Week in Mobile Games E58 - The UK games industry's £30m boost and Grow a Garden transforms Roblox

[Music] Hello and welcome to the pocket gamer.biz podcast week in mobile games where we talk about the week's news and hopefully provide some insights. As usual, I'm Craig Chapel, head of content at pocket gamer.biz and with me today our news editor, Aaron Asel. How you doing? You've got uh you've got something to talk about. I do. Yes. our um visual listeners then may have noticed already, but I got a little bit burnt um recently. We we've had some sunshine in the UK, which is very abnormal, and I dared to go outside in it and got quite burnt. So, I'm looking a little bit laid-back and casual today in a a vest with some slightly pink shoulders that I can actually touch now without flinching. So, that's an improvement. But, yeah, the sun came out. Uh, so I ended up having like a family barbecue one of the days over the weekend and went out to like wildlife

park. Even the lions came out. It was that hot. Not out of their enclosures, but out of hiding. Yeah, that' be slightly more terrifying. But yeah, anyway, so I've been actually going outdoors and not just stuck at my computer screen, but as a result, my my pale skin has not appreciated it. Basically, the dangers of the outside world. Yeah. It's It's your own fault, I presume. No sun cream. So, it's arguably worse than that. I took sun cream and then I thought like it's warm, but there's kind of like cloud cover. So, I'll take it around with me and I'll put it on if the sun actually those UV rays, the clouds. Yeah. They can't get through the clouds. Um, so yeah, I carried it around all day and then when I got home, I was like, "Oh, I got burnt actually." That's tragic. But you're doing better now. Yeah. On the men. It has happened to us all. We once went to GDC in San Francisco and with a bunch of the team, we did a a boat tour around Alcatraz and

the and the Golden Gate Bridge. It was like low 20°. So I I just didn't even think about it. I didn't put any sun cream on. And anyway, by the evening, my face was like red. And then I was like it was so embarrassing cuz then I thought I've now got a week of interviews and networking and meeting people and I've got this bright red face. Anyway, as for me, I've uh I've had a few days off. I mostly played Starcraft as as as is typical. I really didn't want to do much, so I just sort of stayed at home. And then I'm straight back into this is like my third podcast in like 24 hours, so people see me wear the same shirt. I don't wear this all the time. It just it just ended up recording these back to back. But we have some cool stuff coming out. Did another game design podcast with Oscar Clark on Kingshot that'll come out in the next couple of weeks. And then we just interviewed um myself and and Peggy, who also hosted the podcast. We interviewed Nitish, the C, the joint MD at Nazara

Technologies. They obviously recently, well, they've been on a very big M&A spree and recently acquired Curve Studios in the UK. So, there's a lot to talk about there. Some really interesting stuff. Right, we're going to cut straight to it. As usual, a few shoutouts. Got PC Summit Shanghai July 30th. So, if you're interested in speaking, joining, let us know. That's just a month away. At the same time, uh just after that, there'll be uh China Joy and I think we have some sort of deal on that. So, do check that out. PTC Helsinki October 7th to 8th. PGC Akaba November 8th and 9th. I nearly forgot. PGC Bangkok October 15th, which is a week after. We got the MGA's coming. uh mobile games awards during Gamescom and we also have the Pocket Gamer Connects party coming up. We've got lots of stuff coming up and we'll be doing plenty at Gamescom. So, right, we'll cut to the news. So, there's a few interesting stories this week. One of the I think for the UK games industry and I've said some of

this stuff before about growing international hubs, but I'll I'll go into a bit of that as well. So, uh the UK government has launched a 30 million pound games growth package. It will provide 10 million pounds annually over the next three years to support startup studios. It will also expand the UK games fund to help young developers and early stage studios bring the games to market. A new industry-led UK video games council will also be formed made up of representatives from across the sector. The group will establish closer a link to decision makers with the aim to work with the government and creative industries council to help drive growth for the UK games industry. And then there's a few other bits. So meanwhile, the government hopes to strengthen the skills pipeline and help projects attract match funding for private investors. A new UK game skills network will be created to publish a strategy for tackling persistent skills gaps and create pathways to the industry. So with that, what Gina Jackson last year released a really interesting skills gap

report and it's been a kind of a problem for a long time. whilst getting new talent into the industry there kind of a perennial problem in terms of uh well one teaching the right skills but also just the amount of jobs available to the amount of graduates we have. The other issue is like beyond that certain levels there there's just there's not enough people to fulfill maybe some more senior roles or mid-level roles. So this is designed to help fix that. And I think Gina J herself said in a a comment on LinkedIn that would explain why a bunch of people from the DCMS which is the department for culture media and sport in in the UK government have downloaded that report recently or requested to download it. And then uh meanwhile there'll also be the lot of gays festival is going to get a funding boost on top of that. So overall it's part of a larger creative industries package. So the government aims to invest £380 million into the country's creative industries with £150 million earmarked

