Week in Mobile Games E57 - The solitaire gold rush and Finland's new immigration rules bite

[Music] Hello and welcome to the pocketamer.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 is the rest of the team, deputy editor Paige Cook, news editor Aaron Assel, and and our Mina reporter Issa, who hasn't actually been on the show yet, but he's away at the Lagos Games Festival this week. So, uh, I've heard good things. We'll see. We'll see what he reports back. But, uh, how you both doing, Paige? Not too much. Um, just same old same old really. Just doing stuff around the house, but I'm getting there. I think like I think I'm about 90% happy and done with my living room now. So like the next phase is turning this room into not just my desk chucked in a corner. It's going to be going to actually make it into the

office games room that I want this the big white board thing behind. I'm going to put it like in the wardrobe that we've got. And I'm going to put a TV in there because I don't need it to be like a walk-in wardrobe. So I'm going to have it as like an open and shut like game center. So maybe when it looks good I'll show you. But it's it's going to be a it's going to be a task that your like the monitors or the monitors that you're using isn't enough. You need this big TV screen in the cupboard. Yeah. Because like I game I mainly get the the nice gaming area downstairs on the big TV. But like my partner's now quite a big gamer, which is definitely my fault. So sometimes when we're playing different things like she gets relegated to being on this little monitor. So to be fair, she'll probably use this room more than than I do. So, but yeah, we got to have like two separate setups. That sounds perfect. Aaron, what you been up to? Yeah, slightly less eventful. Not not too many house renovations, though. I have got a new light which has sort of blurred out my um Yeah, you can't really see the Funkos so well anymore. But no,

other than that, I'm still um trying to keep up with all the Switch 2 news, waiting for that announcement that's finally going to force me to go out and and buy one. So, basically waiting for a game to come out. basically. So, there was like the as of recording yesterday was the Donkey Kong Direct, which it was quite interesting. I'm probably like, I'm not going to buy the Switch to for it, but I'll probably pick it up when I do eventually get one. I think I posted in our group chat that Donkey Kong can now turn into an ostrich, which is a real selling point. The the image was interesting. It's not It's no Cat Mario. No, it sort of Yeah, it just looks like a muscley ostrich, which is a weird combination. He can also turn into a zebra to run faster and stuff. Um, yeah, it actually looks like there's a a plot to it as well, which is not always a guarantee with a platformer. So, it looks interesting. All right. Thanks, Aaron. I'm not really looking at getting

a Nintendo Switch at all at the moment. I thought I would get tempted and I briefly was and then now it's actually just off of my mind. I've got past that and I'm like, "Yeah, there's no games." I think when they uh when the From Software game comes out maybe or Metroid, I don't know when Metroid's supposed to come out. It's supposed to be this year. Oh, is it? I thought it was next year. Yeah, that's interesting. Or even like years away. They've given a date. We'll see. We'll see how they do. Or even that I was a bit like I don't know. The trailer didn't really enammer me, but maybe it's not maybe it's not very much of a trailer game. Yeah. Yeah, with me uh I've not been up to honest I've not been up to much at all just uh suffering in the heat and playing Starcraft basically. I tell you what, I'll say I got into diamond league which is amazing and then uh for me and then uh but it's that thing with any game really like if you go up a division like a rank it's just a whole new learning curve again it's like oh these people are like loads better than than like the

people I was mostly the people I was facing before and you can always face like people above or below you but yeah now this is like this is like real Starcraft now I've just been playing against I've just been training I think and this is like I don't know. I don't know how else to describe it. You know, like in like like Dark Souls or something. It's like you get to this boss, you're like, do you know what? Nothing in this game has prepared me for this. It's kind of like that feeling of like there's no way I could beat this uh other than continue playing for many more hours. But yeah, so that's that's really it for me. So we're going to jump straight into it. So as always, shout outs for events. See Summit Shanghai July 30th. I'm a step closer to getting my visa. That was a worry for a little bit there, but they actually approved it in just over a week. So now I have to go to the embassy and get it actually approved. We've got PTC Helsinki October 7th to 8th. PGC Akaba November 8th and 9th. PC Bangkok October 15th. And then we've got the mobile games awards coming during Gamescom week. Uh lobbying is

