What do game developers really think of Project Genie? | Week in Mobile Games podcast

Hello and welcome to the Pocket Gamer.Biz podcast week in mobile games where we chat about the week's news and provide some insights. I'm Craig Chapel, head of content at Pocket Gamer. With me today is our deputy editor, Paige Cook, and our news editor, Aaron Asel. How you both doing Aaron? What have you been up to?
Um, been a a fairly quiet week for me. Yeah, I've um been enjoying and we'll we'll come back to this later, I'm sure, but I've been playing the anniversary stuff around Fire Emblem Heroes cuz it's just turned 9 years old this week,
of course.
Um day one player who's stuck with it. Um I'm a big Fire Emblem fan anyway. It does a better job of embodying the main series than Fire Emblem Shadows has done. I haven't touched that one for a while, but yeah, heroes still play every day. Um, and yeah, just been trying to keep up

with everything because they they've really thrown a lot out for this anniversary and daily maps to do and free gacha pulls every day for the for the first time. They they've brought back loads of old banners that are rotating every day. I think it's like 66 old banners that are coming back over this month. And on the kind of summoning section, as you click through the different banners, they kind of there's a little dot at the bottom of the screen to indicate like which banner you're looking at. You know, you might be on like the third dot out of 10 or something. But there's so many at the minute that for the first time they actually go off screen. Like I don't know whether some phones are just wider and it's still displayed. But I was clicking through and it's like I can't even see like what you know my dot has long since gone off the edge of the screen and I'm still going through more banners and it's not circled back to the start yet which yeah it's just so this must be the most they've ever had active at one time.
You can't see them in the end, right? You can't scroll. you you scroll through

and you're now on a different one, but just there's normally a little visual indicator of how far through the list you are and you just go off the edge of the screen and you're still going. So,
it's not ideal.
So, it's not a bad problem to have, but yeah, I'll be interested to see whether that actually kind of gets people spending because there's so much to spend on at the minute. Anyway, as I say, I think we'll we'll come back to this topic later. But yeah, that's that's been my last couple of days just playing that.
Right. Thanks, Aaron. Paige, what you been up to? I feel quite boring cuz I haven't really been up to anything at all. Um I had a friend over at the weekend and she stayed for a few days. So I feel like during the week just been relaxing. I do this weekend want to go to the cinema though, but I'm deciding still on what I want to see. I'm either going to go and see Iron Long, which we'll talk more about later, or I'm going to go and see Send Hell. I haven't decided which one yet.
Which one do you want to support? You know, that's the that's the real question.
Well, I want to see both. It's just a case of which one do I see this time? Or maybe I should just do back to back. Go from like one cinema room, finish it,

and then straight into another screen. Don't think I've done that since I was like a teenager, though.
Hollywood versus YouTube. What you do?
Cool. Yeah, I I actually want to see that. Yeah, we'll talk about it a bit more in a bit. Yeah, it does look it does look really good. Really interesting. Thanks, Paige. So, I mean, as for myself, yet again, probably not that much, but uh one thing I did do is I watched I think it's an old Netflix movie at this point. I watched a film called Brick, which The central premise is like AC it's kind of a cross between like I love kind of stupid be movie stuff isn't really a B movie and then you get the other side is not the other side but then there's another thing like you kind of get Netflix movies if you tell someone it's a Netflix movie I think in my mind that means it's very okay right it's like oh it's a Netflix movie so you know you're going to get something that's got average so brick the central premise is that they wake up one morning and and uh all their

windows, the door, it's just got these layers of like these bricks and and then they can't get out of the place. You can't drill through it. You can't like destroy it. And so it's for 2 hours it's how do we get out? And it's quite interesting. Like I actually quite like the central premise which feels very B movie, but this one has like a bigger budget, but then it's like there's some good bits and then there's some lulls as in not not laughing and then it's just like a I don't know. It was all right. I'll probably forget about it in like a couple weeks. That kind of film if you want something different. Kind of interesting. The end was kind of cool. So yeah, it's quite interesting. Right, we're we're on a time limit today. So we're going to get cracking on. As always, a few shout outs to some of our events coming up. So we've got PGC San Francisco March 9th. We're going to Dubai May 20th 21st. We're going to Malmo, Sweden. In May on June 15th, 16th, we're going to Barcelona. Shanghai July 30th, Helsinki October 30th and 14th, Bangkok October se 27th, Jordan in

