Hot Five: Xbox layoffs, AppLovin's growing ad spend and Lilith Games' new hit
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.
AppLovin grows 60% Y/Y rounding to $20bn in annual platform ad spend
AppLovin CEO Adam Foroughi shared insights on the ad tech giant’s business, including why it acquired and sold its games studios, as well as claims that ad spend has grown 60% year-over-year to approximately $20 billion.
Kingnet invests $298m to join consortium behind $684m Wemade deal
Blockchain specialist WeMade, which has worked on a few successful mobile games and was once a prominent presence at GDC, is currently going under a takeover process. Recently, Chinese game developer Kingnet Network revealed plans to invest $298m in a consortium to become the firm’s largest shareholder at 40.25%.
Lilith Games finds a new hit as Clash of Critters makes $45.6m in four months
It looks like AFK Arena and Rise of Kingdoms developer Lilith Games has found its next hit in Clash of Critters. The title generated an estimated $45.6m during its first fourth months from player spending across the App Store and Google Play.
Zynga Ads+ brings 100 mobile games to advertising offering
Zynga has revealed an expansion to its advertising offering, Zynga Ads+, that brings 100 casual mobile games into its portfolio - increasing reach to more than 100m monthly consumers.
Xbox to cut 268 jobs as it shakes up studio structure
Xbox disclosed further developments in its company-wide restructuring, including 268 layoffs across Halo Studios and other teams. Under the sweeping changes, Microsoft Casual Games will now report to King, Halo development has moved to Activision, while Rare and World’s Edge will now come under the publisher’s remit.
Ninja Theory faces closure, Playground and Turn 10 will be merged into a single studio, Undead Labs has gone independent (with its own round of subsequent job losses) and Obsidian has come into the Bethesda fold.