open for that. I think it closes it closes soon. So, if you haven't nominated uh either I guess yourself or or another company, another game, please do uh before nominations close uh so we can consider you as a finalist. Right, on to the news. Aaron, you've been doing an interesting analysis, something I've always wanted to know more about, which probably says a lot more about me, but genuinely was quite interesting. Yeah. So, um, yeah, I've been looking into like mobile solitaire games, which, yeah, as you say, Greg, it's been it's come up a few times. So, finally got round to looking into it. It's just it's just been sat there in Trell. Yeah. Um, so yeah, there's finally quite a big feature on the site, which everyone should go and read. Not right now. Listen to me first. But um but yeah, so it's basically about how people do it at the same time these days. Aaron and playing like subway surfers on the side. But yeah, so um it's basically so

I took a look at how the genre has been growing in recent years and some of the big uh like publishers in the space. Like in 2014, Solitaire Games on mobile worldwide um generated record-breaking 348 million downloads according to AppMagic estimate and 470.2 million in gross player spending. So that's on the App Store and Google Play. Obviously, there's going to be more from um you know, alternative stores and web shops and things, but yeah, that's just like player spending. That doesn't include any ad revenue. So like nearly nearly half a billion just from solitire gate and that was down slightly the spending from the 2023 peak which was 564.7 million but even so the genre's um like roughly doubled since 2019. So like over the past 5 years it was at 237.7 million in 2019. Meanwhile installs have risen continually for seven consecutive

years. Uh, so it's really, you know, a growing genre. 2025 is currently shaping up to be even bigger. So I looked over the first five months of the year, obviously. So we're not we're not through June yet. Yeah. Over the first five months like Solitaire Games um collectively um generated about 164 million downloads and have earned over 200 million in player spending. and April this year also saw the most solitire mobile game downloads ever for a single month. May has also seen a spending spike following that um whether due to more players or or not. Uh yeah, so as part of my research for this, I guess you could say, um I spoke with game design consultant Jakob Remier and he talked about kind of two types of solitaire game separate to obviously you have the more original solitire style and then you have the tri peaks games which a lot

are going for now. But his version of the two types of solitire game are really the innovators that try and drive player spending and the quite stale as he put it kind of classic experiences that don't really drive player spending but um can make a lot of money from ad revenue. So he suggested that games like um Plate's Solitaire Grand Harvest aren't actually real solitaire games and he said they're more like carefully crafted level based puzzlers which use solitaire like mechanics and visuals. So yeah um I won't go through everything because we'd be here for ages. It's a long story, but essentially, yeah, there are games like Platica seems to be really thriving and dominating the player spending side of things. Obviously, their subsidiary Super Play recently released Disney Solitaire, which has done really well. There's a comparison in there as well between it and Candy Crush Solitaire cuz they're

obviously both new this year, both Tri Peaks games, but Disney Solitaire has done substantially better than Candy Crush Solitaire so far. Interestingly, they have about some amount of downloads. It's about 7.7 million according to AppMagic. But yeah, the revenue difference is quite stark between them. It's like about 8 million in Antichrist Solitaire since launch versus like 25 million for Disney Solitaire. Yeah, I think that's probably all the highlights. But yeah, it's a I'm quite proud of the the piece. So yeah, if anyone wants to see the full thing, I'd appreciate it. It's a it's a really it's a really interesting piece and uh I've always wondered like why do all the top publishers have a solitaire game like literally uh who were we saying there Triple D player Zinger but they they quietly acquired Harpad Solitaire many years ago they didn't actually announce it properly it was hidden away in their u in their financials I remember at the time like what and it was like a m 40 million deal or

something they they just hid it yeah King obviously you mentioned everyone has one. I I still don't really I I guess it is kind of it's just to kind of attract a lot of users and I guess the revenue model is kind of big there. Uh and maybe maybe they could promote some of their other games. I'm still quite surprised that so many try and like you say is kind of taken that space now obviously with the $2 billion acquisition of Super Play. They they completely own that now. So they even had uh so obviously so first up until now basically this year Disney solitaire's third solitaire grand harvest is first for revenue in in the genre tiki solitaire try peaks which is scope please again another another big major publisher there's his second kind of crazy and then don't forget player actually also cancelled their um wugers cla's chronicles which laid off about 50 staff that have been a soft launch for a little while in a way I guess the space is just super competitive and they figured, well, you're going to be up