November, Kerry Islands in December. Got the mobile games awards in August. So, lots going on events wise. So, if you're interested in those, check out the site pgconnects.com. And also, we've got a top 30 US mobile game makers list coming out in March. Going to release that alongside GDC week and PGC San Francisco. It's quite a tight turn around on that. So, if you want to be considered to be on the list, we got lobbying open that actually ends Monday night. So, if you want to be in that, please please fill in the form. Right. So, I'm going to kick off with the big news of the week or I guess just right at the end last week just after we recorded. So, Google has kind of launched Project Genie. So, what is Project Genie? It's available to Google AI Ultra subscribers in the US and the tech is basically it's like a world building AI generative technology. So you can build virtual worlds through text prompts and uploaded images. You could choose your perspective such as

first person uh or third person and then take your control of that character to navigate this space. At present it can only generate worlds that last for 60 seconds and it builds them as you walk through them. So I guess nothing is like kind of completely set. So as you go through it kind of keeps generating keeps generating. It's powered by Genie Free Nano Banana Pro and Gemini. So after this kind of launch and there's you know this basically this blog post videos on the Google site and you I've seen a bunch of people sharing demos around that look kind of cool. Someone did like a GTA in in Greenland cuz obviously and then um someone did like you play as a cigarette box on an underground station. Why not? And again, they only last for 60 seconds. So, the result of this was that investors who, as we're going through, I guess, know nothing about games really. We call them investors. You could call them traders as like I can't remember the term. It's like day trading, but maybe they're not

serious investors or maybe some are. I don't know. Anyway, shares in Take 2, Roblox, Unity, Capcom, maybe some others uh fell after Unity in particular felt the kind of the bite of that. So or felt the brunt of it. Unity shares fell as much as 24%. So this was announced Thursday and that happened on Friday. Roblox fell 13% and none of these stocks have recovered if you care for such things. Probably doesn't make that much difference to the actual company. So what are actual developers saying? Story ground CEO Andrew Green said while Google's Deep Mind, which is making the tech company behind it, was actually based in the UK. um Demi Hassabis who did who worked on theme hospital uh for a bit of law he was doing he said he was doing some genuinely impressive research but the market reaction tells you everything about how little Wall Street understands about games so some quick quotes really but here's what people keep missing about games rendered spaces means nothing without designs that make

open world social fun replayable meaningful are essentially infinite physics economy progression social narrative emergent behavior balance the stuff that makes you feel something. You can't prompt your way into that. Not yet. Not for a very long time. Is this pointing towards something? Absolutely. This is like finding coal in 1,000 BC and someone squinting really hard at envisioning the industrial revolution. The direction is right. The timeline is not what traders think. The fundamental value prop of of world models is real and exciting. But if you're selling a game company stock because a 60-cond laggy, inconsistent tech demo that forgets its own paint trails, you don't understand what games actually are. Undy CEO Matthew Bramberg was also kind of I guess on the PR push about this seeing the share slide, he has to say something publicly and he says rather view rather than viewing this as a risk, we see it as a powerful accelerator. And he's talking about kind of video based generation is exactly the type of input our own agentic AI workflows are

designed to leverage. So he's like trying to build up Unity's tech in general because they've obviously been hit hard over the last few years with their own PR disasters whilst also saying I think trying to basically say but Google stuff isn't it? I think it's quite a fine line that they have to draw there. Um but obviously Unity does like loads more. We had some other comments. As for myself, just a couple things that I think yeah, it's a tech demo and I think so. One of the things you can do with this is worlds that other people create, you can build on that and make your own thing on top of that. Obviously, this is just a tech demo stage. You don't know how it's any kind of tech would roll out to developer use or public use in future. But I think it imagine Google's dream scenario where you could make these games. I think it would raise questions about what you actually own, what a creator owns. So, if you made a game and you tried to sell it, can someone else just basically add add a different character and sell the same game? Just something I think the legality of it is something to think