for regional investment. So that could potentially provide extra investment for games as well beyond the 30 million that's been set aside. There's lots going on. This all around this is fantastic news. This is well as always this kind of thing is just like years in the works. It's kind of like a little bit reminds me it's not quite the same now I guess but the years and years campaigning of Tiger and Yuki which are the UK games industry trade bodies there's two of them technically there's a third Scottish games there the years that kind of goes into getting the government to notice how important your industry is took a long time to get tax breaks that kind of came very late because a lot of talent had left to Canada which had very attractive tax rates which is kind of how Ubisoft has been able to grow into this global powerhouse. So, it shows how kind of important those incentives can be and if you aren't competing um then you're behind basically. So we've already got that anyway that changed to the name changed to something else but we still got tax breaks video tax video games tax

credit slightly different but um yeah anyway this is all good news but the only thing is obviously how how is this going to look over the next few years does how much of an impact does it actually make we'll see the other thing I just wanted to say is on that topic of the years that goes into making this stuff and how important it is you could kind of see that in you know Turkey has really a really good kind of tax incentives. One developer did reach out to me and said it's not quite what you think because it's like almost like taxfree I think for studios there but maybe the government could end up coming back all that money. I don't know how true that and then so that I think that has been a kind of a big part in helping Turkey grow. Obviously you've got like financial incentives in the United Arab Emirates Saudi Arabia because they're really trying to grow their industries. It's quite extreme the amount of money they're investing in games and tech because they're really trying to speed up that whole process. And then I was obviously in Brazil recently and they have spent so long trying to get the government to notice their industry. They're finally in a position where

they've got the um want to I can't remember it's called now the the the the video games framework or something which basically is kind of almost the first step after all these years that they've been trying to get the industry noticed with big festival now games and now it's part of games on the TAM which does a great job. They actually pay investors, they pay publishers, media for travel to to come out. That's a big investment because you need that to grow the industry. And now maybe the future could be they'll get some tax credits, maybe more incentives, but it's really important. Without that, you're kind of screwed. And I think obviously you also get some big companies that emerge that kind of be fine, but you really need that support. And lastly, in Finland, for example, now it's not because of this, but obviously Finland's industry is struggling. and some of the support that they used to get no longer exists. I think a national level and within Helsinki other states I believe can still do some incentives but there's less support there and it's come at the wrong time for Finland's industry rate. It's come at the time where okay they've

helped the industry grow but now it's struggling a bit more like layoff closures like everywhere and it's come at the wrong time. So now maybe they need that investment. It's not as easy to get as it once was. At least this was true last year. So basically wanted to say great news for the UK, how important this stuff is and how difficult it is to get. I believe this is what like the trade bodies wanted like some of the things that have happened here that that had actually been requested and that they've got so they've got kind of the tools that they need to address some of the issues in the industry. So yeah, good news. So Aaron, what what have you got? Yes. So my first story today is about a Roblox game which is called Grow a Garden. hit a very impressive concurrent user record of 21.3 million people. Uh this was on the 21st of June. Not just people, concurrent users. Concurrent users. Yeah. So that was the um the highest level ever seen on the platform. Just for reference, prior to Grower Garden coming out this

March, Roblox's record concurrent users for like one single experience wasn't even at 5 million. And now this game's surpassed 20 million. So crazy numbers really. Since it's come out, it's like regularly set new records. So we covered in May that it had hit 9 million on one day, which um was, you know, that was a new Roblox record at the time. And yeah, now a month later, it's more than doubled that to this 21.3 million. And for a bit of context for the wider industry as well, this is also the most concurrent players that have been seen in any single like video game like where that can be recorded then. So like it's beaten Steam's peak, which was 3.2 million with PUBG Battlegrounds. Again, this is all concurrent, not lifetime or anything, but yeah, Steam's peak is like 3.2 million. Fortnite's peak is apparently 15.3 million. So yeah, this this Roblox game about like growing

