Week in Mobile Games E64 - ChinaJoy insights and DTC earnings uncovered

[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, is our news editor, Aaron Asso, and we have a special guest once again for second week in a row. We've got our COO, Dave Bradley, is back on the podcast. Welcome back. How you doing?
I'm very well, thank you. Yeah, very pleased to be here. It's been busy and I know we'll get talking about this, but I'm very tired because we've been we've been around we've been traveling and we've got more traveling coming up. So, yeah, with all the events that we've been delivering and that we're going to be doing, I'm I'm exhausted, but apart from that, all good. All good. Thank you.
So, we're going to talk about uh your trips, but uh what else you've been up to other than adapting, I guess, to being back.
The time zones. Well, we obviously a lot of our our businesses with um international events I've been working on that and we could talk a little bit about more about some of those, but also of course, you know, um Craig, I follow

the AI scene. So, I've been I've been get diving into that a little bit. The last few weeks have seen some some um uh some big developments um most recently of course Chachi GBT5 launched along with a new Opus model from as well. So, there's been some interesting stuff going on there. But actually, I'm all about kind of the applications. So, I've been tinkering with um uh a couple of games AI games platforms recently and I had they just announced in the last 24 hours that they've gone into early access. I think there's a story in the site about this, but Hidden Door, which raises a load of money last year to create a AI games, but there's a lot of humanpowered storytelling in there as well. They've got some they're sensitively treating some IPs that they've got and I had a big demo of that with the company yesterday actually. So, I'm still playing around with that a little bit and I've had I had a go on that. We were um we were playing essentially it's the platform was is a sort of interactive fanfiction kind of model, but we were playing the Pride and Prejudice uh universe that they that they've got with AI characters in it. So So that's kind of where where I've been in the last last couple of days.
How does it work? Can you So is it like a UGC thing or is it

No. Well, only in as much as you are participating. The the closest example I can give it to someone who's not played it is it's sort of feels like thematically it belongs to the old era of text adventures, right? But um but they the way that it it works is that they generate cards and the art is all created by humans by the way. So this is this is important. This is what one of the conversations that I'm enjoying having at the moment is uh although Hidden Door does have a number of AI plugins, procedural stuff as well as the latest like large language model stuff for some of the summary text, a lot of it is actually hand created. They've got you have these sort of player cards that have for characters and locations that are based on the IP that they're using. In this case, it was Pride and Pedes, but they've also got like Wizard of Oz and a couple of other The Crow is also on the list. So, they've got some things and then you essentially it creates a sort of scenario for you and then you've got um you can kind of react to situations and the story sort of expands out of there and you'll have certain missions you've got to play and you collect cards which got kind of characters on them. Some of those have got stats. So, it's almost it's more I guess I said text adventure because that's sort of my go-to comparison, but

actually also it's a little bit like having a tabletop role playing game where the computer is the the the dungeon master, but it's react because it's using AI models, it's able to react more reactively than something that was prescripted essentially, but you're given a set of cards and locations and things up front that have been created by human storytellers. So, that's Yeah. So, so you might start out and you might and you can choose from a number of scenarios and and you might say, you know, obviously I I want to play Pride and Prejudice as it was written by Jane Austin. There are other variations, too. And then you choose a character and you get a set of cards and and it will send you a scenario and then you can either type in what you want to do or it will give you some choose your own adventure style options, but then as you go along and you collect cards and you maybe get a little bit more flexible, it has to kind of on the fly create scenarios for you and stuff. So, that's how that's how it plays. Um, it's in early access as of um this morning, I think. So, so you can go and go and try that. But, yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Does it include Pride and Prejudice and Zombies?
Well, interestingly, there are a number of things that you can do to unlock what it doesn't have that IP, but what it actually has is it has Pride and

Prejudice and vampires. So,
you know, in my head, I was like, I bet this is what it's going to be.
You could act you can unlock the option for to play play it as a kind of vampire vampire fiction. So, but yeah, that was interesting. So, that's that's that's something I've been tinkering with.
They know the audience.
Thanks, Dave. Aaron, what have you been answering? Yeah, not a huge amount this past week to be honest. It's been a bit hot to really boomer.
You're still in the space after you finished Zel Blade.
Yeah, I am. It's It's been a couple of weeks now, but just to catch you up to speed, Dave, I um I was playing Zenoblade X, which just completing the story campaign took me about 115 hours.
It's value for money.
Yeah. Yeah. So that that was good, but I'm kind of in a in a weird sort of uncertain phase now of needing to pick my next major investment and um
not quite sure what to do with myself. But I did go and see X-Men one and two. They were reshowing them at my local cinema.
No way.
For the 25th anniversary of the original. So yeah, it was good to see