about. Obviously, with generative AI, there's other legal issues that we've discussed. Eric Crest from Gossma Consulting, a dru said this, but like does Google have actually the willpower to stay in in this and invest keep investing with Stadia? It it it did not and I think it actually has a history of this. Anyway, I remember speaking with someone once that kind of said the same thing. It like about something else. Can't cover what it was, but it was like it something like this could just end up getting kind of forgotten, still around for a few years, effectively moth bored with minimal investment, and then it just gradually disappears. I I I'm skeptical that Google would stay with something in gaming specifically when really the potential is AI tools to maybe do something a bit bigger. Practically speaking, if I was really thinking about it, like it's one thing again having a 60-second tech demo of a video or you could make this whole world, but is that actually playable on device on all devices? You know that, you know, what's the file size of that? Can I play it on a 5year-old device or do I have to play it on top of the range now? And again, kind of like what was

just said, but you can't prompt your way into a GTA, right? There's a reason why games take years to make. It's more than just building a world like from a prompt. It's about tight controls, fun, a coherent world, in some cases story. It's not like visually, mechanically, or stylistically going to create something brand new either. So, I think it's interesting. Any thoughts? I know Paige, you've been speaking to a few people about it.
Yeah. Um, we reached out to a few people just to get their general thoughts. Uh, a lot of their responses were quite long, so I'll just pick out a few bits. Um, so Martin Spence said, "As a first reaction, I'm both mind-b blown and nervous at the same time. What would it mean if creating a game is really this easily? Probably an even bigger overload of mediocre games without a proper story line or refreshing and balanced gameplay, which kind of mimics some of what you just said there." And then Stuart Deville, again, just kind of picking out bits of what he said. He said that where Genie 3 and similar systems show genuine promise is in rapid

prototyping and exploratory design, a significant portion of game development consists of work that is ultimately discarded and accelerating this phase without consuming the time and energy of skilled artists represents a meaningful productivity gain. But then he goes on to say but the risk lies in misunderstanding both the tool and the landscape in which it is deployed. When speed is mistaken for creativity or when generative outputs are treated as authored work rather than provisional material, the result is overuse and creative flattening. And then one more quick one. Oscar Clark went into some good detail, but he kind of summarized at the very end in just like a little bit and he said that in general super interesting, but there's a lot more I'd need to see to have confidence that this will ultimately change how we make games. That being said, I think tools like this will deliver some really interesting innovations in how quickly we can realize new gaming concepts. So yeah, I think a lot of those opinions sort of bounce off a lot of what you said there. I think like you know the idea of it is interesting. It's interesting technology, but the actual

real ramifications of use cases for it I'm I'm a little bit skeptical about personally. Yeah, I think one of the things that I didn't mention there that I mentioned before is just it's really become part of the course for part of the course of tech companies these days to release something that just isn't actually ready. So this technology is not actually ready for real practical use. It's impressive but like Apple did it with um or or any company really kind of did it with VR headset or like when you see augmented reality glasses kind of come out it's like it's impressive. It's not ready. So, please stop releasing stuff that's not ready just to raise the stock price. Give us something that we can actually use that's useful now. Like, yeah, I won't get on a soap box about it again, but I kind of get sick of hype, right? So, yeah. Anyway, lots of interesting commentary about Project Genie. We'll see where where that all goes. As I say, at the moment at least, and I think for the foreseeable, it's hype. We'll see if it becomes something practical that Unity

actually has to worry about, for example. Right. So, next up, Aaron, what have you got?
Yeah, so um bringing it back to Fire Emblem Heroes. Uh I did a a bit of a data dive earlier this week into like how the series has done over the years. It's famously, I suppose it's Nintendo's biggest mobile success. It's the only title in their catalog to have surpassed 1 billion in lifetime player spending. obviously is a you know big big accomplishment and you know this Fire Emblem games done it where you know Mario Kart mobile game didn't and Animal Crossing didn't you know these these bigger franchises so I think it speaks to how um kind of Nintendo Intelligent Systems DNA like actually leaned into what works for mobile with this game and so at Magic estimates suggest that it's um exceeded 1.2 2 billion in lifetime earnings. That's since the 2nd of February 2017, which does sort of reflect quite a dramatic slowdown from its peak like back in the day. So like

its first year was is still the the strongest year that Heroes has had and it's it's generally declined most years since then. So like in year one it made 265 million um and then that fell to 234ish million in year two. So that was about 12% down. Then it went to 155 million in year three. So that was a 34% decline. It had a very small rise in year four which kind of lined up with the lockdowns and obviously a lot of games benefited from that. And also there was a big kind of main series release. um during year three. So year four was kind of the the first full year to benefit from that. Uh so it was Three Houses, which is the bestselling game in the series. So I think that was a big benefit for the game. And they also introduced kind of like a a season passish thing, kind of like a subscription service to get kind of extra exclusive like character art and

