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How will Mobile do in 2026?
Recorded: Feb. 17, 2026 Duration: 1:42:31Space Recording
Full Transcription
Thank you. Thank you. you
Welcome, I hope everyone can hear me clearly. It's raining cats and dogs in Nairobi. I think I posted's something about the power of rejuvenation of the rain that gets
me charged up. Okay, I'm going to play the little intro song that I had designed for us today
to kick off our spaces. In the meantime, I'm going to urge and ask each and everyone that has joined us to retweet the space, invite a friend, drop the link in the DM of a user that needs to know what's going on with gaming.
In the meantime, enjoy some Gen AI music. then ai music
2026 if you ain't in the chat you're gonna miss this
Fold that phone like laundry quick
Screen so sharp it can slice your pics
It's hard to drive you while you scroll your feet
Your friends just like yourself
Let's talk about mobile 2026
Big screen, small pockets, small new tricks
Let's talk about mobile 2026
If you're waiting in the chat, you're gonna miss this mix
Hey, hey, hey, hey
Three times home world clicks
Let's talk about mobile 2026 Pull up the 15 and thumbprint sticks Hey
2026 big screen small pockets while new tricks
2026 if you rain in the chat you gonna miss this
oh man oh man oh man all right all right i believe from that song alone it is pretty clear
what we're going to be discussing in this x spaces we're going to be discussing in this X spaces. We're going to be talking about mobile.
Some reports on how the mobile gaming market did in 2025
got released and they were shocking.
We're going to be diving into some of these facts
and exploring what our literally top-mind panelists think about what happened and what's
to come.
But in iconic tradition, we always love to invite the guests that have never spoken here
with an opportunity to introduce themselves before we get to the breaker.
A question.
As you guys can see,
the only new face is Coco Moco Games.
Coco Moco, mic check, mic check.
Give us a brief introduction.
Then we can get to talking about Mobile 2026.
Coco Moco is awesome.
Yeah, thanks for having me.
I'm Ben.
I'm the founder, CEO of Coco Mocha.
No, we're Coco Mocha Games.
We are basically a skill gaming platform for real money pots so what that means is you can play
any kind of game from casual games like snake or tetris through to card games like higher lower
through to um football prediction and pick them games as well if you like premier league for
example um and you can play them in various different competition formats.
So you can play 1v1 against friends, you can play in small group chats,
group tournaments, sorry, and you can also play in public tournaments as well.
And the idea is that you play all of them for real money so you can earn some real money
at the end of it as well. So the easiest example would be
I could open up a private snake tournament.
I could send the link with all you guys in here.
We could all join with 10 cents, $1, $10 USDC.
All the money goes into the pot, kind of like a poker game.
And then we compete and we play and
whoever has the highest score by midnight would would win from the pot so we'd be in a in a
leaderboard and in a ranking and then uh you can win so what's cool about the model is um since
it's tournament style and everything goes into the pot, you can make some pretty good returns if the pot
gets big enough. For example, I guess if you have like a big 100% tournament, you could
probably make like 20, 30, 40x. It's kind of unbounded based on what you have in the pot.
But apart from that, we're building on Avalanche.
We have an NFT collection.
Our platform is live and it is on mobile.
It's playable on browser.
All our links are in our bio.
And we also have our sports prediction platform, which we're building out,
which right now is for Premier League, like I mentioned,
which has also been pretty popular as well. So happy to go into more of any of that too. But yeah, thanks.
Thanks for having us. Happy to be here.
Thank you for being here, Mr. Ben. I appreciate you being here. And thank you for taking a moment to enlighten us on what Coco Moco does.
I've got to pronounce that name as a white guy, right?
I want to pronounce it in a way that gives it a bit of opulence when I speak it.
I appreciate you being here.
Absolutely love that players contribute and it's skill-based and it's money in, money distributed equally tournament style.
I appreciate that. Thank you so much.
To the other panelists, you are all OGs.
I hope you guys can hear me clearly, by the way, because it's raining hard, right?
I'm super close to the speaker part of my phone so that I can hear you guys clearly.
That's how much it's splashing on this roof.
We're going to be talking about Mobile 2026.
And I just want to break the ice warmly because this one is going to be all about data.
the ice warmly because this one is going to be all about data i want to ask and i ask this question
having in mind temple run for me which mobile game was the most iconic mobile game that you've
ever played or downloaded and you only have one to pick take a moment to reflect which mobile game was that mobile
game for you thank you for having your hand up your own because we were actually
going to kick it off with you what's up my friend take the floor
hey hey guys wow so good to be here finally on time.
Last time I was not able to be here,
but you know man, this is a beautiful panel
and what we're going to talk is very important
because now everything is going to mobile,
but sadly it's going into the wrong way.
Actually, Call of Duty is a game that I love, but because I'm playing Call of Duty
mobile since the start, which was a Covid period, and basically you have nothing to do.
I was playing Call of Duty at the same time in mobile and in the PlayStation because I had nothing to do. Coming to the main topic, I love this topic because right now I'm trying Age of Empires mobile
and honestly it really sucks. They destroy the whole spirit of Age Empire and they tried to do a mash up in the same style as
the majority of strategy games that are right now with this way of playing that have no
relationship with Asian Empire. So it's sad to see what is happening with this beautiful item.
I remember that when I kept Age of Empires, it was a long time ago, the beginning of 2000.
The first Age of Empires, a big round box, was a Christmas gift because it was very expensive to have it.
It was a CD, and you know, it was a beautiful, beautiful game game but now it's the same old thing.
So I opened the topic with this sad story because I believe that the majority of the
OGs here in gaming know what I'm feeling.
Watching how titles that deserve to be more are being, you know, are having this kind of transformation to
the commercial side. These studios are transforming in a wrong way. So thank you for having me
and thank you for giving me the time to drain my frustration.
I appreciate you Juan and I love that you've started somewhat mentioning a few topics I want us to discuss.
I'm sure a couple of panelists will also echo the same view.
But I never got the title.
Which mobile game?
One game, the most iconic mobile game you've ever played.
Which one was it?
Did you say it's call of duty mobile
yeah yeah yeah call of duty mobile yeah interesting i'm sure there are a few people
that are in the panel that agree so let's extend this question to the listeners i want to know
listeners do you guys play predominantly on mobile pc or console let's get the comment section
active okay let me throw this question over to layer 1x who was next to join us on these spaces
layer 1x we're just cracking the ice here we're testing your mic i want to know what's that one
mobile game you would be
Biring with, right?
Jam, jam, jam
Thanks for having us, Mr. Consul
Yeah, that's a good question
For me, it's whatever
The hyper-casual game is
That I'm playing at the moment
By the way, I like to call hyper casual
games, the toilet bowl games, uh, because, you know, obviously a lot of us only have enough time
to play a round or two. And sometimes those games like call of duty do roll us into longer
extended periods of time. So, uh, if I had to say, I would probably, geez, one of the largest ones on my
phone that I've had for years and years is a poker game. Pokerist is the one that I play.
I like playing that because I can go in and dominate the Texas Hold'em rounds for a few
minutes. But then, you know, I do get a sweet tooth every once in a while,
and I got to jump over to Candy Crush.
You know, while I'm just in line at the grocery store,
on the toilet, or just wherever,
I need a quick game that I can play.
So those are my kind of quick go-tos.
I do like Call of Duty.
I do like Pug.
But yeah, sometimes you just got to go for the quick game.
I love that.