those. I was a a toddler when they were out, so I didn't see them at the cinema originally. But yeah, two two is still very good. That's probably one of my favorite.
Yeah, X-Men 2 is great.
We'll keep it on the sci-fi food there. So, uh, for me, I was very excited for Alien Earth this week. I don't know if I mentioned on the podcast last week. I'm a big Alien fan. So, that night, I wasn't planning to do this, but I I watched the first Alien film beforehand
and then I stayed up till 1:00 a.m. to watch the first two episodes of Alien Earth. So, I'm I'm a big big fan. And uh I've heard obviously the reviews are like glowing about it. One review said it's the it's like the andor for Alien if you want an idea of what it's like.
I'm not sure I agree yet, but then you have to it's two episodes. I don't know how many episodes it is. Eight or 10. Uh we'll see how it goes. I thought it was okay. And I'm a sucker for these. Like I will watch them by two without spoilers. The the new monsters, this is this is part of the whole pitch. This isn't a

spoiler, but the whole pitch is like there's like new monsters on board this ship, right? And so that stuff is really interesting. They do that really well so far. And then so the first thing you'll see, so don't spoiler, the literally the first opening text is just lines about uh like synths, which is obviously a big part of the Alien franchise. So that that the stuff they do there is really interesting. The thing I'm not sure about currently is the Zenomorph. And again, without spoilers, it's like the nature of the Zenomorph. Like what is it? So, are you creating a slasher film or like an interesting horror monster film? And uh I'm I'm just not sure they understand the nature of the Zenomorph from only from the first few episodes. So, this could all be answered, could all change at the moment. It just feels a bit strange. I guess that's the this sounds like this is so nerdy for me to talk about it that way. Very nitpicky. Anyway, that's a really long explanation for our games podcast. Cool. Uh we we'll jump into it as always. A few shout

outs. Mobile Games Awards coming up on August 19th. So that's next week. By the time you hear us, it's in a few days. Uh that's on Tuesday night. Uh if you haven't got a ticket, I think there might be some still available. So if there are, please uh please grab some uh if you want to join us. And then on Wednesday, August 20th is Pocket Gamer Party in Cologne as well. And then later this year, we've got some events. So PTC Helsinki on October 7th to 8th and PTC Akaba November 8th and 9th. We've got some other events. I think we I think we're all right to announce them now.
We absolutely are. Yeah, they're they're not secret. As of the time of recording this, tickets haven't gone on sale for these events, but they are not a secret. We can absolutely talk about these.
So, South Korea is coming end of October. And then Grand Canary.
The Canary Islands. Yeah, absolutely. Canary. It is in Gran Canaria. The the capital of the Canary Islands is split between um Santa Cruz and Tenneref and the Nas Palmer and Gran Canaria. And we are in Gran Canaria for this first one that we're going to do in the in the region. So, we got uh we got plenty of events coming up and of course January

next year we'll be back for PGC London, the big one. Right. So, I say we'll jump into it. Dave, you've been traveling and you've been to China. So, please uh let us know how that went. We obviously had a show out there and what you learned out there.
It was it was a great event. So, this was our first uh event in mainland China. In fact, in 2019, you may remember Pocket Gamer did a conference in Hong Kong, but this was our first event in in Shanghai. Really interesting for me. first time I've been to mainland China. The week uh at the end of July, start of August was very busy in Shanghai for the games industry. There was um the consumer event joy which I understand uh had a record number of attendees. It's it's over across the course of the the week it had like 400,000 people at I mean it's it's it's a really big event and and certainly I think um if if you've never been to to China of the level of like Gamescom for the consumer area in fact possibly even a fraction bigger than that now like I said a record event this year but around that other events clustered including um an event called um CIDC the Chinese

international game developers conference which there was a a big international business contingent at and then our so on the 31st of um of July there Pocket Gamer Connect Summit Shanghai and this is the first time we've run a summit as we call them which is a one-day event. So if you're familiar with like Pocket Gamer Connects London, it's a two-day event and this was a distilled focus version of that. Uh took place in the Pudong region of of Shanghai. Uh really modern u part of the of the city. Uh and it was really well attended. I mean I'm really pleased. We had hoped for this first event that we might attract 500 professionals from the games industry and we we definitely broke through that. I mean it was more like 630 or something. So we're we're in terms of putting a footprint there um for people to attend. I think we we we did a good we did a good job. There was some interesting topics that came out of our one-day event. I mean it was our it was a bilingual event. So we had it was very much about east meets west, west meets east, there was Chinese content, there was English content and like the some of the hot topics were I mean generally um about entering into the Chinese market. It's much more open than