against the new Disney solitire. It's not maybe it's not doing as well as that. Just nyx that one. Very unfortunate for the Wuka team. They still have Jew's journey and we'll see what comes next from them. I'm still a bit of the catacross solitire thing. It's just really harsh. But I kind of don't really know why they've released that game. They maybe they see something. I I feel like it was just pressure to release a game after a long time. I think we might discussed that before. I feel like it was a bit like the Supercell thing cuz it was the same amount of time. It's the same like number of years like five to six years they haven't actually released anything new so there was pressure to do that and what was it I think Yakab says in Helius Slayer it's kind of like an easy kind of game for them to do so that's why they did it but it was as he would put it as well it's total failure in the context particularly of this is a company with billion dollar games that should be kind of the the ambition and so to release a game that's made you know we're looking at net revenue so far 6 million that's not in that league right it's not a thousands maybe.

And yeah, we've probably mentioned it on the podcast before, but when I interviewed um King about Candy Solitaire, they said that it had like surpassed internal expectations so far, which yeah, I don't know what their expectations were. I mean, it's not to be overly harsh. Obviously, we don't know how true that is what they're saying publicly, right? But if if you took that at face value, like what if the expectation was that low? Again, it's kind of another thing of why are you releasing it? I mean, estimates for downloads, which are always a bit trickier than revenue, I think, but 7.5 million downloads. I mean, maybe that's good. Got to get all those users. That's the only plus I can think. But then, you know, downloads is always something that's pretty much manufactured, so that you can get as many downloads as you want really. Um, but if you don't make the money, then you don't make your money back. But, yeah, they're really fascinating and yeah, definitely people should check that out. And as even when I'm looking at it like Playicks has fish system solitire that they've tried it because another one pretty simple was a

company that it's like the fourth biggest revenue generator this year. So literally everyone's everyone's at it and I'm curious in a year or two if people are still at it after Play is potentially taking a big market share there or if or if a company a single company can take a big market share. Cool. Thanks that Aaron. So Paige, what have you got? Yeah, first up from me is something about so Finland's sort of immigration laws. They've had a a pretty big change that has caused some concerns. Obviously, this is like a a thing that impacts all of their employment there, but obviously we're kind of focused on the games part of it, but essentially the government has amended their aliens act. It came into effect on June 11th. So now essentially if you're an international worker from outside the EU or the EA and you lose your job in Finland, you'll have just 3 months or potentially 6 months to find a new job or you have to leave the country, which obviously is not a long time at all. That kind of 3 to 6 months, it varies depending on what your job is

and what your role is. So if you're kind of higher up, maybe in a more senior role, you might get that kind of advantage of having six months. But for a lot of people, you're going to get three months. Say if you've just finished a degree, you've got 3 months to find a job or you've got to leave which is not long at all especially, you know, I think in recent years like with jobs across a lot of countries, you've got people with incredible CVs who are sending out, you know, so many going to so many interviews and they're still not getting job roles. So I feel like that 3 months is just it's very daunting for a lot of people. On top of that, so like employers themselves if they sort of end a contract with someone, they have to let immigration know within 14 days. So like this ball does get rolling like very quickly. So yeah, like I said, it impacts everywhere, but obviously for games, you know, Finland is very well known for its game scene and they have a lot of international talent. So there's a lot of concern for people that are already working there. Like we know the last few years have been difficult for a lot of people. There have been a lot of job losses in the industry. You know, it it does kind of make that, you know, you

feel a little bit more insecure that if I was to lose my job role, I don't have very long to find a new one. And then on top of that, you've got concerns of things, you know, are they going to attract the same kind of attention from people, you know, if before it was a really lucrative or great idea to go there and work for a Finnish game studio, if you now know this new information and you think, "Ah, but if it doesn't work out and I lose my job, I don't have long to figure something out or I'm going to get sent back to my own country." So, yeah, I think it just, you know, it sparks quite a lot of concerns. whether you're somebody that is already working there. It sparks concerns for people that maybe are thinking of working there. So yeah, I think it's, you know, it's something to kind of watch out for. I think big changes like this, it can really alter where we see games developers deciding to move to and what kind of hubs become big because yeah, rules like this, it does just make that security a lot a lot less essentially. So yeah, not a not a positive thing for Finnish games, I

