Pixel Flow attracts investment, Roblox gets global age checks and Sonic Rumble’s early results | 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
Fast-growing hybridcasual puzzle game Pixel Flow nets seven-figure investment
This week we broke the exclusive that the new puzzle game Pixel Flow has bagged a seed investment round. PocketGamer.biz understands the funding amounts to a few million dollars.
At a time when investment is still tough to come by for studios, that doesn’t seem to be a problem for many of Türkiye’s startups, which continue to knock it out the park.
Pixel Flow was launched three months ago and it’s claimed the title has reached seven-figures in daily revenue. AppMagic estimates it has hit $22.6m to date from gross player spending on the App Store and Google Play.
One of its investors, Arcadia Gaming Partners’ Akin Babayigit, called it “one of the biggest success stories” to come out of Türkiye in recent years. That’s pretty high praise for a game from one of the world’s hottest game markets.
The most impressive thing about Pixel Flow is it feels innovative. It’s not the latest match-3 or blast game with incremental improvements or ‘small’ innovations. It’s a fresh experience for the puzzle genre and shows there’s still room for creativity when building new hits.
I’m not saying it’s easy or common, but it’s exciting to see something new do well. Of course, we’ll see where it lies in six months’ time, particularly when competitors start getting in on the action. But the revenue graph is currently only moving up.
Paige Cook
Roblox rolls out mandatory facial age checks for in-game chat worldwide
Roblox previously rolled out mandatory age checks for its chat features, and that’s now rolling out globally.
So if you want to talk to other users, you have to verify your age, which you can do with a facial scan. Roblox says it's the first large games platform to do this at scale, and it has a simple goal, creating age-based chat for users.
I feel like, one way or another, Roblox is always in the headlines. You’ve got the positive side of it being one of the biggest platforms for user-generated content, and the popularity of games such as Grow a Garden or Steal A Brainrot has been massive.
Then the flip side is ongoing safety concerns, especially when you’re dealing with a platform with such a large majority of young players. It's, of course, important for those players to be in a safe online environment.
Now this latest attempt at making the platform safer is underway. The upside is that if it’s working as it should, players are in age-appropriate spaces, so it may limit some risk. But when it comes to facial verification, I feel like it raises its own privacy issues and the possibility of simply being able to manipulate the system.
I know that for some parents, a game that asks you to take and upload a picture of your child, even if it says the image and data will be deleted after, is a big no and not something they would be comfortable with.
Aaron Astle
Sonic Rumble jogs to $772,000 in two months
Starting 2026 with a bang - or at least a rumble - Godzilla is currently invading party royale game Sonic Rumble with an attack on the hedgehog and his pals.
It marks the game’s first big collaboration since its global launch in November, and it’s one with a fellow Japanese franchise that seems to be doing Rumble’s revenue some good.
Over its first two months, Sonic Rumble has jogged to $772,000, perhaps not moving at Sonic speed but still making a modest splash. However, AppMagic data suggests monthly player spending is already on the decline, down from $439,000 in November to $297,000 in December.
Meanwhile, daily mobile revenue peaked at $32,000 on November 5th and fell to $6,000 on January 5th.
That may not look like the best trend, but the start of the Godzilla crossover did interrupt this decline with Sonic Rumble’s weekly revenue up 38% over its first seven days. It may be a sign that crossovers - complete with an exclusive game mode rather than just character skins - could be the way to go to keep Sonic Rumble moving.
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