn't exist. So we got a few more stories to cover and uh I definitely wanted to cover the story that the uh so we're back to Apple. Apple faces further fines from the digital markets act from the European Commission and the EU has given it a deadline which is now less than 30 days to comply and that means for Apple to stop its anti-tering practices and basically like in the US allow linkout alternative payments without these new business terms and having to pay Apple a fee which obviously it didn't charge before and also it was like saying Apple you also can't do anything else that basically tries to get you out of this they're like stop obviously ly we we knew about this over a month ago. In essence, that was when the European Commission fined Apple for $500 million, about $570 million at the time for basically breaching the digital markets act. So that's all a lot of this has already been announced, so I won't go into loads of detail, but I kind of kind of explained the very brief part of it. But what's happened now is that uh the

European Commission has released kind of the full ruling for everyone to see. It's quite a long document. We've taken a bit more. We'll be taking a further look at that. But it's basically saying, "Yeah, you can't do this and you got 60 days and if it yes, if it if it continues to breach its rules, then uh yeah, there's going to be periodic penalties." So, regular fines, which should be quite substantial. I think before it could still be the case, the original fine was lower was allegedly lower than expected because the EU was worried about retaliation from the Trump administration. I guess with a fine that is still very much potential issue especially now with this renewed onoff trade war that we spoke about earlier that could be a thing. I wonder if there's less concern generally because of what's happening in the US but still finding a big US company big sums of money could bring headaches uh for the EU in general

politically. So maybe Apple's trying to get out of it that way. Apple responded um in a statement to 95 Mac and they said there there is nothing in this 70page decision released today that justifies the European Commission's target targeted actions against Apple which press on the privacy and security of our users in Europe and force us to give away our technology for free. So basically they're just continuing to take this hard line. Uh so they're basically they're continuing to take this hard line which has not worked out for them. Hasn't worked out from the US. There was someone that said, and I can't remember if it was a mixture of the two, Juice Van Jordan and George Osborne, I think they both touched upon this, which was basically they turned like a minor Epic win cuz remember, I think Epic only won on one count of of their whole case, right? And then because Apple kept being dicks about it effectively to Epic and to the whole industry, it has led to this the whole things opened up which is a nightmare for Apple and I think it's

continued to do this and it's just not going to work. I guess all eyes will be on WWDC if Apple makes some new announcements. So if I just quickly touch upon in the last week it's said it's going to launch sorry there was a report that was going to launch a new dedicated gaming app uh across all devices this year is going to replace the game center which launched in 2010. Uh and the app will act as a central hub for launching games, tracking achievements, leaderboards, and managing in-game communication. I I'm curious what this actually looks like. Again, like we said before, it's very Apple to announce something and it's actually nothing new, but they make it sound like it's amazing and as total speculation. So, let's say Apple actually decides to talk about the things that are happening to it even though it's appealing like these decisions against it. Maybe it will actually actively lower its fee, whatever number. Obviously, Epic charges 12%. Would they go that low? I don't know. Would shareholders ultimately be

happy if they went that low? because that is still a big pay cut that maybe they don't have to take. But I, you know, obviously it's all over for Apple's favor really. I guess what I say, so they might um I'm just wondering if they start trying to package this stuff in a way that makes it sound like we're offering all these really cool things on the platform, even if that stuff doesn't have that much value. But the app store needs a lot of fixing. So, we'll see what happens. Maybe there will be some other broader announcements. Maybe they'll actually make the app store a functioning marketplace. Even though I know the way they built it in it's kind of by design so they can't ruin their search ads but also it's it's just really bad for actually searching for games and the whole editor thing I don't think has worked out at all. That redesign for the app store trying to make it look like a magazine but what people want is a storefront that works. You want to find your stuff quickly. If Netflix, if you booted up Netflix and the first thing you start seeing is an article about this TV show, you're like, "Well, okay, that's cool, but can I I

just want to quickly browse. I'm just here to browse, see what there is to play." So, yeah. Okay. After all this, all eyes on WWTC. And the other big news this week, Apple acquired sneaky Sasquatch developer RAC7, Rack 7, however you call it, which is a twoman team, two person team. So, it was a bit of an odd acquisition. Maybe again, that would be something that's kind of explained a bit further. Curious if that's the beginning of something or it's a one-off. It sounded like it was a one-off. I don't know why that would be the case. Do they really care about Apple Arcades that much to do this? See, because that's is a popular game, but that seems kind of absurd as well. So, we'll see what all their announcements are. Any any thoughts on Apple? Yeah, same as you. I'm I'm intrigued to see what they do next and if they actually address any of it or they just show all of their new cool stuff and be like, "Look, these are all the amazing things that we have and let's just ignore all of the other stuff that's going on." What I would love is if they go on stage and they're like, but they don't mention anything about regulating a court case, but they just say how amazing they are and we're so we're so amazing, we've