don't think. Obviously, it's a very political topic, so people are going to sit on both sides of the fence of immigration as we know well in the UK. But like in my in my personal opinion, it's just that to kind of some of Portuguese, it's just that these, you know, these are people that have come into the country legally, legal immigrants that are paying their taxes and these are the people you want to kick out. It doesn't that makes no sense. like surely that ultimately has a negative impact on Finland. Um because they're not really taking jobs that I guess if I was to think of why they would do this. They think that these jobs could be done by Finnish people and and they really it's probably a populist thing, but I don't know that much about Finnish politics to properly say that. But that's just simply wouldn't be true, right? These hires, they come in because at least for games, right? Because they're super talented. There might be senior developers that you want to get and and it's a very competitive industry there. There's only so many even now like local developers that you can hire. So you need to recruit from abroad. Well, if you just want to expand expand

your team and and I feel like kicking out talented workers is it's just a net negative to the economy as well. Imagine the process of when you lose your job, you then well first you have to deal with that and then secondly you have to start applying. Especially now in a lot of sectors, but in games obviously it's been very difficult for people to find jobs. that's getting maybe better but it's still very difficult that takes time just the application process and then uh and then you've got to go through all the hurd all the hurdles of getting the actual job when I was sensor tower that was I don't know five six interviews I had to fly to San Francisco as part of the process I I did like two or three calls I had to go into London to speak to someone and then I had to fly to San Francisco for like a week to to finish that whole process that took ages obviously and then you might want to negotiate contract etc. So 3 to 6 months is quite is pretty tight. Well 3 months is kind of impossible. 6 months is it could be quite tight. So I don't really understand it like and last year

when we went to to to Finland before PTC Helsinki also people say it was during there there was concern that the new government which is like Finland's version of a right-wing government they were were concerned about like government support in general for the games industry which is kind of I I don't know the full extent of it but I think some of it or a lot of it has kind of vanished especially in like and in Helsinki it's kind of not as what it used to be. I don't know if that's changed this year, but that's it's I think the incentives that you get aren't what they were like a couple years ago. Um although I think some other regions can be a bit more competitive, but I guess that's a whole another thing. Anyway, it all just comes at a bad time for Finland's games industry, which is not there's obviously been a lot of debate around it at the moment. Mishka at Deconstruct Fun wrote an article around it. I've seen other people talking about it. someone that wrote a LinkedIn article a while back. Can't remember his full names. I think it's Antie. He used to work at CY now. And then he he and he's founded his own studio. He was talking about, you know,

Finland's game scene is basically struggling and the reasons why because there's too much plaudits maybe about like, oh, culture and failure. They're not actually working on something new, maybe. So, all this comes at just a time when the industry there is struggling. Supercell, sure, it had its best year allegedly ever last year. this year. It won't I don't think it will be that because Brawl Stars isn't on on top unless they're magically making all this money through their web stores, which it might be, but it'll be quite that'll be quite the fall for revenue for Brawl Stars, which is still very successful. Roio has been been kind of struggling. I think they've had a couple studio closures. No recently closed that was from Jussi the ex um the Unity guy. So yeah, it's not it's just a sort of another problem that Finland's games industry has to deal with. And obviously this is probably something then that's going to stick around for a few years if they if they've gone if the government has gone ahead with it. That's not going to change anytime soon. So it's a big

helicopter outside. So yeah, anyway, ultimately it's all bad news for Finland and it's a real shame that people have to feel threatened in this way just for just to try to do their job. Sorry, this rant. I don't Anyone else wants to add? No, like like I said, I think it is one of those things. There's always that political part of it where, you know, I'm sure there's there's some reasons for it and things, but yeah, I just think the big thing is it's that time frame. Like you said, like 6 months is cutting it quite low, but 3 months, I think like that's the real kicker. Like if you lost your job and somebody said to you, you've got 3 months or you literally have to upheave your entire life back to your original country, that pressure. um you know and you can't just magic a job out of nowhere sometimes or like I said like I said I've know so many people who have got incredible CVs that have struggled to get jobs over the last few years because it's just tough. So yeah, I think the big thing is it's just that timing is is cutting it very tight for people. someone that um they've worked for some of the biggest companies in in the UK games industry,