bonus items each month and various like quality of life perks. So they kind of made some changes in year four that did actually kind of stave off that decline. But yeah, since then it's declined every year since, which is a little depressing to see as someone who's really fond of this game. And you know, I hope it sticks around forever. But seeing that, you know, like yeah, year 9 again was another decline is a little bit puts me a little bit on edge, but you know, it's still still making millions. It made just shy of 50 million in the past year. So that was only like 18% of what it did in year one. But, you know, you still 50 million, I guess, as long as as long as the revenue it brings in is more than the the cost of running it. Like Nintendo said it mostly views mobile games as like a marketing thing anyway for their console games. And there's a new game coming out for Switch 2 this year. So, I'm hopeful that they mean that and the game's going to stick around even if it's not making as much money as it used to. They have actually made a change recently that also worries

me a little bit, which is that you used to get so with roughly every other kind of gacha banner that would come out, there would be an event alongside it where you could get a new character for free. So there'd kind of be four main ones on the banner and then there'd be a fifth one that everyone can get by playing the game enough basically. And they're not doing the fifth character anymore. That's just not a thing now. So you don't get the free one. instead if you do that event you get an old character from like four years ago um that used to be premium. So obviously there's no you know no cost of getting an artist to do it and voice actors doing the lines and stuff. So that's a little that feels like a cost cutting measure that that worries me a little bit but it still made like 50 million in the last year. So it's it's not to say like it's totally crashed and burned. I hope that it's um going to stick around for some time longer. And certainly, like I said in kind of the intro, uh we've got Fire Emblem Shadows as well on mobile now, which um hasn't made nearly

as much of an impact. So, um, it's been out for 4 months now and it's made just over half a million, which,, you know, compared to Heroes making, you know, sort of quarter of a billion in year one, half a million's not that that great in 4 months.
It's impressive. It's been around this long. My uh, Shadows, I don't even know why they're really bothering or pretending to bother.
It's obviously going to be shut down is my my guess. It doesn't even seem to have like I guess I don't know the actual figures. probably not enough players to even keep you going anyway. It's not speaking to the quality of the game. Just just how it's been received. It's just and it's kind of proof that like Nintendo is is just out of mobile now really except for this one game basically. Um and I wish they' just be honest about it whereas before they were like no we're still doing mobile stuff and the thing they dropped was Shadows which takes none of the lessons from Fire Emblem Heroes and all of the lessons from their failures to like basically not make a proper mobile game. But there you go. They you know they don't need to either. It all came about

cuz again the Wii did badly. Sorry, the Wii U did badly specifically.
The Wii did great. Anyway, yeah. Right. So, next up, Paige. What have you got?
So, both of my stories actually are kind of trans media stuff. But first up, I was just going to talk a little bit about Supercell, who have announced that Lil Wayne is going to headline a virtual halftime show inside Clash Royale. And I don't know why things like this still take me by surprise. Like, when I saw the release, I was just like, what? It's just in Clash Royale. That seems so random. But then like when I think about it, I'm like, "No, this is it's a pretty established thing now. Musical artists ending up in games." So the event is on the 6th, which as of recording is tomorrow. Um, so it'll be inside Clash Royale Arena. So it's like a fully watchable in-game virtual concert. Obviously, my mind goes to things like Fortnite. Like they've had so many of these. They had like, you know, Ariana Grande, Eminem, like so many big names. And then recently there was a Bruno Mars concert inside Roblox um inside steal a brain rot and that pulled in. It was

