Week in Mobile Games E61: Zynga's successes and failures, and Moon Active takes the fight to Scopely

[Music] Hello and welcome to the pocket gamer.biz podcast week in mobile games where we discuss the week's news and provide some insights. I'm Craig Chapel, head of content at pocket gamer.biz. With me today as always, Aaron Assau, our news editor. How you doing Aaron? What you been up to?
Yeah, doing well, thank you. um not had a whole lot of excitement going on um outside of work. It's been a it's been a hot
slightly more. It is too hot. I've enjoyed having you back. It's um taken taken the pressure off a little bit.
Given you time to write up some uh great interviews that we'll go into and one one really interesting one, a big one for next week as well. So,
um yes, it's been good to to do those. One of them I've been um meaning to get done for a couple of weeks now really. So yeah, glad to have that out. Teasing for later in the the show there. Other than that, really the most exciting thing this week for me has been the um

the Zelda initial kind of casting reveal. So we now know who are playing Link and Zelda. So yeah, it's um Benjamin Evan Ainsworth is Link and Braggerson as Zelda. I haven't seen. Yeah, I was going to say. So, I'm kind of relieved it's not just like I think the the big one was like, oh, Tom Hollander's link seemed
Yeah.
seemed a very popular idea. So, I'm glad it's um you know, they're relatively unknown actors then. It's not going to be watching it like, oh, it's this person playing Link, you know, it's just going to be no, this is Link, which um I I appreciate. They're both English actors as well, so that should that seems kind of the norm for medieval vibes for films and things.
Yes. Everyone with a thick British accent.
Yeah. Yeah. I think the only thing I've seen either of them was um the link actor voiced Pinocchio in that remake a few years ago. But um anyway, yeah, I'm

quite a big big Zelda fan. So any little drips of news that they'll give. It's still like the better part of 2 years till this film comes out. So, it's nice to just get something on it.
I can't wait. Like I been a big fan of Zelda since for a really long time. I don't think I had it on the NEZ, but I certainly had Link's Awakening on the Game Boy and then I enjoyed that, but I was I was terrible at games then. And then and then I really got into it obviously with a lot of people with Ocarina of Time. There's a lot of people of a certain age. Ocarina of Time.
I played the remake.
There you go. Yeah. It's It's so good. And then Pura's B, etc.
Um, Pura's Bar is like amazing. I can barely remember a lot of it. I remember it being stressful.
That's my favorite. I'll have to if I keep it upstairs. I'll have to bring it for next week's podcast. I've got a like replica of the Majora's Mask.
Oh, that's amazing. I like that. The thing I'm looking forward to is the new Mortal Kombat film, which I had kind of

forgot about it existence, but apparently it is coming this year. And they just released a teaser, which was uh Carl versus Johnny Cage in a fake kind of like 80s style film. I want to say me and a friend of mine personally are going to love this because uh we genuinely like these like those old action films that are kind of insane, fairly low budget, but obviously like classic characters. actors. I know he's he's gone a bit off the deep end of the last decade, but Steven Seagal's old films. Obviously, Sylvester Stallone, etc. Those those movies, we get a kick out of watching some of those. For anyone that knows me might have heard of me on the podcast before, I'm also a big fan of B movies. So, any bad films, I I seem to actually like, right, anyway, that's enough film talk for this games podcast, which we'll jump to. As always, a few shoutouts. Our upcoming events, not very long now. Pocket Gamer Connect Summit Shanghai July 30th that's just before China JoyC Helsinki October 7th and 8th BTC Akaba which is in Jordan 8th

and 9th. We do have more events coming up. We've just announced uh London again obviously coming back in January on the 19th and 20th. We know you're going to be there so you might as well get your tickets now. They're cheaper but no one does that. We all buy it like we all get our tickets like two weeks before. Then we got mobile games awards coming up at Gamescom. We'll also have that's on the Tuesday night. It is the August 19th and then we at the Pocket Gamer Party on 20th. So we're doing plenty there. Um and then a quick shout out I wrote a China games report. I know we on the last week's podcast we talked about kind of the region focus which was part of this report but there is more in there, more data, big yeah big feature about what's going on in the region. few insights from some big executives and experienced executives there as well as an anonymous source. You want to go on the record but talk some interesting stuff about indies profiles top companies. So there's there's a lot in there and I please check it out. I'll put a link in the description free