very extensive CV and they and then they got laid off like twice uh over the past couple of years and then and then they went over a year maybe two years without a year year and a half without a job and and they've been looking the whole time. They just sat there doing nothing and they apply they get to the final stage, the final interview and then for whatever reason that role doesn't exist anymore or someone else got the job or the studios actually got through layoff suddenly. you just can't. There's so many things. Anyway, yeah, it's bad. I don't know how else to put it. And then obviously the the last thing is like it just affects on who on who you can attract. So now they're going to have these job postings. People are going to think twice about going to a country or any other country that has kind of similar which is like okay, you know, there's a lot of layoffs going on. What if I do lose my job? That's always got to be in your thinking when you move, especially if you move abroad. What happens if I lose my job? like what's the what's the kind of what do I do after that you right three months I guess I'll work elsewhere and then and then you lose all the best right right over right so uh one of the stories I was picking up is the um it's quite a

short story but there's a there's a report that 10 cent was going to was thinking of acquiring Nexon which is one of South Korea's biggest games publishers it's floated on the Tokyo stock exchange but it it's very much got its roots firmly in South Korea and so Nexon was linked with it they for looking at buying the late founder Kim Jongju a juice shares which his family owns. Anyway, yeah, that was making the rounds and then the Korean game society got very angry about this. They said 10 cents attempt to acquire Nexon is not just a simple transaction between two private companies. Ted Cent's public is as is Nexon. It is a strategic move to dominate one of the most important industries in Korea. This is a matter of national security that the government should not just neglect on the pretense of neutrality. And then it talks about anti-Chinese sentiment which this would run against. And it apparently could also shake the diplomatic ties between

the two countries which the governments have been working hard to rebuild. So quite a quite a big statement there for the career game society. Nintendo Tencent has since come out and said it's not true and denied the reports. So I guess there's a couple ways you could look at that rate. You can take it at face value and say okay it wasn't in the end it wasn't true but the original report was by Bloomberg very very wellrespected media outlet who would have had you know multiple sources tell them and they're not just going to put out something that they don't believe in I wonder if like there's such been such a backlash that they've actually had to come out and be like oh no we're not doing this or they are doing it but for now they're just publicly saying that no we're not doing it there's a few ways that That looks I suspect they were very much looking at it. I think I'm sure the rumor has been like Nexon's kind have been for sale in some ways for years. They've been linked with they've been linked with a sale and and a few acquirers over the years especially

since the kind of the founder passed away. I guess it the interesting thing about it was and I didn't realize just how much influence Tencent had over South Korea's games industry. So they own stakes in multiple major Korean companies including a 17.5% stake in Net Marble, 13.6% in Craftton, 20.7% Web Zen, and 40% in Shift Up and also recently acquired 9.7% in Hive. Fir fingers firmly in the pie of all the major companies except for uh maybe NCOFT if they actually do. So I can see that there'd be quite a big concern that it's quite a lot of your biggest companies to basically be owned by one company in another country. And and just some background I guess on the whole like anger from South Korea's side. There's just one aspect of it which was obviously years ago and it's only really ended recently. I think South Korean publishers couldn't actually launch their games in China and that was

because of a missile defense deal called FAD with the US. It's like a defensive deal, but China took exception to that. And one of the things they did was kind of secretly ban these games. Obviously, not so secretly when none of these games could launch, but they never actually publicly announced. And so, yes, had difficulty in the past, but uh I believe that's all over with for now. What else have we got? Aaron, have you got anything else? Yeah. So, the um other story from me this week is about Moshy Monsters, which um is a name I hadn't heard in a long time until um until Yeah, this week. I never played it, but I was, I guess, in the the target age group when it came out. I know some of my friends and cousins played it, so I've been I've been letting them know this week. It's coming back and unlocking all these childhood memories for everyone. But yeah, so essentially, so Mind Candy, who made the original, they're looking to bring Moshi Monsters back. Um, and they basically launched a Kickstarter campaign to try and raise

funds for a new mobile iteration. The original was a Flash game from the 2000s. It shut down um in 2019, which was just a little while before the like Adobe Flash Player went down. So, yeah, now they're looking to kind of bring it back as a mobile game uh set after a flash droid uh destroyed the original like city. Um, so I guess it'll be a like city builder to renovate it all. So kind of a meta uh nod to the real world events there. But yeah, so basically they they launched this Kickstarter on um Monday, I believe, June 16th. Um, and they're looking to raise £250,000 uh through fan support with fans basically offered to uh be in like an exclusive Discord and get to test it early, you know, presuming it all happens. And originally, um, they had