it was. You may remember a few years ago, five years ago, it was almost impossible to launch an event launch a game in in in China. It's still recommended that you find a local partner for a whole bunch of reasons, but it's much more open and they're much more interested in international development. So, a big chunk of our event out there was about how to get your games into the region. And I should say big shout out to our our partners that we were working with on this event is is My Games, which is a um sort of Finnish and Chinese company, really worth exploring if you want to publish a game in China. So, we did that. But around that, there are a number of things. So kind of culturally we talk quite a lot about how Chinese stories are in games are a great way for kind of if you like sort of soft cultural power things like black myth of course was a successful game from the region recently and so there was a little bit of an interest in that and that kind of storytelling but also there was a great deal of interest in in kind of western games going into China. A hot topic there as all of our events at the moment and I said a little bit at the top of this call AI. Everyone wants to talk about AI. Um, a little bit of a of an amusing aside because I was of course I was following a lot of the Chinese conversation through AI translation. The

Mandarin for love is I. So accidentally uh getting the your conversation about AI translated into the word love was very easy for for um so that was that was an interesting uh uh uh little kind of opportunity for um miscommunication. The um but yeah AI is a kind of a a globalization driver and as a as a as a mechanism that that is interesting people was there. So that's so we talked about that a lot of it was talk was about community. One of the best talks that I saw there was actually Supercell. So Supercell's community manager uh attended from the kind of west to east part of the day and spoke at length about how you mobilize a community, how you stay in touch with the community, how you grow a game over the years through interaction with the community and the importance of a game developer being authentic and about community managers going where the gamers are like on Discord for instance and and interacting with them in a natural way. had the most number of questions of any of our um uh of our speakers. I think my recollection was on the ground. Really interesting talk and that and and and that went down very well. So yeah, so that was that was our event. Um you

know, we followed there was a a big um VIP dinner in the evening. We took a number of people out to um uh a historic um restaurant in in um in Shanghai that's been there for 120 years or something and and and enjoyed some you know some dim sum and all that. That was great. So really interesting really interesting week. The other interesting observation I make as well um EIGDC was interesting too. Lots of international they were launching a number of international kind of development funds which is which is great but China Joy which we went to on the Friday went into that event itself and I braved the consumer areas of that which is great
just just for like context like how big is China Joy compared to like a Gamescom. So I think they they vive for which is the biggest. I think I I think I think this year and again remember Gamescom in next week. So and I'm expecting Gamescom to be bigger than ever. Right now I think that China Joy is a fraction bigger than Gamescom usually is my my understanding is. And
so that's uh yeah well done for braving the consumer hall.
Number of a number of halls um you know and and and all the things that you'd

expect like loads of cosplay right loads of cosplay. Loads of um really big activations in the hall, big big booths and some brand names that you'd recognize. Right. So Sony PlayStation had a big a big uh booth there with a big construction. Blizzard had a had their own stage. Um, but what struck me and where I think this is an interesting thing for me and for us to realize and why important events like this are important is that I saw so many games that I had never heard of that were super popular like people queuing up to play games that I had no idea what they were like brands that were clearly spoke to a lot of people that people were there and they were cosplaying at and I could not identify them because you know it's just there's a market there that that is unfamiliar to me and that's you know more full me no doubt but there what it obviously shows is there's a lot of a lot of gamers and gamers there that I need that that that we need to learn more about. So that was interesting for me just to encounter loads of like communities, you know, games games communities that that were just unfamiliar to me. But really big, really interesting. Yeah. And and ran for for

for several days across a number of halls in um in China Joy. And now I feel a little bit more prepared. We're definitely going back next year. So next July we'll be back with one of our own events and I'll be better prepared for for China Joy.
I'll try and make you next year.
Yeah. Yeah. You should you you'd enjoy it. I think it's yeah it's a very very very big very thrilling event.
Some interesting things that you said there. One of the one of the things that you said there was like games that you've just not really heard of but that are really big. So I guess uh like I feel like in general around the world you see that anyway like you you think you know a lot about the industry which we all do but like for example we I think we spoke about a few weeks ago I put it in the newsletter UGC for example. We all know of Roblox new AFN, but could we but could we name like the top five Roblox games?
Interesting. Yeah.
Right. Right. Right.
Can't really or if you could I suspect you'd struggle and certainly to name more. And then I think I remember having this conversation like 10 years ago even as well. It was like back then it was like you know all these games but then there's actually like these MMOs some

