Start your week right, with our quick take on the stories that are impacting the mobile industry right now.
To help get you primed and ready for another week in mobile gaming, we’ve curated the biggest stories you need to know from the last seven days.
1) NFTs incoming: Matr1x doubles funding to $20M ahead of its debut Web3 mobile launch
After raising another $10 million, gaming startup Matr1x has doubled its funding to $20 million in total to continue working on its first Web3 title. This mobile game, Matr1x Fire, will leverage Matr1x’s NFT experience with team shooter gameplay.
The latest funding round was led by Folius Ventures and SevenX Fund with further participation from ABCDE Capital, Find Satoshi Lab, Jambo and Initiate Capital.
2) State of the games industry: “I think the technical term for it is a clusterf**k”
Kando Factory CEO Bobby Wertheim believes that the current state of the global games market is a "clusterf**k" after a 2022 dip that followed lockdown-induced revenue highs. Overinvestments and overreach are partially to blame, says Wertheim, while newer games generally aren’t performing as well as expected.
"There’s a lot of people making a lot of money, but still they are having to manage their costs. We’re seeing an unprecedented level of layoffs," he added.
3) KEK Entertainment's Georgy Egorov talks crossplay's new prominence as gaming’s "new reality"
Having just closed its $8 million seed round, Cyprus-based KEK Entertainment is now growing its team and bolstering development of its first game. We spoke with founder Georgy Egorov about the company’s plans for a platform-agnostic IP, unexpected challenges encountered thus far, and more.
"Crossplay opens access to a wider audience," he said. "Our long-term plan is to create a significant IP that unites various projects. Therefore, we aim to focus heavily on building and working with communities."
4) Bluepoch’s debut time travel game Reverse: 1999 reaches $15 million
Bluepoch’s debut game Reverse: 1999 has reached its one-month anniversary in the West and six months in China. And in that time, the gacha title has already reached an impressive $15 million in lifetime net revenue across nearly five million installs.
Given its head start, most revenue has naturally come from China so far, and the region also represents Reverse: 1999’s biggest audience. But in the past month it has been Japan spending the most, accounting for 38% of revenues compared to China’s 23% since October.
Supercell's marketing head Iwo Zakowski has noted that despite the success of the company’s games catalogue, the heroes of Brawl Stars and other Supercell titles still haven’t broken into pop culture in the same way Mario and Sonic have. To do so is a major part of Supercell’s future endeavours, through being relevant, finding good partners, and having a strong call to action.
"We need to make out games f**king famous, and they need to become a part of pop culture," he reiterated.