12.8 concurrent users which is which is pretty huge. So obviously like it does work.
You mean million.
A million. Yeah. So like just insane. But the part I find really interesting is just sort of like the broader cultural shift of it all. Um you know like music and games like it's a collaboration we see a lot. But I do think that in recent years it's I feel like music gets as much out of it as as the game does. We also did a story earlier in the week that was about like fandoms and things and like followings and the demographics that are super popular for stuff like that just happen to be the demographics that are really popular for games like this for games that you know like Roblox Fortnite. So, if you're, you know, an artist and maybe you're debuting a new song or something like that, having it in a game is a good way of just having more people tune in and listen to it and maybe you'll get a few new fans along the way. And I think it also kind of works the other way, too. I feel like we see a lot more real world events from video game music. Like

there's so many concerts that I see now or like, you know, symphonies from certain games and they're selling out entire like concert halls. So, I guess the popularity works the other way around too, which is quite interesting. But in terms of Clash Royale, I am intrigued to see how it works for a game like this. Obviously, like, you know, Roblox, UGC, Fortnite, same kind of thing. That's its own kind of game. So, I'm intrigued to see if it drives any sort of meaningful engagement. Like I said, the Roblox one like that obviously, you know, worked really well for them. So, I don't know how it will work for Clash Royale in the same way. So, I am intrigued to see about that. But in general, yeah, for me it's just like that cultural shift as like I see these things and I'm always like, "Oh, that seems so random." But it really doesn't. It's It's quite normal now to have these big virtual concerts inside games.
Yeah, you make a really good point there. I hadn't really thought about it. But it's actually normal now. Whereas a couple years ago or a few years ago, I would have said like, "What?"
Yeah. Like when I was like in my teens, if I was playing a game and it's like, "Oh, no. One of your favorite artists is just in the game, I'd be like what?"

Like that wouldn't have even been something I'd have entertained. Whereas now it's like, oh yeah, Ariana Grande is just popping up in Fortnite or something like that. Like that's like that's normal now.
Was it like Usher just randomly appeared at like E3 or something once now be like, oh yeah, of course.
Yeah, I think you see that a lot as well like with events and celebrities on stage. I feel like you would have never seen that before. Whereas now it's like they want to be there. Like it's great for them to be on a game stage kind of thing. Whereas before I feel like a lot of Hollywood I don't know maybe this is a presumption like oh no games were kind of beneath them type of thing. whereas now it's cool to be in games and like that shift is just is is completely changed.
Right. Uh thanks for that page. So my next story is just a quick one which is company called Arz Interactive has raised $70 million in a series A investment round to expand its operations and launch new baseball game in 2026. If you don't know who Arrows Interactive are, they're a company founded by the former Glue Mobile CEO Nicolo Deamasi and is headed up by President Mike Delet who's previously worked at Mattel and Scopely, the latter

as the SVP of strategic partnerships. It's developer and publisher. It wants to make crossplatform free-to-play games founded in 2024. It has studios in San Francisco, one called Seventh Inning, and in Berlin, Swift Games. is current is already operating some live games. So, one of them is the survival rogike RPG Heroes and Hordes, which is said to have 30 million installs to date. And I guess the big targets working on is Baseball hits 26. So, while the crossplatform at the moment, they're kind of actually seem to be focusing on mobile. Just quickly as well, the funding round is led by General Catalyst with participation from his own executive chair, Dimassi. Currently they have a team of 50 staff and they aim to scale through a mix of acquisitions and building games with quote smart nimble senior teams. One of the things that they said they're going to be big on is AI and I guess somewhere in the workflow which I guess everyone has to say now and their pitch decks for investment. The main interesting thing for me which

I think makes this really interesting is it really goes back to its Glue Mobile roots. So, their big game is that they're going to make is Baseball Hits 26, which I think is coming out this year. Delay said, "No other baseball title was truly replaced the audience or revenue that MLB Tap Sports Baseball generated." So, I asked him because I asked him about that specifically, which was Glue Mobile's old series. They released one a year and each year it was doing better, doing really well. And Glue actually used to have like quite detailed financial reports that would show the data. Um, but then they got Glue got bought by EA for $2.1 billion and EA proceeded to destroy all of all of the value from Glue Mobile as we as we know. And one of the things that they did despite EA Sports be kind of kind of becoming quite a focus really for EA, they ditched the MLB tap sports baseball series. Um, maybe there was some licensing issues there or something, but ultimately that kind of went away. It didn't stop them with FIFA, right? And then Mike said, you know, so the demand

for MLB tabs, he said that demand didn't disappear for baseball games. Our team has been working in the space for a long time and we believe it delivers fun and accessible, highly engaging experience that the market has been missing. Um, I just think that's a really interesting one and big investment. Not going to Turkey, going to the US and not going into web 3, going into kind of AIish, but going into a company that has a lot of experience in doing mobile games and is kind of this is crossplatform, but at the moment very very into mobile. So, yeah, big big investment and largely going to the US there. So, really cool. Aaron, what else have you got? So my other story this week is about Nintendo's financials which have just come out and particularly obviously there's a focus on the Switch 2 which has officially sold 17.37 million units in just over half a year. So as per the financials Q3 was the Switch 2's best quarter yet. That included kind of the holiday period obviously benefiting from