And one thing, listeners, that you're going to pick up from the answer our panelists are going to give us in regards to that one iconic game is that these games are legacy games they
are games that have been around for a minute candy crush candy crush has a shelf life of over 10 years
now okay so let's just have that in mind i absolutely love what you've said about mobile gaming and toilets. To be honest,
this is when I'm on the toilet, I'm scrolling social media. So let's also have that injected
in the conversation. Are people going to the toilet anymore? Are people tapping into other
apps when they're in the toilet? Because when we start speaking about what has happened in regards to mobile games,
we just have to tackle this question.
So I appreciate you, Layer 1X.
Always love you being here.
Let's throw it over to Kazaa.
Kazaa, you are also next.
Then we'll somewhat switch up the breaker question kazaa
welcome on stage which game is that iconic game for you gmgm mr console thanks a lot for having
us on the ama and i can relate to layer 1x and i have played candy crush for a long long time but
i think for me uh not one maybe it's two uh which are even now i am
playing some of them which is hill climb racing which i'm still playing sometimes and the old
classic one is clash of clan i remember like staring on screens waiting for all the upgrades
to happen so that i can attack on other clans or villages.
I think those are the most memorable things around the whole Casho clan gameplay.
That you are not just instantly playing some random matches, but you have to wait.
You have to put your patience to create your whole village and then attack your opponents or other clans together with your friends so I think that was
something that is very unique and I still I think love playing even still
sometimes like I think last year I downloaded again clash of clans for a
week and then uninstalled it but I think it's one of my most memorable games I
have still played I love the answers.
The answers are getting us so warmed up for our discussion.
Clash of Clans is another classic.
And guess what?
That game is over 14 years of age.
Guys, take a minute.
Listeners, 14 years ago, where the hell were you okay and each and every answer
that has somewhat been mentioned by our panelists are iconic games that are snatching up all the
attention from other released titles let me throw it over to Rod, because I saw your hand up, Mr. Rod.
Then I'll switch up the question for the other panelists
before we dive into such amazing, mind-blowing stats
of mobile gaming in 2025.
Mr. Rod, how are you doing?
Hello, hello, hello, hello. Good morning, good afternoon, good evening. It's always a pleasure to be here. Great panel. Hello, Axel, JV, Kazar, Layer 1. Wait, let me see. Kokomo, Big Snow, Pipe, Nadim, and Senor Choi, and all these beautiful people in the panel.
So, or in the audience.
How do I answer that?
I think the most probably iconic game that I remember on mobile was probably,
you guys already mentioned a few of them, but I would say probably Angry Birds.
Because I remember when Rovio launched the game and this was a cultural nuke, that thing put mobile on the mainstream map. And recently Rovio was acquired by Sega.
And I've worked at Sega for five years.
But this game, I remember, was Angry Birds everywhere, man.
And this literally took the whole IP to a different level
and became a franchise with TV shows, merch and many, many games and so on.
My favorite game, mobile game ever was definitely Vainglory because I've been a huge MOBA fan for many years.
I've been a huge MOBA fan for many years in Vainglory
from a studio called Super Evil Megacorp.
It literally put a PC level competitive game on mobile.
And this was groundbreaking at some point.
Introduced really cool mechanics, really nice controls.
So this really raised the competitive ceiling on mobile and took it closer to PC at some point.
And the game was quite big.
Unfortunately, yeah, they had to pull the plug at some point.
So definitely, I would highlight these two.
Angry Birds as a cultural icon.
And my personal favorite was Vainglory.
Oh, man.
Rod, from the moment you started speaking, the rain stopped.
I can finally hear people now.
Like the rain has relaxed.
All my days.
And thank you so much
for reminding all of us of Angry Birds.
Honestly, who hasn't played Angry Birds here?
I'm in the mood to prune people from these spaces.
If you've not played Angry Birds,
I cannot relate.
I haven't played Angry Birds, I don relate. I haven't played Angry Birds.
I don't give a fuck about it.
No way.
What?
What?
You know what?
Let me remove from speakers real quick.
No, I'm joking.
Okay.
We're going to come to you next, Pipe Jidao.
That's interesting.
A game I can say I've never heard of is vainglory
that just sounds pretty unique okay and it sounds dark it sounds like rod
but once again same titles are circling in our discussions same titles are dominating mindshare
i want to switch it up.
Of course, I see hands are raised.
Feel free to share the thoughts you have,
but also tackle this question.
I want to ask,
which mobile game did you guys download last year?
Just in 2025 alone.
Let's throw it over to Nadim,
because I think I saw your hand next, Nadim.
What is up up my friends?
I'm sorry I disconnected earlier Had some internet problems
I missed Layer
Layer Stake, which I regret
Because he always has really cool takes
I heard Rod's take
And very happy
To be with all of you
I love this ritual of weekly spaces together.
Please keep it going, Mr. Consul.
You're a G.
You keep improving as a host every time, and your topics are bang on.
There's a book called A Scarcity Brain.
You guys should check it out.
It's pretty cool.
It really just talks about addiction and what covers and like what addiction consists of and the elements that sort of contribute to a human being being addicted
and how it like sort of plays on the brain and it speaks of a man who is considered the devil
because he pioneered the slot machine in casinos first out in vegas back in the day slot machines
were considered to be the shittiest, most boring games in a casino.
Nobody would ever play them, if you can imagine that.
And today, they're now by far the most popular game in all casinos.
The reason this happened is because this devil I'm speaking of, I can't remember his name,
who made a ton of money by manipulating the human brain.
who made a ton of money by manipulating the human brain,
He figured out that by imposing certain patterns in a game,
playing with color in strategic areas,
understanding dopamine loops
and understanding how to keep people coming back,
understanding how to reward them enough just to keep playing,
but at the same time, overall them lose money right so he is
the devil now the reason i'm talking about this is because all of these things apply to mobile
gaming uh to a great degree especially and i'm not i'm not talking about all mobile games there's
so many different kinds of mobile games i'm thinking more about like things like a subway
surfer or temple run or you know these doom i don't like doom scroll ish things that are like
in in gaming on mobile gaming where you just can sit there for hours and your brain is just not
thinking or whatever it's like zoned out you're on that thing like a zombie playing a game and i
think a lot of it is pretty nefarious um there's another book. It's called Stolen Attention or something like that. It's
incredible as well. And it talks about how behind every mobile screen are engineers who are getting
paid millions of dollars fighting for your attention. Can you imagine that? It's actually
insane when you understand the scope of how much our attention is being sort of, I'm getting more into like a philosophical side of this, just because I feel it's important as well, like when you zoom out.
But the idea is that there are major forces at work on the other side of that mobile screen or on the other side of that laptop, but especially on that mobile screen, because our attention is so valuable. And our attention is essentially what makes them money.
And so it's a nefarious industry. It's great. And if you're in it, you're trying to like sort of,
you know, be successful in it. But what I feel is the most important thing for mobile games
is just understanding the psychological elements, like like, you know, positioning buttons correctly, inspiring dopamine loops in there, and then grab the sucker and pull them in and have them play your game like a zombie.
Depends what kind of game. Obviously, there's a lot of different kinds of games. But yeah, that's all I'll say for now.
But yeah, that's all I'll say for now.
No, that is a really good point.
It's a point that is very much undermined.
In this ecosystem, we look at Candy Crush.
Let me use Candy Crush as an example,
because I love how this game is somewhat pointed and looked down on.
People think all you have are some beautiful candies that you swipe on, they merge,
and boom! That's it. That's the game mechanic. And so Game Studio founders launched super
complicated systems, believing that because they have a little bit more gameplay, they're gonna
compete and win Mindshare from Candy Crush.
And to further highlight your point, Candy Crush made $1.1 billion in USD last year.
Right?