fruit and veg has um beaten Fortnite's concurrent user count. It's currently averaging like 2.7 million concurrent users. So the that 21.3 million figure isn't like the new standard that it's consistently hitting all the time. Like after an hour of being at that 21.3 million, it had already fallen down to 7.6. six, which is still like double Steam's like highest peak. But yeah, it's not the case that there are like 20 odd million people playing this at any one time all the time now. And so the average is just over two and a half million, which is still a lot. Roblox strategy consultant James Burell posted about it um and how well it's doing on LinkedIn and he suggested that what should terrify every AAA studio executive is that it was built by indie developers in a fraction of the time it takes traditional studios to even greenlight a project which is a interesting observation I guess what kind of implications it might have for

indie projects on the whole or even whether it sparks much change on the Roblox platform. I guess we'll um we'll see as as things develop, but I know that Roblox we've covered before that they have a goal to get like 10% of all games industry revenue is it going through the Roblox platform, which still seems like a crazy goal, but you know, if they can get a few few grow gardens on there, well, they don't have the China market right, good luck. I um I mean UGC is really really interesting. uh you know UEF and Roblox and then this I wonder if this is I don't know is this like a tipping point almost we already know that these platforms are pretty are big Roblox still isn't profitable yeah amazing this I saw in general news media it's getting picked up rate that's that's massive and it's not just a story about Roblox being terrible for kids this is like a positive Roblox story it's amazing people kind of comparing it to like Farmville like this generation is kind of Farmville within a like

within our platform so that's that's amazing I that the that comment about what should terrify every AAA studio. I mean ultimately if it's attracting millions 20 million like yeah that's true and it was made by a small team which is an amazing thing about these UGC platforms right that anyone could could technically create an experience. I know that there's some issues there uh that other reports kind of gone into but it's kind of amazing that you can do that. The thing is is that so you've got 20 20 20 21 million people concurrently and then later seven and then later 2 million right still they're still amazing numbers how much money is I guess is the ultimate thing right that is anyone could create stuff for these platforms and then so if it's a small team you make less money that still works out for everyone but you kind of make you did they change this you make like a fraction really of what you would otherwise make if you release this on Steam or on an app store as its own

thing. You make more money. And I get that Roblox who they take their cut and then Apple takes its cut technically and then and then they charge more for the platform as well. So the money the developer actually makes is kind of smaller. And then I don't know how much a game actually makes anyway generally in Roblox. Obviously there's kids that have ended up being millionaires. People do pretty well out of it. But I guess the big the biggest question is does does this still make big AAA companies does it actually scare them? So by time spent and users playing it, yeah, probably. But by money made and is it taking money and users away from those other games? I'm not entirely sure that that's true current. If I could be wrong, you know, it was it was in news who said there's like mo most there's like five five games or whatever that everyone plays and I think one of them is like before they actually play something else. So I think one of them is Roblox, right? So uh but yeah, like great news for the

developer. I read this like a 16 year old kid that made it. could be I could be wrong which makes the case and uh maybe this will make more people including me uh take even more notice of UGC like because again I always say like name me the five top name me the five top games in Roblox or name me the five top games on UFN that aren't Fortnite and I don't think people be able to do that whereas if I ask you what are top five PC console or mobile games it's a lot easier you could at least make a good guess you could throw out some names whereas in Roblox you probably get stuck after like two or three. Yeah. And apparently Grower Garden is currently the top earning game on Roblox, but I don't actually know. It's not that clear how much that means it's making. Means it's doing very well. And for the creators, I'm sure they're minted. So, I'm not saying it's like before anyone thinks, I'm not saying it's like a failure or anything like that. It's a massive massive success. I'm just saying context of what consider a mega hit in

the industry. in terms of revenue, does it it hit that mark? And then is that combined with Roblox's terms, is that enough to actually attract bigger publishers and and scare them about what they're currently doing? Right. Uh next up in the news, I'm going to actually go on to Netflix. According to uh so reported by what's on Netflix, the streaming giant added leaving soon notices to 22 games with removals set for July 15th. Some of the notable games are the Monument Valley Trilogy and most interestingly Monument Valley 3. Quite a surprise. Yeah, that surprised me because I thought that was like a basically Netflix invested in making that game happen and and and then seemingly the deal wasn't actually going to be out that long as a Netflix exclusive or even it's not even that. It's actually just leaving which is wild. Interesting deal. So I took a look on App Magic and these games accumulatively got 20 just under 25 million downloads which some of them I