download. Right. So we're going to jump into it. Um and Aaron, we teased we teased your uh your interview. It's a really really insightful one. So yeah, please uh tell us a bit more about it.
Okay. So uh yeah, so I interviewed Raleigh's vice president of gaming gaming up Edinch and we discussed Rollik's evolving strategy from a casual hyper casual company to a hybrid casual one and yeah the strategy around that we talked about how Rol apparently ideates more than a thousand games a month and tests hundreds of prototypes a month to find the best mechanics and games that can you know really thrive On mobile, we also focused a lot on Color Block Jam, which is one of their releases from 2024, and it's officially become Rolex's highest earning game on an inapp purchase basis. Of course, they have many titles that rely more heavily on ads for revenue. So, we don't know

whether Colorblock Jam is the the highest earning overall, but on a yeah, like player spending basis. Um, it's the first game in their portfolio to surpass 100 million. And Color Block Jam also features ads, but um, we learned that the purchases make up a bigger share of its revenue than the ads do. Yeah. Uku also talked about the difficulty of color block jam playing or that he believes it plays a big role in the game's success and it's it's one of its appeals and he said that Rolet communicates with endgame players and that so far they love the new obstacles and how the difficulty shapes in the late game. So they kind of plan to continue going with this. Um, and I believe that helps feed into the monetization because like every level is designed to be beatable without any boosters, but you can use them and I guess spend for them if you, you know, if you get tired of doing the same level and it's too difficult, but yeah, they

are all technically beatable without doing that. Um, yeah, also talked about plans to reward level completion a lot more and went into live ops a little bit and talked about using like seasonal events, keeping players engaged with new mechanics and also trying to increase players eagerness to complete very hard levels. So yeah, a lot of it revolved around kind of the difficulty of the game and that that is seems to be a big selling point of it. It was also interesting. He talked about color block jam being played by people who have previously played longlasting puzzle games. So I guess that is kind of why they like the difficulty. If you're kind of a veteran of puzzle games and been playing them for a long time, having something more challenging, I guess is an appeal. Yeah. I mean there there were many topics um that we went into. He also kind of teased some of the upcoming projects. So like we know that whole people and nit out are both logic

based games that are um currently being scaled up and again so it seems like most of what they're doing now really is hybrid casual and yeah they've they've moved on from the the hyper casual days from when they founded a few years ago. Um yeah also alluded to uh like developing multiple new concepts and some of those with original IP and others licensed IP. We don't know what those are, but Rolex obviously previously worked on Barbie merge mystery and he's hopeful that these kind of unrevealed games will help expand Rolex's audience and re
so um just to add a few things really fantastic interview. I'll try and remember to put a link in do check it out on the site. I feel like Color Block Jack kind of came out of nowhere. I'm I'm sure people are thinking about, you know, Barbie as being their next big thing because it's a huge IP and adapt if you can adapt that world to puzzle potentially, uh, they could do something

pretty good there. And to me, it's like I've already said this before, it's just amazing how these hybrid casual, sorry, these hyper casual publishers, quite a few of them, have actually managed to will this hybrid casual business model into existence and be really, really successful at it. Rolic as the example here, but then obviously we you you've had like a voodoo that's done really well. So it it is really impressive to adapt these company structures that were built for one entirely different business model really and shifting like their teams, their whole structure, the whole foundations that they're built upon to this new model of slower releases. And one of the things that I thought was interesting that you're saying, perhaps the most interesting part from the interview for me, there was quite a lot, is that uh it might be an exaggeration, but you know, one kind of testing like 1,000 games a month. But what I like about what I find interesting about that is that it's like games and/or features by the sounds of