thought they'd reached the goal. I had like quite an excited email from them on Tuesday saying like they've already raised the 250,000 Then unfortunately on Wednesday um I um got another email saying that basically they determined there was a malicious actor as they put it who'd submitted multiple fake pledges to the Kickstarter which I didn't know you could do. I've never really used Kickstarter but I thought there would be like more checks to stop people like spoofing um contributions. Yeah, it seems like rather than as I say they're looking to raise 250,000, they have genuinely raised more than 75,000 but that means like yeah over 175,000 of it was from like a malicious actor trying to fake it which Mind Candy they released a statement about it um

suggesting that there was clear intent to mislead the community and sabotage the campaign and I guess because fans would stop contributing because they had seen, you know, the targets already been reached when it actually hadn't. So, at least they identified it quickly, but they um they said they were heartbroken in the statement and um said that, you know, obviously it's going to damage trust and morale and the momentum of the campaign, but they are still committed to to bringing it back and I guess keeping the the fundraiser going. So, yeah, I felt quite bad for them follow-up email. It's a shame someone would do that and just derail the campaign, but hopefully it all works out in the end. Like you said, like Kickstarter is pretty widely used. You would think that there would be something in place that stops stuff like this from happening. I I don't really use it, so I don't know if it's that simple, but yeah, you would think like that's a lot of money that they thought they had in the bag essentially, and they didn't. So yeah, you would think that there'd be something in place to

stop things like that happening cuz you'd think if not like unfortunately there would just be people going around messing up Kickstarter campaigns all the time and I've not really heard about that happening before. I think it's a total disaster for Kickstarter and more so Kenny as you're saying as you put well Aaron is like totally takes the wind out of the sales of that campaign. People People probably think, "Oh, it's over." They they'll never check the story again to see, oh, actually wasn't it wasn't funded. Oh, I might have put some money in that. And just the messaging that they have to now put out just completely upends all of their plans. 80,000 250,000 goal, 56 days, they'll probably get there. I guess good luck to them. It's one of those ones where And so the other big Kickstarter campaign was the Clash of Clans board game. And I kind of like do do these companies need to do this. It's like with Supercell, I think I can't remember the name of the uh the tabletop company that's doing the um the Supercell game, but I think that is their business model

where they they crowdfund these things first. They've done it before with a license and then and then they make it, people get it, everyone's happy. But it just feels weird when we're supercell multi-billion dollar company. They're like, "Give us a Fiverr." Well, actually, why don't you make it and then I'll buy it. Maybe it's Maybe it's just more of a pre-order thing, like it was always going to happen. I've always felt the Kickstarter that thing always feels a bit odd to me. But my candy, I I thought that they'd actually closed years ago. And then I forgot they have like the Moshy app. So, Moshy Monsters technically, yeah, has been away, but they've also had the Moshy I think it's just like a sleeping app, isn't it? Or relaxation. Yeah, I had a bit of a look into it for this story. It looks like there's kind of whether you could call them mini games, but like um alphabet stuff and like nursery rhymes and that kind of thing. So they're not gone away again. 250k. Could you not just I don't know. Maybe they just didn't have that

money. Quite surprised. I guess I guess the other side is makes it all a safer bet. Uh you don't have to give you don't have to give up any control maybe to any publishers, but 250k to make a mobile game and launch it. Going to need a lot more than that. So, it's probably just a promotional campaign, which again itself feels a bit weird. Paige, what else have you got? Just a quick one from me. So, Epic launched a new game mode for Fortnite this week called Blitz Royale, and it's a mobile first mode. So, obviously quite interesting timing considering that the game has made its return to the US App Store, you know, thanks to Apple's regulation changes. But yeah, the mode it is available across platforms. So it's not mobile only. It's just kind of mobile first as they've kind of put it. I think the main thing I can see from it that makes it like mobile first is probably how short the play sessions are. It's like 5 minute sessions. So that is, you know, like really suited to mobile, those little in between moments where you can pick up a couple of rounds of it. Um but