This simple game knows which color palettes to use. It knows exactly where to monetize,
where to throw in the ad,
how to get you to buy into other levels. And that's the psychology
that maybe has users already hooked
and they can't leave.
And maybe new studios just don't have held down.
I love that you mentioned Subway Surfers. I'm surprised
whenever I see this game still on the download list. Like what? People are still downloading
this game? Jeez. Are they still running campaigns? I don't get it. But I love that you've brought
that point to the discussion. Let me throw it over to axelito
axelito welcome you're one of the ogs that i just had to circle back to the spaces because just like
nadine said we're a group of friends now that come around talk gaming because this is what we love
the question i have for you is which game did you download last year on mobile?
If you downloaded any at all.
And then we'll crack on with this discussion.
Welcome.
Awesome.
Awesome.
Thank you for having me here.
Sorry for being a little bit late.
Work out and that later than expected.
But yeah, I had to move the body.
It's morning here.
So the best thing is to work out when I wake up.
So yeah, last game I downloaded. so i'm checking on my phone actually and i i see the last game i downloaded is this game called uh to play
to play your games that you can just use your screen with your friend and play some games and
i downloaded it when i was traveling towards uh a place we were on a bus trip trip and we were checking like there was a lot of traffic
so we were playing on the phone that way, right?
But before that, I think Panzer Docks was the game
that I had on my phone lastly downloaded.
And it was interesting seeing, you know,
how I was actually enjoying a Web3 gaming experience
on mobile again after a long time because it was very basic.
But I don't know.
I have like in my head two titles that come straight forward
are ones in old school called Asphalt.
So all the Asphalt titles were like very addictive and very good.
And they transferred that, you know, car driving experience
from consoles to mobile in a good way.
And there was a season I was very locked in playing eFootball, PES.
And I even think I found a better experience on that game on mobile
than the football games on consoles.
But they changed, they rewired.
Like they did some changes that just broke it.
And then I understood something, which is this overlapping.
This happened like three, four years ago.
This overlapping between the console game experience with the add-on of the mobile.
I think nowadays it sucks.
I don't like it, to be honest.
And because I do see how people get more hooked into the whole experience.
And at the end of the day, they turn off the console and they continue being hooked into the mobile.
So it doesn't open the opportunities for other things
to be explored and experimented.
Yet, I really enjoyed it when I also downloaded
the Off The Grid app many moons ago
because I was able to see who was online
or interact with them that way on a game
that was just starting and stuff like that.
And it provided some content as well of the game
and not only just do this action on the phone
so you can get a better player on the console.
And I don't like that.
But yeah, I mean, Das Game Downloaded,
two-player games on iOS.
Two-player games.
I haven't heard of that one.
Maybe I need to do a bit of research.
But Asphalt, yo, you guys are full of class.
Please, listeners, we need to follow each and every speaker here.
These are very fine, classic men.
Yo, Asphalt, that game was on top. A very fine classic, man. Yo!
Asphalt?
That game was on top.
I remember playing it on iPad.
At that point, I had a little iPad.
All my days, yes.
That was Need for Speed right on your fingertips.
That was, yeah, that was a good, good experience. I'm getting nostalgia.
I'm really going back there with you guys.
Okay.
I love that we've cracked the ice.
Everybody has somewhat spoken already.
I love that the titles which have been mentioned
are just known all across the board.
Actually, I haven't been somewhat spoken, but anyway.
Pipe Jidal, please, please jump in.
Tell us why you hate Angry Birds.
And also tell us if you have that iconic one game.
One game that's for you.
I'm sure you do, buddy.
Welcome.
Yeah, I don't necessarily hate Angry Birds.
I just didn't get involved in the hype, right?
It's like, you know, when something is just
too hypey and everyone's jumping on it or whatever, I just wasn't really that interested.
Not that I hate the game or whatever, right? My classic iconic is Snake, man. That was
the original mobile game. You know, it came standard in the Nokia, you know, when I was a kid,
when I was in my, you know, Snake dropped when I was like, what, 13 or something like that.
You know, when everyone had like the 5110, 3310 Nokias, right?
And, you know, it was just meant to be a kind of side game or whatever.
You know, I don't think Nokia took it too seriously,
but it became a hit, right?
And, you know, the 3310 had its own version of it and stuff.
And, you know, that was the classic iconic mobile game,
which was an accidental hit, you know, since then.
You know, there are other games I've enjoyed,
but, you know, I've typically played games either mostly on console,
but some on PC, like, you know, Starfleet Command and so on.
But, you know, I didn't really play that on mobile.
But, yeah, Snake is the classic iconic.
Man, shout out to Snake and shout out to the button phones.
I'm not sure if we have an audience that can relate.
Can you guys relate?
And I need you guys active in the comment section.
Okay?
I want to know if you guys had a
nokia specifically my mom did and all my days whenever i should come back from work
it's a sprint against my siblings to get a hold of that phone to just
right and make that snake icon grow big without eating itself right that was such a simple
Game loop. Wow. Thanks for taking us back. I just want to say something real real quick
Just real real quick guys like I remember having like um I had a nokia when I was I think 14 I think and it was one of those super early phones it was like a little
brick in your pocket super slow and like when you compare it to today's standards and just you know
this thing has applications it was just like so bare bones and I remember feeling so impressed
and so wowed and so like taken aback by it and just being like god damn i am the shit look what i have in my
pocket and now i have like a supercomputer with ai and image generation and applications and games
and i'm like i don't give a shit about this just crazy how the human brain works
it's funny you guys are talking about snake and then like the difference in the devices now and back then.
So our flagship game is actually Snake.
We built the first version as a Telegram mini app and people really loved it.
So we just did it for a bit of fun, to be honest, at the beginning.
And then we put it back on our main platform now so people can play Snake competitively against each other.
And it's definitely one of our most popular ones.
It's so funny how just the simplest mechanics and nostalgia
can still be so fun so many years later.
You know, I want to hold on to that thought.
Let's hold on to that thought because I have another theory.
And my theory is that maybe we're the oldies here
and we're holding on to the games that gave us that fast dopamine shoot.
Maybe.
Because the new kids, they don't know what Snake is.
Roblox is their new Snake and they seem to be aging in Roblox.
But let me not deter the discussion because I want us to get there gradually. They don't know what Snake is. Roblox is their new Snake, and they seem to be aging in Roblox.
But let me not deter the discussion, because I want us to get there gradually.
I see your hand up, PlayerOneX.
I see your hand up as well, Kazaa. What I want to mention is that in 2025, the mobile game market grew by only 0.2%.
the mobile game market grew by only 0.2%.
0.2.
Not 2%, not 20%.
Zero, not 0.2.
Whichever way you pronounce that in your culture,
it's zero and then basically it didn't grow.
But mobile is such a giant, it's moving billions,
that 0.2 is still money, okay?
And we've started by asking which game is that iconic game?
The titles that have all been mentioned are still here.
Could mobile be saturated?
Could new games be failing to gain recognition?
And that's why this ecosystem is no longer growing let's talk
about that let me inject that into this discussion level next let me throw it over to you then kazah
we're also going to come to you next buddy awesome first of all thanks for making me the old guy in
the whole freaking group talking about when you guys got your freaking nokias holy crap oh man i
thought this day would never come but it's here unfortunately um so to answer your question well
first off i want to give a shout out to nadim on his very first thing talking about the psychology
of it all uh seriously this is what it really boils down to is it is all about psychology.
It is all about hitting those dopamine, hitting those addictive type of behaviors.
This is the world, unfortunately, I know way too much about.