it constantly constantly coming up these ideas testing testing testing and then even it sounds kind of like even like little ideas they'll test and then they work so they can kind of put it into the game which is fascinating and I think a lot of other publishers developers in this market can kind of learn from that if they're not doing it already. Then then the other thing I just want to say is it's great news for Zingo. So I think when they were acquired by Take 2 and for a long time to be honest they were kind of living off and and to an extent they're still but they're kind of living off their old hugely successful games that have been acquired over the years by Zena. So like Toy Blast tomb blast etc. And then now finally you could argue is that those teams so Roll as the key example here, Peak as well. Now they've kind of started making new successes. So Color Block Jam and then Match Factory has been doing well. Um I don't know if they're, you know, necessarily on the level of Peaks Top Games, but there's a really good sign.

Like I think Rol's having its best best months ever and it's got more stuff in the works. So yeah, check it out. Definitely worth taking a look. And while we're on the subject of Zingga, so there was another interview this week. So the game business Chris string, he spoke to Zinga CEO Frank Shabbo about a number of topics. Really interesting interview, a few things that I wanted to pull out. One of them and it was what the headline that left that it led with which is it was a great headline. So Star Wars Hunters was no failure. So instantly I'm sure anyone reading that is like hang on a minute. So a few things. So, it's worth noting that I was previously told by multiple people that worked there that it had I think it had had like around 250 staff working on it at one point. So, and this was over many I'm not saying it always had that many, but that game was in development for a very very long time. And it was obviously then expensive to make. It was made at Natural Motion in the UK. I was told also it had a trouble development. I mean, that's probably no news to

anyone. and uh multiple creative leads throughout the project in October last year. So they're saying it's no failure. So I guess there's some context last year October Zinger announced layoffs at Natural Mot was it announced might have been a report layoffs at Natural Motion and it was closing its Birmingham office. According to App Magic on the actual Google Play Hunters made just under $5 million in gross revenue and about 5.5 million downloads. That doesn't include anything that it made from Switch obviously because it was also available on Nintendo's platform is also closing. So it it closes down in October. But interestingly, so I I kind of take what Frank Chibi is saying in a way. So he says firstly, he said the problem was it wasn't a viable business. We weren't able to generate the organic installs from the license. He also hinted at some issues with using the Star Wars IP. He stated that we had some issues on how we could explore the intellectual property. Could you play Darth Vader or could you not? That sort of thing. It's I'm calling it an open

secret. I mean, I think working with Disney when I've spoken to people about it, it can be quite difficult to do. I believe they're just very protective of their IP, which makes sense, but doesn't help make games. Frank B said, however, they were valuable in the lessons that they learned, and it's looking at another idea in the same action shooter category, especially since it now has the Unreal tech base and a team in place. He said, "We don't really consider them failures at the company." Uh, and then he added, "It's very difficult to get new products out on mobile in a successful way. You're going to have a lot of misses, and you have to have a strong stomach and culture for learning that oriented to, hey, it missed. Why did it miss? Why don't we try this instead?" So, I I guess the interesting thing in that is is like, yeah, you definitely learn from your failures. I guess the the the only question I would have had is like, well, why is there a reason it wasn't cancelled earlier? It was trouble development. Um there's a lot of people working really really expensive by the sound of it to make. Was there any point where it's just like yes it's better to

just can this um obviously then there's questions of like where do you put those stuff but then maybe you could put them on a project of the lessons you've already learned but it's probably not that simple right so some other interesting things he mentioned uh were that AAA games not really working on mobile and in terms of those kind of big single player console games because they and his point was because they just aren't really built for mobile. So I think you said in the interview they have like those discussions with take two about bringing stuff to mobile but in terms of those projects it can be it can be challenging but they have released some premium stuff on mobile but in I think kind of a different way and then on the apps changes and direct consumer he said it was aggressively going after direct consumer he said uh so this is like in the US the apps changes which now been cracked open by the judge so you can freely link uh to your own web stores he says it's profound change the notion that you can have a direct relationship with uh your players and serve them better and give them more value. It's huge. It's not just about making more margin. We could perform better CRM. We could build better communities. We can understand