reduced the fee to 20%. And it was all our idea. Nothing made us do this. We're just doing it because it feels great. Yeah. But like as you were saying for about consumers, Aaron, at this point, because they because they've messed it up so badly, like it it kind of doesn't matter. Yeah. Unless they reduced it to 0%. Like or or or whatever. Like you have to reduce it so low that it means that it's not actually worthwhile for publishers now to go to these uh web shop direct consumer platforms. Yeah. So they're making like basic they're making basically they're definitely making like 5% or maybe just a little bit more for actual services that they provide. So as you say even if it was like 20% like why not still from a you know developers point of view yeah why not still do the web shops and stuff because right moving along Aaron what have you got? Yeah so my other story today is that apparently mobile games are successfully squeezing

more revenue per install um players. So in 2024, average player spending rose by about 11%. Despite installs falling by 7%. So this is from a report from app figures intelligence the mobile games in 2025 growth trends shaping the 66 billion market report. So yeah, they said that the average spending in mobile games rose to $152 per install last year. So this was an 11% rise. So this is globally and again globally installs fell by 7% year-over-year. So yeah, essentially the report says that monetization has got smarter like limited time offers, battle passes, consumable inapp purchases specifically and yeah, just various kind of layered strategies that companies are using to increase spending from the

players that you do have even if you you know not getting as many installs on average as as previously. So yeah, app figures attributed the fall in downloads to saturation or both. But so there was also a 43% drop in new mobile games that released in 2024 compared to 2023, which I guess may be symptomatic of all the the layoffs and cutbacks we've been seeing. That's me speculating there, but I don't think that's too much of a stretch. But yeah, in the US specifically, figures noted that so downloads fell by 11%. Uh, so I think that's more than the the average, but average spending also rose by 11% and theirs was up to $643 per download. Uh, so that's more than four times the $152 average. So obviously um yeah, American players are seemingly more willing to to part with their money in mobile games. Apparently, Japan and

South Korea um also had uh kind of yeah quite high spending whereas there were lower spending markets remained below $1 per download. Yeah, RPGs led in the highest earning like category. So, of the top thousand games, nearly 34% of them were RPGs. Uh 50% overall were midcore apparently. So that was of RPG, strategy, and shooter games really leading that. And then casual was the next most prevalent segment at 32%. Um, interestingly, apparently 80% of those top thousand games had bundles or package deals on offer, 70% had unlockables and purchasable cosmetic options, and roughly half of them had a battle pass, which I thought was quite interesting. And yeah, just overall really they were saying that um yeah, there are various well obviously as those percentages show like companies are using multiple uh means of

monetizing players I guess like the bundles and unlockable things and yeah battle passes you know probably everyone listening to this plays mobile games you know that they don't just do one thing and leave it at that but yeah I just thought it was quite interesting that um revenue is up even if fewer people are installing My main point is though is like all this talk about direct super platforms is and what's happening to Apple in a year's time, what do these market intelligence reports look like? Yeah. Is it all going to say it's gone down because everyone's moved away from the Yeah. If if 20 30% of of most payments of all the top companies, I don't know if some of them already do that moved away, can can you then release a report that says the same thing? Could you could you do this report again in a year or two's time? M if that's if which I guess is still a big question but if that happens because it's not and if you don't get uh the extra data that you need off the app store it's quite a big thing I'm curious

again I'm sure they're working on it very hard but yeah just a thought so page round us out what have you got yeah so last up it's a it's a little bit of a two-parter but um so over 250 Brazilian game developers signed an open letter that essentially criticized Gamescom Latam and kind of claimed that there was some unfair treatment during this year's event. They said that indie developers particularly were essentially sort of paying to work and had to cover a lot of their own costs and you know they just weren't happy with the way the you know that the event handled them. Certain examples of things like the booths that they're in apparently they could be fined for leaving them. So a lot of them were upset that essentially as the event has grown it's kind of lost touch with its roots which is obviously like with you know indie developers. There was kind of complaints about costs sort of across the board but you know again specifically sort of about you know food and transport and all those kinds of

things. And they mentioned how you know it would have been good to have maybe like vouchers for food at the event. They also brought up the funding of the event and how it includes public funding. And by the end of it all, they sort of summed up that they would like the organizers to obviously take note of a lot of the issues that they had raised and that the local developers had sort of pointed out that yes, the event has grown and it's got wider visibility and that's great, but at the same time they sort of feel like they're being exploited. But then today we had an update on it which is that the organizers did respond to this letter. Um, and of course they kind of did the line where they're like, you know, we appreciate feedback, but they also cautioned that some of the claims within the letter were misleading. They clarified some points, particularly about the financial side of things. They stated that the public funding figures that the letter had shared were just not accurate. And then they highlighted obviously a lot of the things that they are doing for, you know, Brazilian developers and how they're trying to