mean for a subscription service it's just difficult to really tell how successful is like so Monument Valley Netflix which is the first one about 2.9 million Dumb Ways to Survive. So the report said Dumb Ways to Die I can't find that as a Netflix game on at Magic. I can only find Dumb Ways to Survive. So, I wonder if that was incorrect, but that's got 2.5 million. So, if that's leaving at that Mod Valley 3 about 2.5, Ludo King 2.4, Hades 1.8, and then a few of the others got over a million. A lot of them about half at least. I think got under a million downloads. So, I mean, you're trying to grow your subscription platform. Some of these numbers are pretty poor to be honest. Ghost Detectives on kind of surprised that that's leaving. I feel like it's a bit of obviously Netflix has kind of been changing its game strategy, right? So maybe some of this is part of result of that. I feel like it's a bit of an insight into one they changed strategy but two the kind of terms of the deals that they've had. So unless they've canled some of these deals like maybe some of them were kind of a lot more limited than I would have thought they

would have been. This is nothing new for like Netflix as TV film platform right things enter things leave and then later they come back. There's like this weird thing of like Amazon Pride to Netflix. It's like of course it's left Netflix now it's on Amazon Prime now it's left out it's back on Netflix. maybe get like a situation where it comes back. I just I still don't really I despite all the stuff that they come out with, I'm still not completely clear on their strategy. Maybe Squid Game is a better example of their strategy moving forward than than these titles. Monument Valley 3 leaving so soon seems like a bit of a miss to me. But then I don't know, is 2.5 million downloads enough engagement for Netflix? Maybe not. comes off the back of um obviously the GTA games left the platform as well. I think they left San Andreas. Those are like the biggest download drivers. And then when you think they're about to move back to their own IP and that I'm sure there was a statement that was like we could do stuff similar to that again. Any thoughts on Netflix game strategy? It's an unpredictable strategy. I think at

times agreed. as you say, things like uh, you know, the Squid Game game and they did like a Vikings Valawan a couple of years ago, like they make more sense to me where it's building on, you know, one of their shows that they've invested in. But, um, you know, it feels like a safer bet then that something like that isn't going to leave the Netflix games service probably. Who knows? But yeah, everything else they do seems, yeah, a lot harder to kind of figure out what what the strategy is. But yeah, the monument about valley thing in particular did surprise me to see that three was leaving because it's not even been out for that long, has it? Was it Was it like December it came out? I think so. Yeah. So, six months. Yeah. And then I know um earlier this year there was like a Nintendo Switch presentation where they showed that um Monument Valley 1, 2 um and three would be coming to Switch.

not as an exclusive and it wasn't like it was changing hands so to speak. So I was surprised even with that that like oh Monument Valley 3 it's on it's a Netflix exclusive but now it's going to be on Switch. But yeah, the fact it's also now left or is leaving Netflix is really surprising. I don't know what what to make of it really. I mean I I like to be fair you would expect stuff to leave with deals. It's just some of the names on there are surprising. And what are they what are they what are they really replacing it with? Maybe just tiles more familiar with their new strategy. There's one on there like Ted Tumble words Netflix which I don't think did amazingly well. I wonder if that you know obviously again that's just part of the deal but that maybe that leaves and then like they've got Netflix puzzle in soft launch right an eye on that replacing to some degree that Ludo King kind of surprise although I was surprised it was on there to begin with because it's such a it's driven so many downloads in like India rest of the world right what else have you got yes the other one from me this

week is that Syame pretty derby has finally launched globally today as of us recording this. So June 26. So it's been a massive game in Japan that came out in February 2021. It's got it's had like a good 4 and a half years nearly as a almost Japan exclusive. I think it had a brief brief run in like South Korea, but this is its proper like global launch today then. And it's come after the game's already made 2.6 billion in Japan on mobile alone. It's based on magic estimates. So yeah, it was the top Japan's top grossing game in 2021 and 2022. Its launch month back in 2021, it made 125.4 million or its first full month rather, so March that year. So that was its best month ever on mobile. It still makes over 10 million every month. Sometimes it's quite a lot higher, but it's yet to ever go below 10 million. So yeah, hugely successful game. It has

declined year on year like every year since it's come out and um obviously got dethroned in 2023 then for Japan's top grossing title but yeah still a big hit that um last year just over a year ago they finally like teased that there was going to be an English version. So just suddenly like an English version of the website went live and Syame started up an English Twitter account for it and there was a YouTube like cinematic video that was in in English and then a demo came slightly thereafter to Anime Expo in LA. So we've known that this like English version was going to come for a while. they um finally opened up like pre-registrations for it this April which really kind of solidified you know it is coming and it was going to be releasing on iOS, Android and Steam and yeah today it's finally here. So I I doubt it's going to you know find a new breakout audience outside of Japan in my opinion. It's it's cool that they've