more clearly what's happening in the games because while we let sorry while we get a lot of telemetry, the idea that we could communicate with our players in a much more direct manner is going to create a more valuable relationship. He then added we're going to be able to serve them faster and more efficiently and generate more value for them. that will create more profit which will allow us to invest more money in development and in user acquisition so we can scale games better. I mean I guess some of that is kind of no again like that's not new for people that are working in the business but it is interesting that a publisher as big as Zingo is really going for it. And then the example always roll out because they have the public stats is is player which makes like a quarter of their revenue from direct to consumer. And then the last thing that was interesting that I I wanted to point out was uh towards the end I remember this league. So he mentioned something that was the the difficulty level in kind of casual games. He said they found it was good to actually have a challenging game from the get- go as opposed to say like he

was like exaggerating maybe but like I can't remember if it was like level 70 or 90 level. He said they found it was just kind of much more impactful to kind of do it from the off. And I think he didn't mean just from monetization perspective of like frustrating players, but from an engagement and retention view. So that was fascinating. Right. What else have you got?
Uh yes, the other one from me this week is about white out survival. So the game has surpassed three billion in gross player spending in under two and a half years. That's according to AppMagic estimates. So it global launch was back in February 2023. And it's really like the spending has just ramped up over time over those like two and a half years. Like comparing its first full month, which was March 2023, the game made just shy of 10 million. And then by like a year later, so March 2024, it gone from 10 million to over 90 million. And then this March was a record month

for it with nearly 206 million. So that was up like 126% year-over-year. So it's really like just scaled up massively and yeah most recently so in June this year it made 182.4 million. So a little bit down from the March peak but um you still making a lot of money. In fact that made it the second top grossing mobile game of June this year behind 10 cents Honor of Kings. And White Out Survival's also been in the top five for player spending every month this year so far. So it's yeah it's just become a a huge game. Um obviously done very well for Century Games. Um it also released in China last year. This kind of partly expends explains the ongoing rise but yeah it's worth noting that the revenue was already trending like considerably upwards for a full year prior to that expansion. But saying that, yeah, it grew without China, but once it did

release there, the market has very quickly become White Out Survival's second biggest player spending there has already like rocketed past 500 million since May 2024. So, yeah, it's the second top spender behind uh the US and accounts for about 17% of global revenue. Prior to it releasing in China, South Korea was the second biggest market, but that's been pushed down to third now. And yeah, overall, so it's been like 29 months since global launch and monthly player spending has only fallen five times and never for two consecutive months. So, it's done very well basically. So I was just taking a look at White House survival obviously massive success and and reminds me obviously of the other big forex strategy game last war both out of China and I was just looking that cuz I remember more that last war has been hugely successful and new white out I thought last war's way ahead and then I

just look at the revenue uh on magic generally last war's been ahead but they're now both pretty even I think they're anyway I guess what I want to say is kind of amazing that those two titles have emerged o only over the past few years and have become the top games in in that category which is a fiercely competitive and very lucrative one. And so for any companies to just kind of jump in and take a lot of take a lot of that revenue pie uh is is pretty impressive, right? Uh we're going to jump onto the last few uh stories that I've got here. So I was doing the soft launch as usual this week and there was actually a few quite interesting games that popped up. One of them is Moonactives. So my headline I put Moon Active takes on scope play with Monopoly Go like Coin Master board adventure. So if you remember that some of the key mechanics of Coin Master were basically we'll say adapted into Monopoly Go. Clearly was an inspiration after they

rebooted development on Monopoly Go. And then now a few years later it's like it's gone the other way. So now Coin Master still enormously successful game right but kind of had its lunch eating a bit by Scopely. They're now soft launch a game that has those more tradition like those coin master mechanics and now sort of copies Monopoly Go and it has like the literally the same Monopoly Go type board obviously without like the same stops and it even has like areas where it looks like community chests chances and stations like all in the same place like it is it is that game and they'll they'll do like their own little twists I'm sure. I thought that was really fascinating. I'm curious how that does. It's currently available on Google Play in the Philippines and it's kind of funny to me how they've copied each other over the years. Um, Cory Master, it's not Monopoly as an IP, so I guess it won't attract like loads of new users, but Moon Active is super successful across other games. And this is the first proper followup that

