mobilegamer.biz digest

The mobilegamer.biz podcast is a concise, banter-free digest of what’s driving the mobile games business.

Every week, mobilegamer.biz founder and editor Neil Long goes on a walk and tells you what’s going on in about 20 minutes.

In this episode:

• Thoughts on Google Playground, which also seems to be powered by Unity’s Spark tech. It may well flop completely or destroy game development as we know it, we shall see
• AppLovin’s lawyers are busy, with two lawsuits ongoing with Unity and San Diego County about data collection and adult content respectively
• Scopely seems to be making a Genshin Impact contender with the Marvel IP, which is exciting. It’s apparently codenamed Project Comet
• A bit on Thatgamepublisher, the makers of Journey and Sky who are seeking similarly indie-style mobile games to publish
• Crossy Road Rush is coming to Apple Arcade in November, alongside two other games
• A rattle through September’s top download and top grossing charts, plus some loose analysis
• Quick bits on the closure of Reigns studio Nerial, Special Effect’s One Special Day and some more EU regulation stuff
• Your usual nuggets from our jobs, data and new games digests.
• Some ruthless editing as I tried to get everything into a tight 20 minutes

#66, 08/10/26. Supported by Xsolla.

The mobilegamer.biz podcast is a concise, banter-free digest of what’s driving the mobile games business.

Every week, mobilegamer.biz founder and editor Neil Long goes on a walk and tells you what’s going on in under 20 minutes.

In this episode:

• A brief history of Mario Kart Tour, which Nintendo killed this week after earning an estimated $270m
• King and Mojang have spruced up Minecraft Blast and quietly put it back into soft launch
• Zynga founder Mark Pincus has claimed that he had agreed to buy Supercell for $400m in 2012 – but the board blocked the deal
• Supercell has put its underperforming monster hunting game Mo co back into beta - meaning there will be relatively little brand new content added to the game until some “big changes” get made in the next update, coming later this year
• King averted those strikes at its Malmo and Stockholm offices right at the last minute by signing a deal with two Swedish unions
• Some chat about Meta’s Horizon Create app, which suggests the tech giant sees Instagram and Facebook as potential games platforms
• YouTube Playables – a range of YouTube-native webgames, essentially – are now live in over 50 countries. IAP monetisation is coming soon too, apparently, though YouTube is being very quiet about it all
• Gameloft is closing Minion Rush after a 13-year(!) run
• Tencent and Capcom’s Monster Hunter mobile game is coming October 29, pre-orders are live now
• Trophy Games bought Airlines Manager maker Playrion for what looks like a bargain $2.5m
• AI firm General Intuition, which trains its models on gameplay footage from sister firm Medal, got another monster funding round – $220m
• Your regular news nuggets from our soft launch, new games and data digests
• A passing ambulance making a right old racket

#65, 01/10/26. Supported by Xsolla.

The mobilegamer.biz podcast is a concise, banter-free digest of what’s driving the mobile games business.

Every week, mobilegamer.biz founder and editor Neil Long goes on a walk and tells you what’s going on in under 20 minutes.

In this episode:

• Vita Mahjong, Amaze Go and Meowdoku maker Oakever Games has already lost one copyright infringement case against Block Blast maker Hungry Studio, and is now fighting another. And sources suggest that's the tip of the iceberg…
• King seems to have again dodged taking too much damage from Xbox’s latest cuts and restructuring – but is still facing strike action later this week
• Hipster Whale could be reviving or reimagining a load of Atari classics after it was acquired by the firm earlier this year
• With GTA 6 looming large we spoke to ChillBase, the maker of GTA-like One State, about how it’s doing and how Rockstar’s blockbuster might affect its business
• A double dose of collab news: Kpop Demon Hunters and Ghostbusters are coming to Monopoly Go, and Brawl Stars and Duolingo are doing a fun crossover
• Doki Doki Literature Club is returning to Android as an Epic Games Store exclusive after Google removed it from the Play Store due to its depiction of sensitive themes
• New EU proposals intended to protect children playing online games, enforce the use of age assurance tools and ban addictive design features have been met with both support and skepticism from trade body Video Games Europe
• All your regular news nuggets from our jobs, data and new games columns
• Surprisingly competent pronunciation work when referencing the founders of Oakever Games and ChillBase, which I'm actually quite pleased with

#64, 17/09/26. Supported by Xsolla.

The mobilegamer.biz podcast is a concise, banter-free digest of what’s driving the mobile games business.

Every week, mobilegamer.biz founder and editor Neil Long goes on a walk and tells you what’s going on in under 20 minutes.

