Scrapped games, big names, and the humans Vs AI war gets real | Week in Views

• 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

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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.

Dinosaur Polo Club scraps Magic School in order to renew focus on its Mini series

There’s plenty going on in the mobile world right now – not least Xbox’s delayed launch of its mobile web store. As it turns out, randomly announcing your store and release date during a Bloomberg interview with few details and no follow-up was perhaps not the best, coordinated strategy Microsoft has ever mustered.

But I thought this week I’d highlight the smaller story of Dinosaur Polo Club scrapping its unannounced game codenamed Magic School – and telling the world about it.

Games are cancelled all the time, many after years of work, and we never hear about them. Announcing it doesn’t take that pain away, but it was refreshing to see the Mini Motorways and Mini Metro publisher talk so openly about the project, why it was canned, and sharing some assets. 

Interestingly, the project was shut down because the studio realised it would need a “much larger team” to make good on the game’s plans than it could sustainably support. Perhaps if this was a few years earlier, it might have survived? The current economic and industry climate is taking no prisoners.

The journalist in me wonders if there’s an ulterior motive. Maybe it wants to sell the game. Maybe it wants to attract investment by touting its focus on its hugely successful IP, while showing off what it’s capable of.

But it’s also nice to think that here’s a studio letting the hard work of its staff make it out into the wild, so they can share it with the world, boost their career prospects and gain at least some recognition. I hope we see more of this in future.

Daniel Griffiths

Editor – PocketGamer.biz

SAG-AFTRA takes the AI war to the next level with games industry strikes

Up until now any notion of ‘Human Vs AI’ was purely the stuff of science fiction. The Terminator series, Ex Machina, Blade Runner and Colossus: The Forbin Project (ask your Nan). Well now you can add to that list the real-world, real-time, really happening battle of the Screen Actor’s Guild Vs Anybody-using-AI-to-replace-humans-in-videogames.

It’s an admirable war that they’ve begun fighting this week. Aimed at preventing developers and publishers from bypassing their highly talented actors and voice actors in favour of using simple AI-driven text-to-speech, the idea is that devs will be forced to down AI tools and keep a legion of humans in gainful employment instead.

Humans can do it better. Humans can inject new ideas and interpretation (and happy accidents) far better than any AI prompt ever could. Unfortunately humans also require paying and take lunch breaks. 

We’re 100% behind the SAG-AFTRA union’s battle but – much like the endless Terminator series – it’s hard to see where this war ends. While it’s clear that the use of likeness (both physical and vocal) should be compensated (and fought for), a battle against 100%-AI derived characters and performances seems certain to fail. 

Will devs have to pay SAG-AFTRA members a ‘sorry for not using you’ fee for every game completed under AI steam? Will any dev really reverse out of their AI plans at this point when the road to a faster, cheaper and arguably ‘better’ way of creating is right there in front of them?

We’ll be watching this particular battle carefully.

Zynga calls in Kit Harrington for Game of Thrones: Legends launch

I have a lighter story this week after talking about layoffs for the past two weeks. This time around, we’ve got a new game to celebrate: Zynga’s Game of Thrones: Legends!

Zynga pulled out the man that ‘knows nothing’, the one and only Jon Snow, played by Kit Harrington, to appear in a comedic advertisement for the game.

I feel like we’re past the point of surprise when it comes to seeing celebrities taking part in marketing for games or actually being in them. As for Harrington, he can’t get away from his star role in the hit series. He voiced the character in Game of Thrones: A Telltale Game series but has also appeared in other games like Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare as Admiral Salen Kotch. 

We’ve had celebrities from Pedro Pascal to Kathy Bates showing up in adverts, not to mention Supercell’s star-studded Squad Busters trailer. It’s a fun way to promote a game, and it works particularly well here for Game of Thrones Legends. 

The game itself hasn’t been out very long, but I’m intrigued to see how it performs and if the Game of Thrones IP is enough to pull in the numbers to this match-3 offering. 

I, for one, am a massive fan of the books, spin-offs and the main show, minus that last season which we don’t talk about. 

If you’re excited to learn more about Game of Thrones Legends, keep an eye on the site as we’ll have an interview with the team soon! 

Atelier Resleriana adventures past $50 million via the power of fan-favourites

Koei Tecmo’s Atelier Resleriana: Forgotten Alchemy & the Liberator of Polar Night has a long name, doesn’t it?

It’s also made a fairly big name for itself, having surpassed $50 million in gross revenue 10 months on from its launch in Japan, and six months since its global release.

According to data from AppMagic, Japan continues to represent 91% of lifetime player spending in-game, meaning almost $46 million. Meanwhile, Taiwan and the US comprise Atelier Resleriana’s second and third-biggest markets at $1.5 million and $1.2 million respectively.

It’s a overwhelming lead for Japan and the game’s most lucrative day for revenue was even before global release – on October 10th, when the game made $1.1 million gross revenue.

I find covering gacha data really interesting as their daily performances usually tell a story, and that’s true for Atelier Resleriana too. Sudden revenue spikes reliably track with updates and new character releases, with the biggest having come the day of the Chapter 4 update and a banner debuting Klaudia – a fan-favourite character originating from the multiplatform Atelier Ryza games.

The titular Ryza herself appeared in-game on day one, and quickly got an alt on November 30th, 2023. And would you look at that: another revenue spike. It’s clear Koei Tecmo knows who the favourites are.

And with the first anniversary less than two months away in Japan, I wouldn’t be surprised to see plenty more alts of popular characters on the way, and yet another revenue surge at the same time.