Christmas. So that's up to December presumably the Switch 2 sold even more by now I guess for for context looking back. So like in Q1 the Switch 2 sold about 5.8 million units. It was only around for about a month of that quarter. Q2 it surpassed 10 million. So Q3 in 17.37 means Q3 has been its best month yet or best quarter yet sorry. Um and it's currently beating beating the Switch's pace of sales and remains the the fastest selling console in history. So that's you know pretty good pretty good going. I'm still personally like kind of surprised that it's beating the Switch's launch just in terms of like the the games lineup and there was some controversy around the kind of full unveiling of like how expensive like the Switch 2 games are and the console itself. So, looking back at the Switch launch, you had the Breath of the Wild, a Mario Kart, and a 3D Mario game all in year one, which maybe that's my own bias, but that feels like a stronger

lineup than another Mario Kart, Donkey Kong, and a Kirby racing game for Switch 2, but clearly people are buying it. It's selling very well. Speaking of the original Switch though, um it also became Nintendo's bestselling console in Q3 based on like lifetime sales. Um, I think in Q2, like at the end of the second quarter, it was about 10,000 units behind the DS. So, it was inevitable that this quarter was going to see it, you know, finally become the biggest Nintendo console of all time, which it has now done. It's only got the the PS2 to go since they sort of moved moved the goalpost of where the PS2 sales were a couple of years ago when the when the Switch was catching up originally. But yeah, so clearly, you know, the the Switch family then of consoles has been huge for Nintendo. The Switch 2 is also, you mentioning the the Wii U earlier, Craig, the Switch 2's already outsold the Wii U. So, in like basically 6 months, it's beaten 4 years

of the Wii U being the the flagship console.
Yeah, because the Wii U was about 13.6 and I say the Switch 2 is at like 17.4 roughly. So yeah, it's, you know, quite a stark turnaround from like a decade ago. Also, the original switch they said in the financials has now surpassed 1.5 billion software sales. Uh, which obviously that's another huge milestone. Yeah, I am curious as to whether it's going to be able to catch up and overtake the the PS2. Currently the Switch is at um about 155 and a half million and then the PS2 is at I think a bit of a nebulous like 160 million. So obviously most people are buying the Switch 2 now and the original Switch hasn't gone down in price. I think if it did it would quite easily beat the PS2. as a, you know, Nintendo fanboy while not having a Switch 2. I'm rooting for

the Switch to to become the um the bestselling console, you know, industrywide. And I also saw I can't verify this cuz I couldn't actually find any sources for it, but using doing some kind of peak journalism of of citing Wikipedia.
Nice.
They allege or claim that Nintendo consoles like across Nintendo's whole history have now reached 998 million sales. So, if if that's true, you know, I'd keep an eye out for an announcement from Nintendo of being like the first company to sell a billion consoles in the near future. I tried to find some source for where that came from. I found like Nintendo put up a post in like 2015 16ish saying they were in like the 800 millions and obviously the Switch has come about since then. like it it must be somewhere around that number. But yeah, I imagine they are coming up on a

billion console sales which is crazy.
That's impressive. I was just wondering when you were saying that like if if they'd have called the Wii U the Wii 2, would it have done better?
I mean again motion. I was going to say just the confusion of it because you had all the Wii accessories like the the Wii fit balance board and you know the Wii
the console
remote accessories and yeah the console looks the same that cuz you could get all sort you could get like the lightsaber extension for the Wii remote and like a gun extension I think for certain games and things. I think there were too many like Wii somethings but then just calling it the Wii U wasn't clear enough that that was like the next gen console. I remember covering it at the time and I think a lot of journalists were very confused just by the announcement. Not even just consumers journalists were like so what is it?
Is it is it the next console? Is it is it like a like now you could say it would be like oh is it was it is it like the PS which was I don't think was a