So if anybody ever wants to go down a rabbit hole, this is why I got out of Silicon Valley
and got into crypto is to help protect people's data from
being harvested and mined so yes anytime anybody wants to go down that rabbit hole let's talk
uh to answer your question mr console yeah you know what the reason why i feel a lot of
i'm just talking mobile games, games across every single console.
It seems like everybody found what's known as the copy and paste button because there's a lot of repeat games out there. You slap a new skin on it and call it something new.
And there's just people are getting tired of it.
And if you know anything about the psychology world when it comes to addiction, your addiction grows and grows.
And if you have something that is not maintaining your dopamine hit, you're obviously going to be looking for new ways to get that dopamine hit back harder and harder.
It's kind of like when you drink alcohol.
A couple of drinks for the first
time are going to get you that nice little buzz. But after a while, it's going to take you more
and more and more and more before you hit that buzz again. And so it's no different than what
we're experiencing in the reality of our mobile or screen experience, if you want to call it that way. For years and years, I'm talking
since 20, what was it, 2007, 2007, when the iPhone was introduced, there was a new fight, a new war
for us users that we had to battle against, and that was a fight for your screen time.
us users that we had to battle against and that was a fight for your screen time
Mr. Console brought up social media platforms is another great example of gamification within
within not a game setting but there are so many different gamifications in the social media world
it's not even funny and why do they implement these things? Because the game mechanics, when you layer them on top of each other, creates such a dopamine hit.
It is unrecognizable in the sense that you don't know where it came from, why you got hooked, and why you keep coming back for more and more.
But these platforms that are harvesting your data definitely know why.
They know how to get you to come back. And it's just not one thing. It's a multiple layered
combination that is unique to you. And that's why the mobile device has been so powerful is because
of that customization, that personalization that we can have.
It's an extension of our arm.
Basically, it has become ingrained into our hands. And if you ever think about those phantom buzzes that you feel from your phone
coming from while it's in your back pocket or your front pocket,
and you pick up your phone and you don't see anything on there,
that is a real sign that you are truly addicted to your phone because you're seeing these phantom
kind of alerts or buzzes on your phone. And so these are the kind of things that you want to
be mindful to. And another great example of this is when you look at social media.
Try this experiment.
If you guys have heard me say this before, I apologize,
but it is a great experience.
If you are on Instagram, Facebook, or even TikTok,
they recognize that if they can keep you on
for at least two minutes,
you're guaranteed to be death scrolling
for at least 40 minutes. And that
goes for YouTube as well. I mean, all the platforms. So next time you get into a doom
scroll, check the time that you start and see the time that you get off and guaranteed it will be
over 40 minutes long. I love that point. And I want to build off that point.
And let me admit that the psychology behind addiction and how these apps have been designed is scary.
When I heard and read that they hired psychologists for Tinder,
bro, I had to delete that app.
What the hell, man?
I'm just on Tinder trying to get ass.
Why do they have to freaking get psychologists as part of their team? That scared me. Okay, that absolutely scared me. And I ran. I absolutely ran, deleted that app and never looked back.
Do you know why they do that?
Why they do that?
Nadine is stealing my joke.
Do you know why they do that?
Yeah.
Yeah. Go ahead.
Go ahead.
They do that because they're trying to understand the persona type of person that you like to engage with more so that they can sell that data to ad agencies so that they can design ads specifically around your type of persona person, right?
So for an example, you live in Africa,
I live in the US, you know, they're going to try to customize it to our culture, to our country,
to our, you know, whatever it is that we're accustomed to and what we've been looking at.
And so a lot of those kind of sites are just data
sites. They're data mining sites. They're not really for the benefit of their own product.
They're there to take your data and sell it.
I really love that. And let me build off that and tie it a little bit to the question at hand.
tie it a little bit to the question at hand. I do agree that mobile is powerful. And I do agree
that there's addiction tied to our devices. But on the other hand, mobile gaming grew by only
0.2%. Could that addiction be coming to an end? Or is that addiction being captured by a new dopamine provider let's have
that discussion let me throw it over to you because uh what do you think about this 0.2
percent growth figure and why what how explain that to me please see i think uh the major reason is uh not uh actually the user base
in terms of if we see just the user base growth compared to 2024 or 2025 i think
we did pretty good but we are saturating on major revenue sectors like if we see us markets or other
major revenue driving markets most of the user grew only in these lower margin markets like
India then other countries around it and that is actually the one major reason that we have so less revenue
Just 0.2 or 0.3 percent and I also think that new games are not coming up and we are more predominantly
uh actually moving just in games which have somewhat similar mechanics instant dopamine
loops and instant reward mechanism so more creative more better games more new ideas are not actually uh you know are coming up and also i think
compared to covid and uh now if we see we are actually going in a more uh saturation stage
where uh due to covid we got so many more users in just one or two years but now we are
reaching a saturation point even if we see big gaming markets like japan or
other uh more revenue driving regions their population is actually not growing
they are at a saturation so how can we expect to have better revenues or you know better numbers
to come up
shut up and take my money take my goddamn wallet now we're talking we have you know what let me
throw another stat out there i see the hands i want to get to the hands despite the mobile gaming
market only growing by 0.2 percent last year there were over 1.4 million apps released and downloads increased
year on year by four to six percent so what you've said is right on the money let me just throw it
over to the next hand axelito wow how can you follow and top that welcome i just had this idea in in that i perceive that
everything's so gamified nowadays in mobile which is you know like from buying groceries to
to delivery apps to everything is so gamified that it feels like we are just constantly playing
a video game depending on the app that you open. And it was mentioned before as well, the time of getting hooked, don't doomscrolling.
And it's like, that's also a game, you know?
It's the game of attention.
And I think before the social media and the apps
were not as addictive.
You know, you see Duolingo, how it behaves.
You know, it's like the idea of all of it,
it's just to have all these mini games fighting
for your attention on the mobile gaming sphere and then they are trying to implement um i think the
app developers are trying to implement like gamified mechanics so people feel that quote unquote fun or
joy that they get from playing games,
but buying stuff using their credit cards as their in-game currency.
So that's how I perceive the industry.
It could have grown only at 0.2%, but at the end of the day,
the whole app development for mobile is just games.
That is another beautiful take. And each take is just getting us deeper into such an exciting topic.
Because what happened last year as well, and I'm not trying to throw out everything to you panelists.
I'm only, you know, commenting on the takes that I've had, adding a bit of spice and allowing you guys to run with the discussion.
adding a bit of spice and allowing you guys to run with the discussion but last year non-gaming apps
overtook games in in-app revenue it's a fight for attention in screen time and it seems there are
certain apps that are monetizing better than games let me just have that out there. Pipe it out, please.
Yeah.
So, yeah, this is something I wanted to expand on.
So, for example, Grok, the Grok app, especially the voice mode.
I think it's got the best voice mode out of all of the models,
or at least that's the one that I prefer.
I think it's got a better voice.
Ara, the name's got a better voice mode than Chagipity and so on.
I spend a lot more of my time using that, and I think AI models have disrupted whatever market share in terms of attention that gaming would have had is one.
I think also there are, I mean, I listen to a lot of podcasts, you know, podcasts on my mobile stuff when users are more interested in AI models and podcasts and music
streaming and so on in terms of what's actually being. It's not that mobile gaming is dead,
but I think in terms of there are more exciting killer apps and use cases to be used on mobile
than gaming right now, right?
Because when you're playing a mobile game, you can't play a mobile game while you're
in the gym, while you're driving, while you're cooking, right?
But you can listen to a podcast, yeah?
You can talk to RAI while you're doing other things in voice mode
and it talks back to you.
Anecdotally, I think this is where the tech trends
and market share seems to be going.
I think possibly gaming might need another new interface or something.
