Playtika's future, parents embracing games, Pokémon Champions and China's games market | 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
Report: Disney Solitaire maker SuperPlay could be purchased by Tencent in deal worth up to $1.5bn
What is Playtika?
Earlier this year, Playtika rebooted a strategic review of the company to “maximise shareholder value”. It did not elaborate.
That came a couple of years after it paused the strategic review, a time when it was linked with a private equity buyout.
Then just recently, Playtika said it was going to prioritise the casual games market, signalling a refocus from the social casino space it was built on.
Now, it’s been reported by Calcalist that Tencent could be buying its star studio Superplay in a deal worth up to $1.5 billion. Playtika had acquired the Dice Dreams and Disney Solitaire studio for up to $1.95bn ($690 million up front) back in 2024.
Life comes at you fast.
The report noted that SuperPlay’s rapid success “has become a financial burden for its parent company”. If you’ve read recent statements in financials, Playtika has certainly been investing heavily in paying off those earn outs and pumping money into UA for SuperPlay.
If it sells up - what does that mean for the future of Playtika? It’s selling one of the hottest studios around in the casual space. SuperPlay is a rarity: it’s proven it can release multiple hits.
With respect to the other teams in Playtika’s portfolio, SuperPlay is the growth engine of the entire company.
If M&A in the rest of the casual market is the goal - good luck finding another SuperPlay and not paying through the roof for the next deal.
Perhaps selling SuperPlay brings in some cash and makes the rest of Playtika more affordable for a buyer. Shareholders seem unmoved by SuperPlay’s success, nor the reports of its sale - a problem for a public company that wants to maximise that shareholder value.
Whatever the plan, uncoupling the company’s growth engine - and a key drive for casual - is a strange one.
Paige Cook
Games for Change publishes white paper on family gaming and wellbeing
This week, Games for Change published a white paper called Raising Good Gamers and as someone who’s been playing games for as long as I can remember, it’s a topic I feel strongly about.
Gaming has come a long way in terms of public perception, but it does still attract a level of concern that some other hobbies often don’t. Over the years, we have seen so many debates about whether games are good or bad for people, not just children but adults too.
I think that the reality is that, like most things in life, it depends on the individual and their approach. Spending too much time on any one thing can become unhealthy, but I don't think gaming is unique in that regard.
We have seen plenty of research that shows games can help with all manner of things, from socialisation and relaxation to cognitive skills. Unfortunately, I think negative stories sometimes overshadow these positive research results.
As for this report itself, the key focus is on parents getting involved in their children's hobby of gaming. The key statistic is that 60% of children said they want their parents to be more involved in their gaming lives.
That's a very high figure and it seems like a no-brainer to me that parents being more involved could have a really positive outcome.
This can be as simple as asking your child what they are playing, who they play it with and why they enjoy it. If they are spending hours a week doing something they are passionate about, showing an interest in that is no different than if they had a hobby like painting, playing an instrument, or playing football.
Giving parents advice and tools to get more involved means they can better understand what their children are actually doing in the games they enjoy; they can see what social features the games have and whether they allow them to talk with people. Is it via voice or text, is it friends only or strangers? All of these things are important to be aware of.
If parents understand the games their children love, they are in a better position to support them and set any sensible boundaries that may be needed, and who knows, maybe they'll even be able to enjoy this hobby together.
Aaron Astle
Pokémon Champions makes $7.2m in first month on mobile
It’s already been a month since Pokémon Champions launched on mobile, and in that time, the title has picked up approximately $7.2 million in mobile player spending.
The majority of that came from Japan, accounting for 55% of the sum, while the US has contributed 17% and South Korea 8%, filling out the top three regions.
Of course, overall revenue is likely higher than $7.2m when including sales on Nintendo hardware, especially since cross-progression means a player could be active on both mobile and Switch, and choosing to spend on one over the other.
Serving more as a battle hub than an independent game, Champions shifts main series, turn-based battles to a free new home so players aren’t required to purchase the latest release every time a Pokémon game comes around. For veterans, it’s simple enough to transfer in your favourites or meta picks you’ve caught over the years and dive into battles - no spending necessary.
Even for newcomers, the game is very approachable from a free-to-play perspective as long as you aren’t worried about the latest cosmetics, bonus music tracks or looking at all the rewards you could be claiming if you paid for the Battle Pass. There are no limits on how many battles you can enter and with some patience, you can collect most compatible Pokémon through a scouting system - free to use once per day.
The Battle Pass and a subscription-based membership are really the key methods to get retained players spending, as the only other purchase is a one-time starter pack. With all that in mind, I think Champions’ month-one earnings have been strong.
It made $392,000 on launch day, peaked at $597,000 on June 20th, then began to decline. A second, smaller rise followed on July 8th, coinciding with the launch of a new Battle Pass, with spending then rising 49% day-over-day.
It implies there is an audience willing to spend, but there simply isn’t a lot to make repeat purchases on right now. Rather, rising revenue significantly will depend more on reaching a wider audience of players - or making some tweaks to the monetisation model.
Mariam Ahmad
In the Hot Seat: Three ways Western developers are leaving a fortune on the table in China
This week I published my interview with Kingsoft's Claire Yang, overseas business development lead at the Beijing-headquartered games and software group, ahead of her appearance at Pocket Gamer Connects Summit Shanghai next week on July 29th.
One of Yang’s major arguments is that Western developers underestimate China because they won't commit the headcount needed to get to grips with how the market works.
The golden number she offers is oddly specific. Three to five people, dedicated to ongoing localisation and technical support, is usually what a Chinese publishing deal needs to work. Most studios, especially indie and mid-tier ones, balk at that and keep resources pointed at Western markets instead.
"With probably just three or four extra team members, you can make 10-times or a hundred-times the money," she told me. "I don't think they understand the math - mostly because they simply don't know."
I asked her about UA once a game is live in China and it's basically the inverse of what is done in the West. Instead of soft launch, tune, ramp spend, players wishlist a title up to six months ahead of release, with community-building doing the work a UA budget would do elsewhere. Kingsoft's Goose Goose Duck is the proof point - 5 million users on day one and 30 million within two months.
The other point that stuck with me was her framing of budget versus time. Kingsoft isn't pretending to compete with Tencent and Yang doesn't think it needs to.
"Tencent has a billion, we have one million - but in exchange for time, you can still build up the numbers through community effort," she said.
Censorship is the one friction point she's not selling as easily solved - Angry Birds took roughly a year between signing and launch, with most of that spent rebuilding rather than localising. This is worth remembering before anyone gets too starry-eyed about the wishlist numbers.
Check out the full interview for more on how to crack China, how to succeed as a mid-sized studio and the major differences in UA between the East and West.
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