yeah, I just I always just find Fortnite in general one of those things that's just mind-blowing. I remember like when Fortnite started, it wasn't even a battle royale. It was like the save the world campaign thing and then it turned into this battle royale and now it's this I don't know. I guess they there's this thing of like it being a platform, not a game. Like they've got Bruno Mars doing a Fortnite festival. They've got I think like maybe it was this week or recently anyway, they've got like a new Lego Fortnite mode which probably caters more to like the younger kids. Um, so yeah, like I think it's just like that whole expansion of it being more of a platform and it being something that they always want people playing and now that they've got it back on the app store, it's interesting how quickly they've kind of brought in a mode that's they're saying is for mobile. So yeah, I just think Yeah, it's interesting that they're at least thinking about what they're doing with the mobile aspect of that game. I think, yeah, I think it's just the point of, you know, they want people playing Fortnite at home on their PCs and their consoles and then when you're away and you don't have those,

they still want you playing Fortnite on your phones and continuing that on. So, yeah, Fortnite, it just they just always blows my mind from how that game started to where it is today. I think it's uh yeah, I guess this has always been part of their campaign for a post hopefully app store win. You know, it's come very quickly, right? suspiciously after yeah very quick this mobile game it's always just ready to go but I guess what I was going to say I'm just reading a bit more about it so more details come out I haven't played it yet so the uh it's yeah 32 player like you said 5 minutes or less uh and then you get all opponents start with the same random medallion or unique weapon on a small map and you got survive uh as you level up you get powerful weapons powerups with gold chest test even more power ups, gold supply drops, even more medallions. You could go solo or squad of four. Um, cool. I guess like I if I think what

are the best aspects in my opinion of a battle? Why is that genre blown up so much? And I don't think it's because of you know maybe there's room for something new like this, right? It does fit in with mobile classic sort of mobile play sessions. If I think of what makes these good is even on your phone is that they actually take a bit of time and then there's sort of fluctuations between the action and quieter periods where you could kind of prepare or if you're with people you could just chat cuz I see them as like a bit of like a destination which is what Fortnite has ultimately become. Does any of this fit into that? Not really but then maybe it's just an extra incentive to get people to play on their mobile phones. Yeah, I think it's kind of just that thing of they just want people playing it more all of the time. No matter the situation you're in, if you've got 5 minutes free, you can still play Fortnite. Yeah, which does kind of make sense. Aaron, any thoughts? Not much to add. Um, I can throw out a little controversial grenade and say I've never played Fortnite. Aaron, you got to play

You've got to play it at least once. Surely. The big one of the biggest games of all time. It was just like that popular thing everyone else was playing when it came out. I played, listen, I played like the original original Fortnite before it was a battle royale and then it turned into this completely different thing and then it got very like in my opinion it all of a sudden seemed to be catered to like younger people a bit. So I didn't play it but then my nephew at the time who was I don't know he must have been when he was really into it maybe 9 10. So I would only ever play it if my nephew would be like please play Fortnite with me. So like yeah, it is weird how where it started from to then it like being this super popular with like kids of like what his age was at the time. He's like 15 now and now he doesn't play it but at one point it was like his life. I think for like my age group we were at like sick form kind of age like 16 17ish when it was really big. Yeah. I was like I'm still I'm just playing like my 3DS. Why would I want to like go and play Fortnite? I can play Pokémon on this. I

don't need to be. Um, yeah, I that was a I was popular in those days. I've always found it strange Fortnite where I know it's not like technically it wasn't like really young kids, but still people like under 16, under 18 and and it's a game that just features like real guns. Like everything else about it is kind of cartoony and then and then you just roll out like I don't know the weapons now, but like an AK or something like okay like these aren't like they're not all like fantastical weapons. They're like real just it's just a bit weird. on the violent side. I guess I could talk as a kid. I was obviously played these kind of games, but this always strikes me weird. And I never really got into Fortnite because I was kind of stuck in cuz I played a lot of PUBG beforehand. And then going to Fortnite, it was so completely different and I was just basically by then kind of setting my ways and expectations of what a battle royale is and it was just it's just it's all good. It was just very different and I never got to grips with the building stuff. I actually hated then. Yeah, my experience is exactly the same. I played