It could be, you know, kind of smart glasses. It could be VR glasses, you know, with what does Meta have again?
Meta bought, I can't remember what, Oculus, those kind of interfaces, because I think it's just played out, right?
The current interfaces with mobile gaming to be really disruptive.
Again, more disruptive or at least on par with what AI models or, you know, media content streaming platforms like Spotify and so on.
Man, that's another take that's on the money.
And that is 100% true.
Apps such as ChatGPT, I think they were number uno on the monetization.
I think it was Grok, actually, which had more downloads than ChatGPT.
But in terms of money, I don't think there's any app that has as much or has generated as much money as JGBT.
But essentially, they all fall into that AI spectrum, right?
And that is stealing attention away from games.
Another thing that somewhat came to my mind, and of course I'm saying this just to spice up the
discussion, is the fact that these apps have subscription models. Games don't have that
traditionally. I'm subscribed to ChatGBT. I even forget to cancel it. And then I realize, oh sheesh,
okay, I've paid for it for another month now. Okay, let me just use it. Then I want to cancel it, then boom.
It's just a transaction deducted from my card automatically.
And games fail, or rather they can't tap into this super lucrative subscription model that AI apps have.
Wow, what an interesting panel. Rod, we finally come to you. What are your takes here? Because, yeah, we're talking.
I got lost at some point because we pivoted into some really interesting angles here.
really interesting angles here.
I would recommend everyone,
if you guys have interest,
this morning,
actually I retweeted that
Matthew Ball just dropped his latest report
on the gaming industry report
that has really some very, very interesting takes
and a projection for 2026 and so on.
So definitely recommend it if you guys are interested into the topic.
And one of the takes...
You should share it in the Jumbotron for everybody here.
One of the takes, because we were...
I think your first question was the decline of growth.
Was this almost insignificant growth rate, 0.5 or whatnot?
To be honest, I've been around for a few seasons, probably like layer one.
And look, I wouldn't call this decline.
I see this as a maturity because we are talking about,
if you think about the mobile games market,
you are talking about the market that is close to $100 billion.
So industries with the scale,
they don't grow at 10% rate forever, man.
So we had a hyper growth phase during COVID.
People were locked at home
and spending a lot of time
and money in games and so on.
And I think one of our fellow panelists mentioned this.
So I'm just hijacking one of his arguments.
So a lot of that demand was pulled forward. But what we are seeing now is normalization. And now, is the market
saturated? Of course, if you consider the North America, specifically US, Western Europe, Japan. Someone mentioned Japan as well.
These are markets traditionally known with high economic purchase power.
Everybody has a smartphone.
So growth doesn't come from new users anymore.
It comes from fighting for attention
and wallet share and so on and so forth.
That's one of the reasons why I recommend everyone
to read that report that I mentioned.
Also, so I'm mentioning the markets
that stabilize, that mature markets,
but then you have other markets
that are still going through this very fast growth
like LATAM, Southeast Asia, and even others.
Also, something really interesting
because we kind of pivoted to this.
Nowadays, any app,
and I'm currently doing this myself
in one of our newest products at Sura,
all products are highly optimized and gamified, more gamified than ever.
And you have variable rewards, strict mechanics, limited time events, pressure loops,
scarcity triggers, battle passes, blah, blah, blah.
Any app uses this, not just gaming anymore.
Someone mentioned DeFi apps.
I don't even the fuck know.
Social media apps, whatever apps, they are highly psychologically optimized than ever.
So you are fighting for attention and all this optimization
and these psychological triggers.
And I don't want to dodge the attention argument here.
For those in the industry, if you heard of, what's his name,
Phil Spencer. He's the CEO of Xbox. And a few weeks ago, he was talking about, okay, his market
share in the industry and how he's competing with PlayStation and other consoles and so on, and other gaming platforms.
And he said, look, I'm not competing against PlayStation.
We are not competing against other gaming platforms anymore.
We are competing against TikTok and social media.
We are fighting for attention.
And the guy is not being dramatic.
He's being realistic.
Attention is finite.
So it's no longer competing a game versus game
or gaming platform versus gaming platform.
You are competing experience versus experience.
So games monetize on progression, on cosmetics,
on convenience, on status.
Then you have someone mentioned betting apps.
They monetize on volatility, on real financial upside and so on.
And this is a different beast.
But the key is that that doesn't mean that gaming is weak.
It means that monetization efficiency is challenged by new verticals
that are highly optimized for engagement, for entertainment, not just for entertainment.
And this is tricky. the psychographics and demographics of highly mature markets that are stabilized and require different approaches,
then you are fighting for all apps, not just gaming apps,
but all apps that are highly optimized for,
well, you can call it addiction triggers. I would prefer to call it differently. Then you are fighting for attention of all other
platforms. And we are no longer the only interactive dopamine engine in the room. And this is the real
shift that people need to be aware of.
I told you, Rod has completely killed the rain.
It was raining crazy.
And I'm not even exaggerating.
I dropped a video in, I think, the banner of this X spaces.
And now it's completely quiet to a point i can
hear the crickets and that's because of that take and i just want to highlight what he said
because competition is now rigorous out of those 1.4 million apps that were released on Play Store and the App Store,
only 10% got any attention.
10%, okay?
Let me throw it over to you, Mr. JV.
Thank you for being patient with your hand up.
To all the hands, we're going to get to you, each and every one of you.
With the hands, we're going to get to you, each and every one of you.
Well, this is a space to learn more than talking.
It starts here.
And, yeah, actually, the thing I want to bring here is more related to the economic point of view.
Maybe you talk about the ecological angle, the social angle,
even the geographic angle.
But well, this is enough.
If we have a lot of games coming, new ones,
and we have a growth of games coming, new ones, and we have a growth that is
different because it means that they're doing something wrong.
And what is, what I can see from the map is basically that
they are launching things that people don't want.
It's easy as that.
You can check from the individual
point of view, you can check from the macro point of view, and if you go to the macro point of view,
well there are different ages and the big trend of age that mobile gaming is addressing is related to Gen Z.
So the kids or well, the young guys,
because we're not anymore too young,
as a player once said,
the other ones who are always engaging on mobile.
If you go in China, live in China 10 years,
and if you go to China to Starbucks,
it's full of kids playing.
There is reason even the government tackled down that.
So the macro point of view is like,
how do you get attention from those kids that
are always looking at TikTok etc etc well
and you already touched that point in layer one that is you you need to get deep into the
psychologist and into the data as well my point of view on the individual side as a gamer, as an old gamer, is basically they are not squeezing properly good titles.
Basically the dynamics are not being the one that people are, that players are demanding.
There is a lack of fit on what the customer is requesting and the lack of fit is,
on what the customer is requesting and the lack of tips is i'm i bring at the beginning of the
topic age of empires mobile i was expecting another game i was expecting they preserve
the the original dynamics of asian empire and they didn't you know they basically sold the game to
basically sold the game to the studio that replicate things that I can find in another game.
It's the same old thing. So as a gamer, I want something that excel, that is above the rest.
I'm tired of these games. I'm tired of Clash of Kings. I'm tired of the same games that offer the same thing.
You know, five years ago it was cool. Now it's not cool anymore. And I'm looking to
these games that give me something more. That is the reason when I saw HFM mobile, I came
here and I said, wow, let me try. I tried, I feel wow, you know I feel so sad.
I think I want to go to my therapist, how they destroyed my favorite title from my childhood, doing the same thing.
So the studios, the developers, they are not doing what they have to do because they are following
what this is what investors what people push them to do is like okay you have to do this way this
way and this way and this way otherwise we're going to fund the game otherwise we're not going
to do this and this is where the game industry is going down. It's going down with these evil guys that push the developers to follow a corporate
playbook.