games on browser that have like at least hundreds of thousands of users.
Right. Right. that you just really never have heard of, but they actually have really active communities. And so I imagine it's kind of the same in China. One is because it's that it's like a unique market, right? So there's games out there that won't have been even launched internationally, but there might be a few that have some sort of presence abroad, but you just there's so many games that even games with big audiences, they kind of somehow fly under the radar.
Yeah, exactly. I mean, there's obviously there's the language barrier, too. Many of these games perhaps only release in in in Chinese. And also, you know, you can't play every game. Gaming is as as diverse as television, right? You know, it means different things to different people and what they experience. And so, you can't play everything. And so, you know, maybe I'm just not in the right demographic, but it was it was very it was it was very interesting to see such and also quite heartening as well. Like, there was a lot of love for games. And it was really well good naturatured and well-intentioned as well. Like like it was there was a lot of passion for um for a variety of games. I mean, for instance, there was a really big indie

area in there as well. I think that was actually put together in partnership with the game connection crew who we know from events around the world. They work with them and there was a there was a big indie area with and so it wasn't like you know it was all Blackmouth Yukon type type games that you know that that stood out. There was a it was all all kind of levels of the of the gaming ecosystem. Yeah. Interesting. An interesting one to attend and I think it's definitely considering how big the Chinese games market is. I mean remember I think it depends who you speak to but it's round about a little bit under $50 billion is in ch the Chinese games market which means it's a quarter of the whole games industry globally. So you I think you kind of and that and and that's of everything and in terms of like players it's it's it's you know America and China make between them make up half the games industry. So it's absolutely a market that you have to be interested in and I think there's nothing beats going and seeing it live on the ground. I thought Shanghai was actually a really good entry point as someone I mean obviously I obviously don't speak Mandarin but it was really accessible to get around the metro really was really easy. I mean it was you know it was really easy to navigate.

All the halls and the convention centers and things we went to had signs in English as well as Chinese. Everyone was very used to using AI translation you know if there wasn't live translators available and they had you know live translation at the um the CIGDC which is great. So I thought it was not as intimidating as I was expecting as my first time visit to mainland China and very interesting. So I I think next year very much worth people going along who are interested maybe making their first portal call Pocket Gamer Connect Summit that we'll do out there because that's a nice soft landing for when you arrive.
A question I have for you is that uh so before the event there was announcement that um so in Shanghai I think they're trying to make it easier to get a game license to launch in China if you're an international publisher because at the moment it could take is it like 6 to 9 months or something? It used to take like 2 years or 9 to 12 months something like that. So it takes a very long time. But so when you were there, you talk about these games, you don't really know, but was there much like international presence? Wondered if you saw that at the show like they're bringing people in or is just very China focused.
Um I saw a a huge international focus

obviously at our own event, but also at the CIGDC joy. Um there were international companies there like I mean I mentioned PlayStation and so but I I would hesitate to make a definitive call based on what I saw because I honestly I didn't make it to every single corner of the of the hall. there were like, you know, there were there were eight different halls and and I I didn't see all of them. So, for all I know, I could have turned a corner and seen, you know, Valve or something there. I I saw somewhere that um that Spencer from Xbox was apparently walking the halls checking out the games. I I saw a report on online. So, it's obviously attracting people from all over. There's definitely international outreach was definitely a theme of the week. If not at the consumer part of China join, then certainly in the business areas. For instance, at the the CIGDC, one of the key parts of that event was that there were delegations there speaking to the Chinese developers from France, Japan, Korea, Britain and others. And so there was definitely a kind of um sense that that the kind of overseas outreach both flow both ways was important. There was also they

launched I'm just looking over here because I did they launched the Shanghai games industry special fund. So there was an investment there was a big launch of an investment investment in talent R&D that was a theme of the CIGDC as well. So so yeah I I get the feeling that it's very much certainly on the business side of the events that I saw was about bridging east to west.
Really interesting. Thanks for that Dave. Right. Uh elsewhere in the news I just want to talk about one kind of very big topic this week. So, one of the big news, perhaps one of the biggest newses of the week, it was Appcharge has raised $58 million to scale up with, you know, growing direct to consumer demand. Um, so that's a huge huge deal for them. It's kind of a huge I guess investors at least are very optimistic about this market. these companies just making hand over fist. She obviously obviously with all the court rulings kind of kicking this all into overdrive direct consumer companies like player will do it for a long time but now kind of everyone's got to do it right. You've got your own web stores and in the US now on the app store at least uh you can get uh