thing at the time. I don't think so.
So yeah but yeah well well done to Nintendo for the Switch Paige. What else have you got? My other story linking back to what my weekend plans might be. So, one of the more interesting box office stories is the liveaction adaptation of Iron Long, which being completely honest, I had never heard of the game Iron Long, but it's turned out to be quite a breakout hit for the adaptation. So, it's pulled in over 21 million in its opening weekend, and I believe the budget is around the 3 million mark. So, that's a pretty huge result. and they only had like a limited international viewing. It's not been everywhere either. So, obviously, you know, that has an impact, too. Um, obviously we talk about trans media stuff a lot, but obviously usually it's these big studios are investing like, you know, hundreds of millions in these things. But behind this is a name most people recognize, which is the YouTuber Markiplier. And I used to watch him years ago, but I kind of I don't know, maybe I just outgrew my YouTube phase.

So, I hadn't watched anything for him in years. Yeah. Just interesting. of all the let's plays that he's done. And I think, you know, when I used to watch him at least, he did focus a lot on like horror games. It's interesting that all of them, this is what he chose to make a movie about. You can get the game on, I think it's like PC, Switch, PS5, and then I noticed you can get it on Android as well. You can't get it on iOS, but I have brought it. It's like I think it's like £1 something. So, this is why I'm not sure if I'm going to see it the weekend cuz I feel like when I like watch things that have been games, I like to be able to play the game first. I feel like it just has a better impact. So, we'll see if I get through it. Apparently, it's quite short, so I'm sure it'll be fine. But, yeah, I think with this one, it's just it's a it's a different sort of angle on the broader trans media stuff. Like I said, usually it's these big production companies. This is kind of like a small indie creatorled type thing. thing. I know that sounds silly when it's still like millions that have gone into it, but in the grand scheme of things when it comes to films, that is, you know, that's

quite a small production. And I guess it is a smart thing as well because obviously he's already got this pre-built fan base that I guess just because he's doing it, lots of his fans would just go and see it anyway. So, yeah, I thought it's quite interesting. I'm intrigued to see it. I thought I've seen like the trailer, which is interesting. And like I said, I knew nothing of the game other than when I had a quick look into it. I know it's you're they're on a submarine and I think most of the film is just set in this tiny space. So yeah, I think going forward it makes me wonder if maybe we'll see more stuff like this if there'll be you know obviously this has been successful. Is that just because you know Markiplier is this huge name or do we see more sort of content creators influencers doing smaller budget things cuz the game I think it was developed by one person so you know they're a lot more likely to offer up their IP that like I said some people have probably never heard of Iron Long. If you've got someone like Markiplier being like oh let me make this into a movie they're going to say yes. So yeah, I'm intrigued to see if this sets off like a new trend of more people doing these little

passion projects that then potentially could make it really big.
Yeah, I don't I don't know much about the film world, but this this story cuz I think you mentioned it. I was like, I I've never heard of this. What is this? And then I was like, okay, this is quite a big it's quite a big deal. Like I said, I don't know much about the film world, but kind of said at the start, it feels like, you know, it's very much YouTube versus Hollywood. It feels like the Yeah, I like you say, I am keen. I'm interested to know whether it can even be replicated cuz I could see someone easily throwing free million at a project and it doesn't do well. I mean, you know, obviously I hope people chase their passions and whatever it and if they want to put money to a project that may or may not do well, then you know, power to them. If it made it money back, you could say that's not a success. Still got to do it. But in this case, it's it might make like 10x return. I haven't like watched him in years, but like I think so he stars in it. I think he directs it. I didn't I mean maybe he has done other stuff since I sort of like stopped following him, but yeah, kind of now we're like I'm going to make

this film. I'm going to star in it. I'm going to direct it and then it's actually turned out pretty well. So yeah, it's just a cool little story I think.
Yeah, fascinating. It says a lot for big budgets as well, which is a similar thing that the games industry is kind of contending with, right? It's these projects that cost like 300 million that make X return where you or you could could you make a really successful title that gets globally well known on a small budget like this. So yeah, very interesting times. Right, that brings us to the end of the week mobile games podcast. So thank you very much Aaron and Paige for all your insights this week.
Yeah, thank you.
Yeah, good to be here.
Great to have you on the show. Thanks everyone for listening and we'll see you on the next one. Goodbye.