And the corporate playbook is what is destroying the game industry, at least from the fun side.
It's not fun that you pick a game like Age of Empires, which is beautiful, that has its own style, and to put what we are not expecting,
the own style of Age of Empires.
This is what is happening.
Corporates are destroying.
There is a reason I always support indie games.
There is a reason I'm against those studios
that are destroying because you have
the guys with the suit and with the tie bringing corporate playbook to a place that don't need that.
You need fun, you need creativity, you need passion, you need love, and of course, you need money.
need money.
I love it.
I absolutely love it.
You never fail
to warn the industry
to get away from
that business corporate stuff
towards the creative.
But I don't even think
that's the issue here.
Right?
When 1.4 million apps get released and only 10% get and gather attention, that's more of a funding.
Yeah, it could be a funding problem because essentially the cost of user acquisition is, you know what?
Let me just throw it over to the next set of hands because I have a lot to share on your take.
But spot on, Mr. JV. Spot on.
Kazaa, you're next up. Then we'll come to you, Layer 1X.
Yeah, I mean, if we just think for last two years alone, I mean, the barrier to create a game is much less compared to market a game.
to create a game is much less compared to market a game just think about this like we can just ask
chat gpt and uh and it can guide us how to create a game maybe not to design the model but at least
for the whole mechanics part it can guide us up and even now a lot of templates we have sketch
fab for marketplaces for downloading 3d models so i think it's much more easy for people developers to create a
game than to market i mean just think about this last 10-15 years what is the monetization mechanism
what are the innovations if we have anything apart from ads or maybe like costumes or whatever
paid mechanism right so if as a monetization level if it's difficult to earn on a longer run
obviously the funding crunch will happen and we have gen ai is now coming up so aggressively you
can build games on croc maybe not a tough game but at least many games or some small games and ai is
only going to progress in next coming up years so it will be easy for anyone to enter but to market
they need someone they need cash and that's where the whole problem comes in and if we see right now
the major players and most of the engines as well all of them have partnered or have there some
publishing arm so we have these core corporates are top of the food chain. And we have these indie developers hustling hard to launch their games and make people love it.
So I think that is one major problem.
I think just before this, it was JV or Rod who covered this beautifully.
Also, one more thing.
I think all these giants, specifically like Roblox or Spatial, they do a very beautiful mechanism.
roblox or spatial they do a very beautiful mechanism let's say if we have some mechanics
or some kind of game getting popular on play store or maybe apple store so they create certain rooms
which exactly same mechanics as them so how roblox actually grew was when we all gen z's
or millennials were using like call of duty or maybe Clash of Clans.
Roblox was targeting young people, young kids.
And now after five, six years, 10 years now, they have every category of games inside their world.
So if they are not seeing these games, other games in the market,
how do you think they will actually use them? They they will be revolving around the same worlds right and i think this is uh may some
people may say that it's very disastrous for other games but i think it's a beautiful strategy
to keep your current users active around your worlds and keep the engagement on. So I think these are few points from my point,
my perspective, which is major hurdles right now. And if we have some really good innovations
coming up on the monetization side, I think we will have much new concept games coming up.
man thank you so much for joining this discussion because the points you're
uttering are really really hitting home yeah it's it's tough trying to steal attention from this big boys That we mentioned Those iconic titles
That are still around
It's costing a lot of dollars
And it's not just money
It's also on the behavioral side
What Mr. Nadim and Lea1x spoke about
That addiction
Getting someone off cocaine
To heroin
I'm sorry for that analogy But just making them switch whatever they get high on, that's a real real issue that might somewhat hinder the
growth of mobile in 2026 let me throw it over to you layer 1x we have Juan with his hand up
Rod with his hand up we're definitely gonna get to these takes as well. Lewonex, please. The stage is yours.
I'm going to make this quick. I just wanted to say thanks. I do have to run. I'm actually on a
business Zoom meeting pretending that my mic doesn't work. So I can only go for so long.
I wanted to stick around for this because it was a great, great take. So thanks for having us.
I wanted to stick around for this because it was a great, great take.
So thanks for having us.
Appreciate it as always, Mr. Consul, great host.
One thing that I would definitely leave you guys with is, you know, don't be afraid to
ask why and dig into the why.
Why is this happening?
Why are people going this way or that way?
this way or that way. You know, it really does. There are some truths to be told if you start
You know, it really does.
peeling back the layers of the onion to expose the why. And a lot of it is just like market
fear and greed. A lot of it is just noise. And it's going to die down really quick. So,
you know, things are not dead.
Gaming will always be there.
It's the original OG of dopamine,
hits for people, addiction, things like that.
And so, you know, keep your head up,
keep looking for those games and, you know, get involved with communities.
That's all I would say.
Speaking of communities, Mr. Constance,
do you mind if I announce what we're doing Thursday real quick?
Go ahead, buddy.
Okay, good. Yeah. So this Thursday, if you guys want to keep this conversation going, Layer 1X is having their game night slash Xtalks.
We're going to dive into the psychology behind game nights, and we're going to talk about that. So if any of the speakers want to join on that panel,
feel free to DM me and I will get you guys hooked up on that.
For listeners, come in.
Instead of drinking coffee, we're
going to be playing Plinko on our site.
So definitely hook me up.
If you guys want to participate in that, send me a DM.
Otherwise, thanks, everybody.
Great conversation.
Mr. Consul, as always, big hearts to you, my friend.
Thank you, buddy.
And I'll be more than happy to hang out with you on Thursday.
Yes, I'm aware we've somewhat gone a little bit over time, but that's just how we do it here.
Right?
The discussion gets so good, so stimulating that it's the dopamine for us.
This is stealing attention away from mobile games. They better come at us.
Okay, I want to just be cheeky and throw out another thing. It seems to me that the only
mobile ecosystem that's somewhat flourishing at the moment,
or at least able to raise money, is the Turkish scene, right?
It seems as if you're a game studio from anywhere,
and this is because we've brought the money discussion in play, right?
If you're raising for your mobile game, good luck.
But if you're raising for your mobile game and you're from Turkey,
it seems like a lot of dollars are just throwing themselves towards this market.
Let me also just add that to this discussion in case you guys want to tackle it.
I'll throw it over to Mr. Rod, then we'll come back to you, Mr. Juan.
To Mr. Rod, then we'll come back to you, Mr. Juan, JV.
I think I got lost again in the topic,
but as I was focused on one of the last interventions,
but I'm having a deja vu, Mr. Consul,
because you've mentioned some...
We had a discussion a few spaces ago on the, I think it was the discoverability problem.
And this is an angle that we haven't touched here yet. When you mentioned that only
10% of the games that were launched last year got real attention, and this is, to be honest,
this is a fucking brutal number, but this only tells you that Discovery is broken. Not only you are competing against a humongous amount of games
available, and by the way, someone mentioned, I think it was Kazar, this number will only grow
now with the advent of AI, Vibe Coding, and so on, there's more apps, more games than ever.
And this year, we'll see an explosion of that.
But on the other hand, this tells you that discovery is broken.
This is not just a demand problem.
It's a visibility problem.
So you have more apps being built than ever.
Downloads keep growing.
But attention is only concentrated in a tiny percentage of winners.
And of course, like everything, the stores are optimized, so only the top apps compound
and the rest, well, the rest fades away.
That's the reality of things.
And another thing that people forget, and a pardon for my French, there's a fuckton of
money invested in the app stores. One of the reasons why mobile is so competitive today. It's because of the investment in user
acquisition, in ASO, in data science, in creative testing, in performance marketing. And this is
insanely sophisticated. Insanely, guys. And again, I'm just, this is just what I mentioned, just the tip of the iceberg.