In this episode:

• Some thoughts and speculation on that potential Saudi-owned gaming supergroup including EA, Scopely, Moonton and more
• More right-wing weirdos are making games: this time it’s the UK’s Reform party with their ‘stop the boats’ game
• A bit on the potential strikes at King’s Stockholm and Malmo offices later this month
• A rattle through a popular story about Mattel’s mobile gaming ambitions
• New Roblox tech will allow creators to export their games as native mobile, PC or console titles, but details are vague
• A word on that commission calculator I knocked up with Claude, which will give you an idea of how much Apple, Google or a typical web store will take from you, depending on your circumstances
• A summary of our chat with Tetsuya Mizuguchi, who brought Lumines to mobile and could bring more of his games to iOS and Android
• Yet more Apple news, this time it’s a load of EU trade bodies and pressure groups complaining about the new EU App Store terms
• News nuggets from our regular data digest, new games and soft launch updates
• Limited ambient sounds this time but an exciting police car siren midway through, and the potentially very wrong pronunciation of ‘Sulake’

#64, 17/09/26. Supported by Xsolla.

The mobilegamer.biz podcast is a concise, banter-free digest of what’s driving the mobile games business.

Every week, mobilegamer.biz founder and editor Neil Long goes on a walk and tells you what’s going on in under 20 minutes.

In another Apple-heavy episode:

• A brisk look at the games being shown off on Apple’s new foldable, iPhone Duo
• News from Lego’s lowkey mobile gaming arm, which has swooped in for Chrome Valley Customs maker Offroad Games 
• New App Store boss Eddy Cue and new Apple CEO John Ternus reportedly want to make even more money from the App Store
• Job cuts at Star Stable, but we’re still not sure exactly how many
• Trailmix has a new CEO
• A rattle through the top downloads and top grossing games from August, according to AppMagic
• A quick, begrudging look at those appalling MAGA games that take inspiration from Snake, Flappy Bird and Tetris
• News nuggets from our data, jobs and new game digests

#63, 10/09/26. Supported by Xsolla.

The mobilegamer.biz podcast is a concise, banter-free digest of what’s driving the mobile games business.

Every week, mobilegamer.biz founder and editor Neil Long goes on a walk and tells you what’s going on in under 20 minutes.

In this unusually Apple-heavy episode:

• A run-through of the App Store team’s tips and tricks on getting featured. They also pushed the ‘try before you buy’ model for premium games
• A story on how Apple is earning less from its App Store after opening up to outside payments (and therefore losing its 30% cut). Plus of course a rant on the topic from Tim Sweeney
• A rattle through the App Store’s new leadership after Phil Schiller stepped away, Eddy Cue took over and there was a slight reshuffling under them
• Interesting stuff from NC, the Korean MMO giant formerly known as NCsoft, which has already spent $300m buying up mobile game studios and wants to buy more
• A quick update on the soft launch for Overwatch Rush, a new Blizzard-made game, and a bit of context on its other mobile games
• Metacore will officially become part of Supercell by the end of the month, adding Merge Mansion to the Clash of Clans maker’s portfolio
• Yahoo Games is quietly building a games business, starting with daily webgames, just like the NYT and LinkedIn
• A quick story about a former COD: Black Ops designer who built and shipped an extraction shooter in seven weeks (without using AI)
• Thrilling news nuggets from our regular data, soft launch and new games digests
• The familiar background noise of the Hertfordshire suburbs: tweeting birds, cars driving by and your host getting surprisingly out of breath from a walk up a slight hill

#62, 03/09/26.Supported by Xsolla.

The mobilegamer.biz podcast is a concise, banter-free digest of what’s driving the mobile games business.

Every week, mobilegamer.biz founder and editor Neil Long goes on a walk and tells you what’s going on in under 20 minutes.

In this episode:

• A pretty loose summary of what’s big on Gamescom's show floor and in the opening night live showcase (it’s mostly games coming out of China, Korea and Japan rather than Europe or the US)
• A summary of Supercell’s talk at Gamescom Dev about its trials and tribulations in the last year with Clash Royale
• The closure of Rovio Copenhagen and Sonic Blitz, and a little bit of behind the scenes intel on how that scoop happened
• Some chat about the Google talk in which the tech giant said little-known studio Parallel is one to watch in terms of AI-first developers
• A very brief mention of a Gem Capital story we ran last week that no-one read 
• Some very brisk but useful data, jobs and new game nuggets
• Background noises from Cologne including emergency services sirens, tourist and/or Gamescom attendee background chit-chat from the bridge over the magnificent Rhine, plus a noticeably quieter bit recorded near my hotel when I was really, really tired

#61, 27/08/26. Supported by Xsolla.