released it for people that are interested in it. Obviously these kind of anime style games can do very well like obviously Genchin Impact being a major example but yeah I wonder because the premise is kind of you train up so you obtain through the gacha system like horse girls and then you train them up to like compete in races basically and they're all named after like Japanese raceh horses that have competed is so bizarre and also so like you almost can't believe it's True. Yeah, that's like acceptable. I'm quite excited interested to see how this does. Like you're saying, you know, anime is pretty huge worldwide now and this popular has its own actual anime film, etc. So, it's a big franchise and to your example, you said Genshin Impact and I was just looking up say a goddess of victory. So, you know, that's kind of it's not it's not the same premise, but it is it's a kind of it's a very different way of doing it, but it's like basically a scantly clad women and the

camera is firmly set behind them. And that's done well worldwide. Like if you look at the revenue, obviously Japan, biggest one. Second is this according to at Magic estimates. The rankings could be slightly different because they're quite close. But second is United States and then just after that is South Korea. That's what I mean. One of those could be higher than the other. A lot of the um kind of animes gacha games that I've covered. It seems to be like Japan, the US and South Korea are the big three for a lot of them. But, you know, it's done like this again just to victory, but you know, it's done okay in other countries, you know, in the west. I think this could potentially be pretty big launch. I don't expect it to do what it has done in Japan obviously, but I think they could actually make some like serious money to make it worth the international release and another limus test for uh some anime games in the west if if they need more. I think this it's already proven right. Uh right. Well well we'll close it out. We've got one more story and it is of

course about Apple. So if you remember they got fines 500 million euros at the time about $570 million for breaching the digital markets act a bit like in the US the recent ruling it was about anti- steering measures and so they should be they shouldn't really be restricting companies from linking out to external offices outside the app store. Apple's way around that was very convoluted charging. They changed all their they have alternative business terms. They changed them again. They've got a core technology fee. They now own that user. So if it leaves your if it leaves the app, goes to your store and spends after that. Apparently Apple still owns that user which is insane obviously. So they got finance and they said you know you actually know you have to actually comply with the law. So again, sort of the same problems they're having in the US, but where the judge obviously just went ballistic. I thought it completely cracked open the the app store. It hasn't quite happened yet, but that seems to be where it's going. Apparently, according to uh the

Financial Times, this story was in uh Apple is expected to make concessions on it on its anti- steering rules. We don't know what they are. The deadline supposed to be, so we're recording this on June 26th. That is the deadline to comply. So, uh, I haven't heard anything yet today. It's the end of the day, so probably won't hear that today. Maybe tomorrow there'll be an announcement or next week. Um, kind of surprised we didn't just hear it, but that that should be coming imminently and that will be, you know, obviously that could be huge for the global mobile games market because if it's the same as what's happened in the US, then that's just a whole new I want to use the word paradigm, but I hate myself. It's the whole new uh a whole new paradigm for how money is made the mobile market and we kind of discussed before what that means for publishers more money potentially in their in their pockets most likely. Does that mean more money for you user acquisition campaigns? Can

you and other genres that maybe didn't the maps didn't work for them to be successful? Can they now become profitable in this new market? what's what what's Apple what what ultimately is Apple gonna do you know the conspiracy theories I'm sure I heard it probably destruction for fun somewhere where it's just like is Apple games kind of a prelude to I think I speak with Clark about this as well but is is it potentially a prelude to avoiding all of these regulations I think that would be extremely I always say I'm not a lawyer but that would be extremely difficult surely to pass by regulators and say oh no but we've moved it to this store and look we actually give all this so one of the rumors before it was announced that Apple Games due WBDC was that Apple Games was coming and it was one of the things it was going to do is it was going to replace game center as well. And what Apple Games does now is it has a lot of those features that already existed and some new ones. So achievements, leaderboards and they can manage and get communications and stuff. Is Apple Games a way to for Apple to

package all of this on a separate platform and then only have that for games and then charge a 30% for all of that? So it's not just that they're charging 30% for the fee. They're charging it for kind of not it's not the same but just so I can make it sort of more clear in my head like a Roblox right they charge all this money or or UFN and say well we take this fee because we're providing all of this whereas when Epic does it outside of UFN on their own store they go it's 12%. Because that's more fair the way they package these anyway. Anyway, the whole point big conspiracy. We'll see what Apple does. It won't be good whatever they do. Right. So, that brings us neatly to the end of the show. U Thank you everyone as always for listening and we'll be back again next week. If you have any feedback, anything we've said wrong you want to correct us on, please do reach out or anything that we should be talking about, obly reach out for that. Yeah, we'll see you again next week. Have a good weekend. Goodbye.

Sorry.