basically link out freely without any of that revenue share going to Apple. I believe it was it's about 5% that you give these platform holders but I'm sure I heard that it's kind of five to 10%. Um maybe depending on the services that you use. Also worth noting in the US on Google Play like that is potentially opening up. Google lost their last appeal but then uh immediately after that appeal so that was in the Google versus Epic case. Um and it's about like a a legal monopoly. So, while Google lost their latest appeal, they've now appealed to the Supreme Court and a judge said uh that uh a judge said put a stay on the order basically until this all kind of resolved. Anyway, some context I guess why it's going big and then obviously the build up to Gamescom like what good timing for them. I guess it's quite hard to time a a funding round uh ahead of Gamescom. It's a good thing to go in on right when all your clients are going to be there. Zo is obviously going a bit ham on all their announcements. Like last year, one of my takeaways was I

could see them literally everywhere. I felt like if I closed my eyes and just having Zolo branding on the inside, absolutely everywhere. And they'll be doing it again this year.
Yeah. So, I remember Craig, I was I had met some guys. I won't say who, but I had a meeting in the uh hotel lobby in Gamescom, just a little way away from the the center, and we were kind of talking about who's making money at the moment and where the money is in the industry. We sort of turned around and there was a massive exola banner all around the lobby of this hotel. They clearly like we're sponsoring some activity in the hotel. Like, all right. Okay. Well, at least you hope they're making money. So, uh, la in last newsletter that I thought I would go through on the podcast, I I decided to kind of take a look at how much publishers are actually earning through their direct consumer practices. So, public companies been releasing their financials lately, and a lot of them are pretty open on the figures that they make. Some are not, but they do they're very optimistic. Uh, Playa, which I mentioned, has been doing this for a long time. They've raised their revenue share target for DTC from 30% to 40%.

That's their long-term target. I'm not sure how long-term that is. It said that DTC sales had increased by 1.3% year-over-year to about 176 million in Q2. And then during that quarter 25 specifically 25.3% of their revenue came from their web stores which actually there's some context to this potentially but actually that's actually down as far as revenue share. So the the sales is up revenue share is down from nearly 28% a year earlier. So if they their target is 40%. I don't know it's kind of strange. I I guess that's the power of how much money they could potentially be making from that rate. They obviously acquired like Super Play. So maybe that's uh maybe that kind of takes up that part of that revenue share. MTG said their DGC revenue, but it included browser accounted for 24% of sales in Q2, which is up 19% year-over-year. Worth also noting that they did acquire

Pllearium and I believe Pllearium uh I don't think it was public at the time. I'm I'm thinking of years ago. Anyway, I believe Playerium like they made a lot of money outside of because they have their own platform for for Raid. They made a lot of money outside of uh of revenue share is what is what I heard. Storefunk group, GTC apparently accounts for 39% of total revenue. That's up 34% year-over-year. Sces came from it. And then elsewhere like EA Zinga were talking it up. Strauss Selnick CEO at Take 2 said they see ample runway for further growth in this area. EA and EA's CEO CFO kind of alluded to plans to expand there. So, everyone's talking about it. Other companies that I mentioned like 10 square games talking about it. Applovin was actually asked about it and the CEO Adam Fugi on the investical call had comment which was basically said he thinks it will take longer than people might think to actually this was more more to have an impact on Apploving specifically but to actually enact these kind of strategies take a lot longer

than you think even though they seem to doing pretty well. He said large companies tend to move really slowly and tend to operate in fear of the big platforms. Uh but he said in one to two years it could be have a material impact on businesses. So yeah really interesting kind of how that market's growing and how everyone's really open about it and to the point where he says that big publishers are afraid of platform holders. I do think that is still true but also there is an element of 5 years ago we spoke about this before no one would speak out about Apple. I've had people like when we did our mavens and stuff they come back to me and go I can't talk about that or just ignore it. Uh and then now I think people are actually much more open to being like what is this actually in some of these investor calls I think I think even Francho in that and he had a does an interview recently was talking about you know openly actually maybe their revenue share 30% isn't actually value for money. So yeah lots going on in DTC. I'm sure there'll be plenty more