The mobilegamer.biz podcast is a concise, banter-free digest of what’s driving the mobile games business.

Every week, mobilegamer.biz founder and editor Neil Long goes on a walk and tells you what’s going on in under 20 minutes.

In this episode:

• An attempt to explain Apple’s new EU App Store terms in a concise way, plus suitably entertaining commentary from BFFs Epic Games
• Supercell’s Mo Co is getting rebooted for the second time and is underperforming, but the Finnish firm says killing it is unlikely
• Tencent and Krafton are launching PUBG Mobile Light, a new edition of the game seemingly designed for emerging markets with lower specs and memory demands
• MTG’s newly rebranded Midcore division Playamp says it has integrated AI tools into practically all of its processes, with seemingly really solid results
• A chat with Downwell and Poinpy creator Ojiro Fumoto about working with Devolver and Netflix – plus getting a job at Nintendo before going solo again
• A word on Apple and Google each trying a little bit harder at Gamescom this year
• A rattle through a packed set of July download and top grossing data from AppMagic, featuring various Arrows games, World Cup fever, Smash Fest, Pokémon Go, Honor of Kings, Roblox, Gossip Harbor, PUBG Mobile and LastWar’s dramatic drop
• A brief summary of those Netflix studio and job cuts
• Data, soft launch and new games nuggets, including news on Supercell's Project Rise
• No special guest at the end this week, but he sends his finest regards

#60, 20/08/26. Supported by Xsolla.

The mobilegamer.biz podcast is a concise, banter-free digest of what’s driving the mobile games business.

Every week, mobilegamer.biz founder and editor Neil Long goes on a walk and tells you what’s going on in under 20 minutes.

In this episode:

• Some slightly kinder words about Rovio from parent company Sega after a brutal verdict in its last financials
• Tripledot’s $40m acquisition of Supersonic from Unity – the UK-based firm’s second big buy in recent times (plus a bit on Unity’s financials, which are really improving)
• Take-Two’s financial results show mobile shrinking slightly but still representing over half its bookings in the last quarter - some snippets on the publisher’s views on UA and direct to consumer in there too
• A summary of Playtika’s unusual move to slash UA spend on its hit game Disney Solitaire by 70% – which may or may not have something to do with expensive SuperPlay earnouts
• A bit on Block Blast coming to Apple Arcade - which we assume means Apple is paying a premium to Hungry Studio, it’s effectively the most popular puzzle game in the world
• Despite absolutely massive revenue and profits, the markets didn’t like AppLovin’s latest financial results as it missed guidance
• Google’s Play Store now accepts native Venmo payments, another way in which it is opening up a bit
• MTG now calls its midcore studios Playamp, meaning Plarium, InnoGames, Snowprint, Hutch, Ninja Kiwi and Future Play have a jazzy new umbrella brand
• SciPlay has cut 20 jobs in Israel, reflecting further struggles for social casino
• Loads and loads of data nuggets including Sensor Tower’s webshop estimates, a spike for Pokémon Go, decline for Love and Deepspace and plenty more
• Some quick jobs and new game news
• The return of a very special guest right at the end, and more ambient sounds from a sunset walk in Norfolk

#59, 13/08/26. Supported by Xsolla.

The mobilegamer.biz podcast is a concise, banter-free digest of what’s driving the mobile games business.

Every week, mobilegamer.biz founder and editor Neil Long goes on a walk and tells you what’s going on in under 20 minutes.

In this episode:

• That huge EA/Saudi deal and what it might mean for EA’s mobile business, plus some very large payouts for the execs now the transaction is complete
• A run through a very popular story about the money GTA has made on mobile to date plus the new GTA-like contenders looking to ride the GTA 6 hype train
• A nugget on Palworld Online, which is not a port but an MMO made by Free Fire maker Garena that’s coming later this year
• The markets did not like Roblox’s latest financials at all, but there was a new avatar system for Android devices and a bit of hype for Build, a generative AI tool that helps players build new experiences more quickly
• Apple is, naturally, fighting the UK markets regulator to stop a proposed opening up of its store to allow UK players to get to webshops and alt payments providers more easily
• Tennis Tycoon is the latest game to be made by an amateur coder in Claude - a trend that’s here to stay, especially after those hit 38-0 games
• Data nuggets from Sensor Tower on H1 2026, plus Hay Day’s comeback, Pokémon Go’s surging July revenue, some big Krafton numbers and more
• A very brisk run through the latest soft launch and new games updates
• The wonderful ambient sounds of a man walking along a Norfolk beach at sunset, plus a very, very special guest right at the end

#58, 06/08/26. Supported by Xsolla.