Games industry regulation tightens and transmedia insights with the Umamusume: Pretty Derby movie director | Week in Views
The games industry moves quickly and while stories may come and go there are some that we just can't let go of…
So, to give those particularly thorny topics a further going over we've created a weekly digest where the members of the PocketGamer.biz team share their thoughts and go that little bit deeper on some of the more interesting things that have happened in mobile gaming in the past week.
Craig Chapple
UK's ASA issues enforcement notice on loot box transparency in ads and app store listings
Regulation keeps coming for games and the wider tech industry.
This time, the UK’s Committee of Advertising Practices, a sister-organisation of the Advertising Standards Authority, has issued an Enforcement Notice over loot box transparency in ads and app store pages.
It’s quite remarkable that the ads regulator now considers app store pages as part of its remit. Thus, publishers on the UK App Store and Google Play must now prominently disclose the use of loot boxes in their descriptions.
And the onus is on the publishers - not the platform holders. So ready-made store tags like “contains in-app purchases” aren’t going to cut it.
Of course, there has been global scrutiny over loot boxes for years now. Some countries have banned it, others have decided to leave the business practice alone, and some, like the UK, are landing somewhere in-between.
It comes as New York Attorney General Letitia James has sued Valve for allegedly violating its gambling laws in games like Counter-Strike 2, Team Fortress 2 and DOTA 2 by encouraging underage users to gamble. At the centre of the lawsuit is the use of loot boxes.
After 2025 saw regulation and legal battles around the App Store and Google Play monopolies and revenue shares come to a head worldwide, it looks like 2026 will see more news on business practices and child safety.
Aaron Astle
Umamusume: Pretty Derby movie director talks creative decisions and adapting games to the big screen
Cygames’ multi-billion dollar hit Umamusume: Pretty Derby is continuing on the transmedia train with a movie releasing in North America today.
Titled Umamusume: Pretty Derby - Beginning of a New Era, the film originally released in Japan in 2024 and, now that the game is available globally, the movie’s headed Westward too.
Ahead of the film’s release, I spoke with its director Ken Yamamoto about the creation process, adapting a game IP and the broader transmedia trend.
"Despite being based on an existing IP, I felt the project offered a surprisingly high degree of creative freedom," he said.
"I think my experience with projects like Fate/Grand Order helped because I already knew what I was getting into."
Umamusume: Pretty Derby was also the first mobile game Yamamoto played, having started two weeks after its release in Japan back in 2021.
There were plenty of other insights for fans of the game, anime and those looking to learn more about transmedia.
Get more insights into industry regulation and transmedia trends at Pocket Gamer Connects.
Images in this article are the copyright of ©2024 Umamusume: Pretty Derby Movie Animation Project.
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