We are not in 2012 anymore.
Studios today, they run, someone mentioned Roblox, Rovio, Supercell, and many others.
They run massive creative testing pipelines.
They have dozens, sometimes hundreds of ad variants per week.
They have real-time cohort analysis.
They have data science teams.
They have incrementally testing ASO teams, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.
So we could stay here a whole day talking about this.
Not only the games and apps, and we, again, just reminding what we mentioned before, are highly optimized or gamified and etc., etc., etc. But then you also have these moguls that invest fuck you money in optimization, in user acquisition. And of course, this in parallel with the discovery problem,
it becomes an issue for the small fish.
And just the final thing, and this is an answer directly to JV.
JV, I love you, brother, because I see you here week after week.
Actually, we missed each other a few weeks.
And you always have great points.
You are always on point.
And but I see, I feel you have a vendetta.
And don't take this personally, but I see you have a vendetta against VCs,
against capital and whatnot.
And I totally understand your angle
because this is not a discussion.
I understand from where you're coming from.
I don't know the whole story,
but I understand your angle.
But I also have another angle
because capital alone does not destroy industries, does not destroy platforms.
Bad execution does. This is the problem that I've been fighting here week after week after week
after week. Short term thinking does. Chasing spreadsheets instead of cool gaming mechanics, instead of players. This is what fucks
the market and the industry. And yes, yes, it's true. Private equity, big publishers, sometimes
they, yes, they go overboard and they apply aggressive monetization playbooks. We were even
talking about psychological triggers that are
taken to extremes. And of course, this can backfire. But this is not a VC problem,
a capital problem per se. This is a product leadership problem. Because mobile, today,
we're just talking about mobile, but mobile wouldn't
be this nearly 100
billion industry without capital.
Supercell had capital.
King had capital. Scopely,
one of the moguls, had capital.
Many of the biggest successes
were heavily funded.
the real issue is not
just the capital thing.
It's more of instead of we having capital supporting and driving design,
sometimes we focus on other things.
And yeah, it sucks.
So just wanted to say that I don't think capital destroys the industries.
I think that easy capital during the boom years allowed a lot of weak operators and shitty people with shady motivations to fuck up what we have.
And by the way, I love Age of Empires,
especially Age of Empires 2, Age of Kings.
I played this for many years.
I played Stronghold.
I played Civilization.
So I know what I'm talking about.
And by the way, I've mentioned before,
I've worked at Sega many years. And one of by the way, I've worked, I've mentioned before, I've worked at Sega many years, and
one of the Sega studios that
I've worked with
is called Relic, Relic
Entertainment that is known for company
of Euros, Warhammer, and so on.
And Relic was
the first publisher
developer of
the new
Age of Empires, or the new, no, of the first Age of Empires mobile version.
And for whatever reason, it didn't work because Relic was not an expert in mobile.
And now they have a new publisher.
It's called Level Finite or something
like that and they brought
in, Microsoft brought in these
guys because they are highly
specialized in
mobile gaming performance
mobile gaming mechanics
and so on.
So at the end of
the day it's not Capital's fault. It's just what to do
with it, man. You know, I want to quote the Supercell CEO on that point, right? Then I'll
throw it over to you, JV. He said, and I think Supercell released some sort of annual letter to shareholders, blah, blah, blah, blah.
I've never seen great products emerge from teams with unlimited runways.
So I can actually argue that if you have too much capital, that's going to mess you up.
As a founder operating from lean resources, being mean and having to optimize and overprioritize on what needs spent, I think that helps studios way more than having unlimited budget.
We've seen it in this ecosystem where products raised millions, but have nothing to show for it.
They had millions to just fly their staff and team to Dubai,
to Southeast Asia to take part in all the conferences,
but they never really built a product
because they had that capital,
which allowed them, sadly,
not to prioritize on what needs to be prioritized.
Let me throw it over to you, JV.
Pipe Jida, welcome back on stage kaza i think you
also have something to say and then we'll somewhat cut off the discussion because it's gone 30 minutes
over time right and i love that 30 minutes over time to be the runway that we extend these spaces by. JV, pun intended.
Well,
Brad, man, your insights are very valuable because
you are from the other side of the
coin. You are on the
corporate. You play with
those guys that are more
technical side.
background is more related to the indie side for example to sit down with the VC
or your angel investors and the angel investor in gamescom we check games in five minutes even less
you need to implement this vertical this monetization strategy
this is nice boom boom boom and they don't care about the game itself, which is something that from corporate.
Yeah, it makes sense.
And then we go next, you know, okay, next.
I went to Investor Circle Gamescom last year.
It was very difficult to be there.
The blockchain company, company actually I was the
only one people don't even know what is x they when you tell them twitter they say oh twitter
yeah okay they have no idea what we do um and you know this vcs is like five minutes here
10 minutes here five minutes here 10 minutes here here, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom.
That's it.
No deep onto the game or the title.
So this is from the indie point of view.
From the gamer point of view related to Age of Empires specifically, it's like, okay, yeah, they bring the guys who know how to do the dynamic, how to interact with the screen, with a mobile screen, mass adoption, et cetera.
At the end of the day, they just get the Age of Empire title
and they copy to another game that has the same dynamic.
You put the flag on new territory and you have
this hero that have this amount of truth.
And, you know, this is the same thing.
While it can, from a point of view as a gamer, do what the games do the best and you will
get the audience that you want in the in the in of course following the proper way
and you know it's like to don't sell the soul of a title uh i'm a og a monkey island
uh i'm talking about a very old very very old title that was related to cartoon monkey island
old title that was related to cartoon monkey island sold monkey island sold to another
gaming studio they want to make it 3d monkey island went down why because you know if you
have a game that is a cartoon game and people love it now you convert to 3d it's like no i don't want
that they want the cartoon this is the soul of the game.
The same happened with Age of Empires,
and the same happened with many, many games that, you know,
that, well, that sadly are on the graveyard
because they lost their identity.
Yeah, the spreadsheet on this vertical all these things so that is the reason I always go
against these corporate takeover the soul spirit and the identity of what is game this is not the
product that these are health care products it's not. You know, it's a product that is related to passion, to spare time, to love.
So, this is my take against these guys.
I've been there many years and it's always the same.
They look over beautiful games, amazing games.
amazing games and at the end of the day they send the games to the trash and all the same
And at the end of the day, they send the games to the trash.
titles are being recycled fifa one million assassin's creed one thousand god of war 300
this you know it's always the same there is a reason that that as a gamer i feel this season
i am going to india as much as I can.
But man, I appreciate your takes. I appreciate being here with you.
Your point of view is a point of view that nurtured all of us because you was on that side of the coin.
100%.
You know, when essentially the Genie model was released
And gaming stocks went under
I just understood that there's a misunderstanding
Of what this industry produces
Between the creative and the business side of things
That is true
That is 100% true
Alright, let me throw it over to Pipe G Dao Pipe G Dao, please side of things. That is true. That is 100% true. All right.
Let me throw it over to Pipe G. Dow.
Pipe G. Dow, please.
Thank you for coming back on stage, buddy.
Sure.
So what do you want to throw back over to me, just so I'm clear?
What questions do you want me to answer?
Yeah.
I believe you had your hand up raised at some point.
Yeah, I had, but I mean, you know, the topics are going all over the place, right?
So, you know, there's been a lot of...
I'm not sure where the conversation actually is and what the question...
So, what's it called?
I had my hand up a while ago, but hey, things have gone all over the place.
So, where are we?
Well, we are somewhat concluding. We're somewhat concluding this space.