support them. They mentioned about like the booths thing and how that there were stricter guidelines, but these were because of issues from last year where apparently a lot of the booths were sort of empty and they had complaints about that and that all of these things in general were issues that they already had guidelines for this. So you would have known this before the event. So that's kind of how they've defended it. Like these are all things that you knew before going into the event. But by the end of it all, they've said that, you know, we're happy to obviously discuss it further. Um, so yeah, it's kind of it's kind of a clash. You know, the developers aren't happy. The organizers have sort of said, "Well, you know, we understand some of your concerns, but we're also not happy with all of the points that you've raised." So, I don't think there's any kind of agreement on, you know, what's sort of going to happen next or what you could expect next year. But obviously Craig, I know like obviously you were there obviously in a different capacity, you know, as press, not not a developer, but yeah. What what were some of your thoughts on this? One thing just to highlight is that I don't know how true these are, right? But I

guess you just take it at face value. So the you mentioned about the the public funding the accusation was that they took was that Gamescom took $3.8 million. So that's USD. What's that? 20 22 million uh Brazilian ryes. I can't pronounce rya ryes. Whereas actually they then said it's actually $176,000 was the public funding that they took and the 3.8 8 million was the funding uh was the total projected production budget for Gamescom Latan 2025 as of January this year. So there is that is quite a substantial difference in terms of what I saw there. So when I I think big festival is pretty close to like it's pretty extreme way of putting it but uh it's pretty close to the hearts of like a lot of Brazilian developers because that has been it's kind of been a bit of a cornerstone for them of of the business growing attracting international interest and the event does a lot to do bring investors and publishers in like they pay I don't know if this is part of the Sa Paulo funding but they pay to bring

in press publishers from abroad I don't know. I presume within that investors specifically I know it was publishers and press. So that's part of that budget. So that's so it's very important. No one there was saying like oh I absolutely hate Gamescom when when I spoke to them and I was asking you know what do you do you think? But there wasn't like I'd say there wasn't even like tremendous excitement about this partnership have been going on but there wasn't anyone that was hating it. What I would say is that when I was there, it's just I guess it's the layout is interesting. It's that it's much smaller. It's it's it's pretty big, but it's much smaller than actual Gamescom in Cologne, right? The lover ship and that is very very separated. So, there's a lot of different halls and you have the B2B halls and then the B2C halls and it's very obvious where that barrier ends. Gamescom Latan. I mean, it's obvious where that the barrier is, but it's all in one basically hanger. It's

all in one place and and so yeah, you can't just go into either area, but the B2B area was like, if I remember, there was loads of tables for meetings, but I don't think you were technically allowed to sit in there. So, there was a few uh BB uh BB in uh stalls in like this square space, and then that was kind of it, I guess. So I guess in that area there's nowhere to sit. In the B TOC you're obviously in a room full of lots of consumers. I mean there was loads of food there but you had to pay and you would have to sit with the consumers to eat. So I guess part of the difference at Gamescom in Cologne is you have to pay but you're in a B2B area where you sit buy you can sit and buy food if you want. So I guess that's one difference. Maybe that's something that they might look at next year to make trade visitors a bit happier, which I think is I think is kind of fair enough if I think about it. I remember the the area where the talks are. That was weird

because that was in like the consumer area. And I to be honest, I wasn't really sure if consumers were allowed to just go in and put headset on and listen to what was happening on stage cuz there was four there's basically four tracks running on one stage and put the headset on to actually hear it. Uh there was like people jump looking at badges I think but then there was like a section to the side where you could just walk in quite easily whoever you were. Anyway there were other there were other rooms if you were a speaker on the that day you could use a room and sit in there and there was a press room where you could go there was one room where everyone would sit and do their interviews. It's really difficult I think for event organizers when it comes to that stuff offering well I don't know I don't really I can't remember what it's like a big festival. uh in terms of that like do they offer free lunches? I don't know. I don't think so. But I think a place for a place for trade visitors to actually sit is actually pretty good idea which I don't recall seeing again other than the meeting area which I'm pretty sure you couldn't use.

Yeah. Uh a lot more thoughts on Brazil in general. I've got to write finally write an article mentioned about generally Brazil emerging markets a few weeks ago but yeah no there were no massive concerns then. I guess we'll see what the union says now after the response. Cool. So, we're going to stop there. So, that brings us to the end of the pocket.biz podcast week in mobile games. Thanks everyone for listening. Thanks Paige Aaron for taking part in the show and we'll see you all next week. I'll be in sunny Barcelona so hopefully see you there. Have a good weekend. Goodbye.