a lot of PUBG and then when I played Fortnite and you would like find someone and then all of a sudden they would build a tower around them, I'd just be like, "Yeah, what?" I I'm trying to shoot you. Stop. Stop building. I just refused to learn new things. But then like they took that on board and then I think they put a mode in the game that like there is no building in it. So I guess yeah, over time they realized that that was something that put people off. Yeah. But uh obviously a great game and redefined like Epic remember they said was it one of the lines Sweeney said is this like or kind of just the paraphrasing but redefined like what a what a successful game could be and this obviously from the company that made Gears of War which is you know it was fairly big. I got one more story uh we can quickly go through. So pretty big news the SAG after strike has ended um and it took that was how long was that? 11 10 10 11 months something like that. 11 months 11 months um start to finish. So it's been a very long time. So in that time so the union is kind of about performance actors and voice acting and

so there's any anyone that's member of that and really it does actually impact you know people that aren't even members as well is it non-members get called scabs for working. I think that's the term. Uh so there's a lot of pressure basically for no one to work for for games companies during this time. If you're a bit if you're a bit of a conspiracist, is that a word? Conspiracy theorist. You can uh for example Apex Legends, you suddenly trailers or things come out where there's not that much voice acting in it and you're like, hm, is that because of this, which I have no idea for that game specifically, but I'm sure it's been a major well major headache for publishers and and obviously for the people striking, you know, they don't want to be on strike, right? Cuz if you're on strike, they don't get paid. So like fair credit to everyone that kind of stuck to their guns for as long as they did and tried to hold out for for a better deal. So some of the some of the things included in the new deal. Um so the new contract security keep protections on AI requiring informed consent for various uses and allowing performers to suspend

that consent for a digital replica for digital replica use during strikes. Also set it minimum pay rates. I think they got quite uh was it a 15.17% pay increase with additional 3% raises over the next few years. But the main thing was was really about AI. It also sets minimum pay rates for digital replica use, boost pay for chatbot voice work, and ensures extra payments when visual performances are reused in other games. And then and then a bunch of other stuff. I I'm still curious how that all pans out. Will will that look like a good deal in a few years if kind of work starts to dry up? if that work starts to dry up because because all these publishers are actually making heavy use of AI and they've already done some deals with a couple voice actors and then that's kind of it. You can do whatever you want. We'll see how that goes. But I'm glad everyone's about to work and hopefully hopefully the the the workers are happy. Um and we can kind of move on from here. Any thoughts on that before we we finish? Yeah, I've seen quite a few like interviews with like

voice actors and stuff I think in the past week talking about like AI and how it's even they think like it's getting better that you know basically doing more realistic voices but at the same time there's things that it can't do and there's certain nuances that it can't do. So yeah, like you said like you know people don't necessarily want to be on strike because then they're not getting paid whilst they're doing it. So you know yeah like fair play to them for sticking it out and fighting for for yeah what like what they want. So yeah, it's been it's been a while, but yeah, finally some headway in that. Are you going to say something? Yeah. Um I'm interested to see on a um kind of personal gaming level like Fire Emblem Heroes, which I play, I'd say probably like 10 to 20% even of like the new characters that have been added over the last like year have had their Japanese voices instead of uh English and they're just like with subtitles. So, I'm going to be interested to see whether they slowly get updated or whether there is just going to be eventually a big update

where it's like all of these characters from the last like year are suddenly kind of in English now because a lot of them are kind of also actors already but they've been on strike so they they just released them with the Japanese voice actors recordings for the time being. So, yeah, it's going to be interesting. Like I presume they will go back and like record those lines in English. Um but also you'd think surely like they're not going to make the same money off it now doing that for a character that's like a year old that is kind of outdated in the meta by now. So it's going to be interesting to see what they do or whether it just stays with Japanese. Well, they've had a 50% pay raise. Hopefully they come back. They're still accept but yeah you're right. We'll see. Just have to see what see what happens from here. It's just such a shame that it just took so long to get to this point. A real practical concern. I guess you if I was to look at it kind of both

sides, which is my job. You know, publishers, you know, they want to be a to I guess they would quote innovate and be able to kind of use new technologies in interesting ways. And maybe one of those ways is through AI, but people got to get paid and got to be paid fairly. And if you're going to replicate their work like from now to infinitive, they should get have a say in that and they should get paid for that if that's the way that the union wants things to go as well and the industry wants things to go. Right, that brings us to the end of the show. So, thanks very much, Paige. Thanks very much, Aaron, for being on the show. Been here. Great as always. And thank you everyone for listening. We'll be back again next week hopefully and have a great weekend. See you soon. Goodbye.