Okay. Okay.
It happens when we get passionate about the topic and I allow it to run.
Yeah, sure.
Yeah.
Okay. Okay. I mean, just to follow on from what some other people have been saying
and just to, you know, I mean, yeah, founders with lots of money.
I typically have seen this to be, it's very like mafia in a way, right?
Because VCs just throw a bunch of money at founders
that are like in.
It happens with a lot of accelerators
and a lot of these like blockchains,
you know, like, I mean, okay, I'll name names here.
In my opinion, things like Monad
and all these kind of things,
it's like I'm not suggesting any criminal behavior
or anything improper necessarily.
I'm just saying that it just seems that if you are connected
to a certain VC or certain people,
they'll just throw money at you, right?
Regardless of whether you have product
or whether your product is needed in the market or whatever,
I just feel like a lot of these blockchains
that are being built are just overdeveloped
and are just cash grabs.
I'm not suggesting Monad, like I mentioned,
is necessarily a cash grab or whatever.
But I think founders that have actually built
and shipped something or at least secured some IP,
like a patent, for example,
before they get to market
or have actually shipped a product to market
and are hustling,
I think they are much better indicated because it is a lot cheaper these days to
launch a SaaS product or software product of whatever description to market.
And so I just think the industry is very lopsided towards the insiders that are just able to get VC flips.
Because, you know, the way that it often works is that people will get seed capital,
then it'll be flipped to someone who knows someone who can get a Series A and Series B and Series C and Series D and so on until you get IPO.
And then all the rats have left the ship and it's then floated on the stock market,
and oh, shit, there's no value, right?
So I think you guys are right in that this, you know,
not just Web3, but the startup space is very biased
towards those that are already in the in-click and the in-crowd.
And you can email as many VCs as you want.
You barely get a response and so on, you know,
unless you are perceived as being in the club.
And I think it does the space a disservice, you know,
if you're not pre-connected, you know,
how are any startups that are not in the in crowd supposed to make it?
And then when you suddenly do something where you are successful,
they all of a sudden want to come and throw money at you.
It's like, where the fuck were you when we were struggling,
if you know what I mean?
So I think there is a lot of that.
And just because something is funded doesn't necessarily mean it's going to be a success or more likely to be a success.
It's more likely to just be a cash grab, a flip, a pump and dump, you know, something for tax, a tax write-off, you know, those kind of things, whereas something which is bootstrapped and so on,
which has dedicated founders that actually want to build something
which solves a problem, you know,
those kind of things are better investments.
But, yeah, we need to flip the script somehow
and, you know, change the market and change the to to shoot founders like us that are actually
building stuff we do and the first step is having such discussions understanding the realities of
the market so that as founders we are are better equipped. If we're releasing anything
on mobile, this is not just limited to mobile apps. If we're releasing in the app store,
we know of the reality and we need to have these real expectations. And VCs should also join these
discussions because it seems they don't understand what the hell is going
on in this ecosystem right let me throw it over to axelito axelito you'll be the one to close us
out thanks for joining us once again my friend it seems like you've been busy but i'm sure you
have some final closing thoughts here yeah yeah well once, thank you for having me here. Thank you for the DM and the invite.
It's always nice to, you know, hover around your spaces because we get to understand
stuff from different perspectives, right? I guess that's doing the right job and actually getting
speakers that can provide quality input. And I think that's the most important part of spaces
nowadays, you know, not just rambling around things that are senseless, but actually build a rapport from it and, you know, take agency on what we are all saying and learn from each other.
So as final thoughts for me and what I live with on this conversation, I got this idea as well.
It was mentioned that how the industry changed and how IPs change.
You can take Plants vs. Zombies as an example, right? It was one of the best titles many years ago, and then the IP
changed to something that is unrecognizable. And also, you can see as well the evolution of mobile
gaming on developers like Gameloft, which were the ones that were doing Asphalt and many other titles just faded.
And I think we leave this conversation,
or I leave this conversation personally with a lot of data insights,
you know, from the growth of the industry on that 0.2 percentage to the report that was shared by Rod
to the book that was shared by one of the guys here.
It was the Scarcity Brain book.
I'm just sinking in all that information
because I think it's helpful for us to understand
where we're standing and where we're heading towards
when it comes to the gaming industry in general,
regardless if it's on mobile, if it's on console,
or you name it, right?
So at the end of the day, I just, yeah,
want to leave this with gratitude
and see where we can, at the end of this year,
talk about what happened with mobile gaming,
expecting, not expecting, but having the hopes.
I mean, on a personal note,
I have the high hopes of a title
that can bring back attention to mobile gaming,
a good title, not something just, you know,
like CD that doesn't make sense.
I mean, still people play Candy Crush,
and it's okay with it,
but I don't find a big breakthrough innovation
on the mobile gaming sector,
and I think that represents the numbers you said.
I'm going to check this report shared by Rod.
I really want to take a look into it
and see what they're talking about.
And yeah, I got to investigate a little bit with friends
who have been attending the latest gaming conferences
to see how they experience mobile gaming there
because in the latest Gamescoms I have heard of or where I attended,
I don't see much mobile gaming happening,
and I don't see in-developers, you know,
dedicating mobile gaming development on their booths.
So that speaks for itself, right? That being said, yeah, thank you, Consul, for having me here. It's been a pleasure
and looking forward to being in another space down the road with you guys.
I appreciate you, my friend. And what you've said is very true. You know, sometimes I see the
criticism towards Web3 gaming, and I just think, you guys, this is happening in gaming it's not just web 3
maybe web 3 is experiencing it harder due to the complexities of the blockchain so on so forth
but this is the reality for all tech products not just games and as much as non-gaming apps have
grown i'm sure there are so many within that 1.4 million apps that were released that were non-gaming apps that got no attention.
And as marketers, we truly, just like our good friend Mr. Rod, just like Nadim, just like Sir Choice who was unable to join us due to technical issues, we need to have these stats right on our
fingertips. If not, we'll continue making bad, silly decisions and blame the market, blame the
cycle, blame VCs and things of that degree. When in reality, if you're aware that this is what is
happening, you can better position your brand your business so on so
forth well that was a really good one thank you to everyone that joined us shout out to those who
were listening that is if you guys were even listening i know we've gone completely way way
over time we always start energetically but somewhat as the discussion drags on,
our brains get engaged and naturally we lose power and steam, right?
So if you've stuck here since the start, I appreciate you.
I'm going to release an article of our discussion.
Would appreciate you guys to maybe list, read that,
share it.
It will summarize
whatever we've discussed here.
To the panelists,
Kazaa,
top,
top-notch takes.
Really,
your takes have,
they've made me happy.
Right?
When I hear someone speak
and it makes me happy,
I just,
it's my drug
It's what I get high of
Okay so thank you for joining us
You're welcome to join us in the next one
Rod, JV
You guys are OGs
You are part of this team somewhat
I include you guys in the banners
And the spaces even without inviting you guys
At this point
I appreciate the support as always my good friends very very professional friends here
axelito my friend the algorithm is doing his thing i don't see you on the timeline anymore
glad i was able to reach out and thank you as well for being here.
And thank you for reminding us of Nokia Snake.
That was quite nostalgic.
We'll be back Tuesday, 3 p.m. UTC.
I'll announce the next spaces.
Definitely relevant.
Definitely a discussion to open our minds.
JV at some point said that this is a space to learn.
I also always feel the same.
It's going to be another hard topic.
So stay tuned.
Much love.
Take care.
Enjoy the rest of your week, my friends.
Have a great one everyone cheers bye bye
bye guys thanks a lot for the time Thank you.