next week if games come about that.
No, it's an interesting space. Absolutely. It is. I mean, you know, like you seeing a lot seeing a lot of news about it. It's a hot topic. It'll be a hot topic in Pocket Game Connect Helsinki as well. No, no doubt. You know, I I think it's a uh it it's as you say, very interesting about how people are more willing to speak up against out against Apple that they that they weren't before. I remember that those times when they wouldn't. But yeah, uh that's and you putting some texture and some numbers on that is is actually just is fascinating. So, thanks for that. really really interesting market. So, we're going to close out with we got one more story. Aaron, what have you got?
The uh one from me this week is about Sega's financials which have just come out. The company made about $550 million in the first quarter of this fiscal year, which was down 23% year-over-year. Notably, they actually they highlighted Roio, who of course they they now own. Apparently, ROIO performed weaker compared to expectations and they noted

that um ROIO's are due for a major update and a strengthening of its mainstay title operations over the rest of this year, which um yeah, I guess that's not doesn't sound great from right now. Um interestingly, overall Sega's like free-to-play sales grew by 5% year-over-year. So they represented uh almost 80 million of the net sales that the company achieved. Uh Persona 5, the Phantom X went into like it had its global launch during Q1 and apparently that was uh stronger than they expected as a launch and um other pre-established freetoplay games generally met expectations. So it said that that includes like PC stuff as well as mobile. But yeah, I thought it was quite interesting that while Roio hasn't performed as well as they would like,

their free-to-play kind of segment as a whole, like Sega's freeto play has actually grown a bit, which yeah, I just think it's quite a curious result really. Their full game sales um actually declined. Uh they fell by about 24% year-over-year. Uh, so the like full game sales ended up equal to freeto play like revenue the quarter which is also quite interesting. But yeah, it'll be kind of interesting to see from here whether Roio turns things around how free to play maybe continues to grow beyond how their kind of full game sales do. I say at the moment they've kind of leveled out with one rising and one falling. So yeah, I guess we'll have a bit more of an idea in Q2. I uh it's kind of so since the acquisition really if you just looked at estimates and I know again there's an element of direct consumer at least when you look at estimates like it had been falling kind of since Sega acquired Roio like revenue has been on the Dow and it seems like officially that has continued and it's

quite notable that they would say that Roio's performance is weaker compared to expectations. So that's quite worrying for them. I'm curious what a major update does mean. That's quite that sounds a bit scary to be honest. But like if if it's not like the scary option. So what is it? What do they mean by that is my question. Like how how do you like how do you improve it suddenly? Like it's not like they're not trying to do that already. I don't really know what that means to be honest. The last game that they released, Bounce, right, was on uh
Apple Arcade.
Just on Apple Arcade. So I guess there was just a deal there.
Um so it sounds like they need a new game to launch. They've got Sonic Blitz, I want to call it, in soft launch. Maybe that's the maybe that'll do all right, but we'll see. There's some exciting stuff going on for Boia, right? They've got the film coming out at some point and they still make, you know, a fair bit of money, but um yeah, hopefully they can turn that ship around and hopefully that partnership kind of finds its feet because obviously Sonic Rumble was delayed for a long time. It's still coming out this year, right? And then uh

but I know and I was still I've been really surprised to learn that uh I just assumed it was Roio making it and then we did that interview was like oh they're doing like the platform side with Beacon and maybe the live ops but not actually making the game
which you buy this mobile company and then you do it and then Sega does it in house elsewhere. Well that's interesting. We'll see how that all unfolds but good luck to the team. Right. So that brings us to the end of the week in mobile games. Once again I'm glad I remember the name of the show. Thank Thank you very much Aaron for being on the show as always.
Thank you Dave for for joining us for your second time.
Yeah, thank you. Great to catch up with you guys.
Thanks so much and really interesting to hear about your trip to China and we're doing this every week now. We'll talk about trips. I'll be doing Germany next week.
Yeah, Germany next week. And hey, I didn't even tell you about Tenneref because I went on a scouting mission for pocket game Canary Islanders, didn't I? So yeah, we'll we'll have with Helsinki, Korea, Akaba and Canary Islands coming up. I'm sure there'll be a few more of these conversations in the
It's turning into a travel podcast.
It is the the travel log. We should open

a travel agent. That's that's the next line of business for us.
Right. Thank you everyone for tuning in, listening. Hope you enjoyed it and we'll see you again next week. Have a good weekend. It's too bite.