they've done with that IP with the Coin Master IP because before they did Zoo Master, I think, which didn't do it did okay, but I think they stopped it. So yeah, interest to see what happens now. And then another really interesting game that came up. So we're talking about uh we just talked about Wtown Survival. I mentioned last war 10 cent has soft launch Age of Empires Survival. So Last Wars full name is Last War: Survival. And it literally takes the same ideas. So it is the gate mechanics which is the hyper casual part that kind of draw I think draws people in but with sort of with a medieval theme. I say that term loosely because in the creatives there's like yeah you've got like an archer fighting waves of enemies and then there's like a car coming at you. It's like it's not doesn't really follow the theme. But it's interesting to me that such a big I would say treasured IP in Age of Empires that I know it's mobile so you do have to adapt things for a mobile audience. I'm just it still kind

of shocks me that they've done it in this way. However, they are probably correct. It could like with the examples that we've had major IP, it could be highly successful. But I feel like it could go the other way. And even though it's not the players that will ultimately play it, there could be some kind of backlash of like what is this? This is like my favorite strategy game ever. You've ruined it. Not that Tencent has to care about that. Yeah. Really, really fascinating. And then the last one I wanted to mention, I was looking at uh games I just came across that Grunt Rush. So that's the first game by Steer Studios, which is an internal developer at Savvy Games Group based in Saudi Arabia. They kind of built that game with a lot of new developers on board as one of their first big projects. Well, the first professional project and they got over like a million downloads. I guess that's not like 10 million, 50 million, whatever it, but it's been taken offline. So we reached out and then they said it will be back. It's just off for some kind of changes and updates. We'll see if it does come

back. But I always find it strange if or it's rarely ever happened. If a if a company releases a game, you think it's good enough to be launched globally. And if it doesn't go as planned, you either can it or you work on it while it's live. Supercell kind of did that with Squadbusters. And the only example I can think of off the top of my head, it's not a mobile game, was Multiveres that did this. They launched it. I thought it was actually doing pretty it was doing okay, but they wanted to make major changes and so they bas they took the whole game offline and relaunched it later and then I believe it relaunched as a total flop. So, and it was just no good reason to just take it off cuz I I didn't think it was supposed to be a terrible game, but they have their reasons. Maybe it's the correct one. It stood out to me as as odd, but good luck. Any force on any of those games?
The coin master one is interesting. I've um just been writing about that for the new games round up which will probably be out by the time people see this. So yeah, as you say, it's um I guess

exclusive to the Philippines for now. So we can't um jump in and see what it's like. But it is it's amusing as you say that it seems to be kind of copying what Scopely did after yeah a little bit of the other way around. But it's going to be interesting to see where that goes and whether the IP has legs beyond, you know, the original game. As you said, obviously it hasn't really they haven't tested it in other genres or, you know, any other spin-offs or anything before. So, I guess, yeah, it'll be curious to see whether that becomes another like big game that we end up talking about all the time or whether it doesn't really do anything and it's just like Coin Masters the oneoff. Yeah, I mean it's not unusual for these things to appear. They said, "Oh, that's interesting." And then they just disappear without similarly without any fanfare just as they were launched without any. So curious if it launched also that would would uh like how would that impact the original? That is basically their their biggest money

maker. That's always the potential danger especially if it's not they'll have this covered but especially if it's not like monetized in the same way. Uh you don't want to cannibalize and then lose lose revenue. So very interesting, right? So that brings us to the end of the Pocket Gamer Adop week in mobile games. Thank you everyone for tuning in as always. Thanks Aaron. Have a great weekend. We'll see you all again next week. Have a good one. Goodbye.