Adjust’s PR vacuum, Balatro’s premium success, and a $100m anime hit | 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.

Adjust names new CEO amid layoffs

I had a few rants when we recorded the Week in Mobile Games yesterday, and one of them focused on the situation at AppLovin-owned Adjust.

Last week, we reported that there had been a number of layoffs as the mobile app measurement and marketing firm Adjust. We reached out to Adjust, but received no response on the matter, which has led to lots of speculation on the scale of the job cuts.

The story developed further on Saturday, when Adjust published a new blog post announcing its new CEO, former chairman Andrey Kazakov. I don’t remember any point in my career when a new CEO was announced on a Saturday.

No mention was made of the previous CEO Simon Dussart, but presumably he’s out. Meanwhile, there was no reference to the layoffs, just a nod to “important changes” at the company.

Having worked in a little in PR and as a journalist for over a decade now, my advice in situations like this, for what it’s worth, would be to acknowledge the layoffs. We reached out three times but had no reply. Make sure the CEO’s post, whoever wrote it, acknowledges the outgoing staff’s hard work. I often say, the cover-up is always worse.

Not talking about bad news also provides an opportunity for the story to get out of control. We’ve already seen speculative numbers thrown out to fill the vacuum.

On top of all this, the blog post took a dig at rivals, with Kazakov stating: “I strongly feel the MMP industry has stagnated in recent years.”

Well, rival MMP Singular has clearly taken exception to that, while taking the opportunity to fill the PR vacuum with its own claims to position itself as a market leader and push its job vacancies.

Its CEO Gadi Eliashiv has a blog post specifically covering Adjust’s layoffs, which in itself is kind of astounding. He calls out a speculative ‘304’ staff affected and that entire teams were eliminated. It’s worth noting that one of the sources for this is layoffs tracker layoffs.fyi, which then links PocketGamer.biz as the source. The kicker? We never reported a figure.

It’s an astonishing tirade that, in part, comes from Adjust’s poor handling of the situation. I’m curious if this is the last we hear of the matter.

Check out the podcast tomorrow for more thoughts on the story. I also had a few opinions on Xbox’s mobile ambitions, which I wrote up here.

Balatro nears $4.4m on mobile amid a sudden spending surge

After its massive debut on PC, Balatro came to mobile two months ago and has since generated around $4.4 million in gross revenue. The game adopts a premium model, so player spending is based on one-time purchases and there are no IAPs which developer LocalThunk is keen to stick to. 
 
I imagine that across both PC and mobile, Balatro sales spiked once it received nominations in Geoff Keighley’s The Game Awards, which include both Best Mobile Game and a nomination for Game of the Year. 

A story like this is impressive and great to see happening in our sector. Over the past few years, we have seen a lot of challenges in the games industry, but a success story like Balatro goes to show that sometimes a spark can ignite, and before you know it, a fun idea from an independent developer becomes a multi-million dollar game, nominated alongside some of the year’s biggest and best titles at a top awards show. 

In this case, being easy to play but hard to master is still a winning formula. The move to mobile works well, too, because it’s one of those titles that you can jump right into if you have a spare five minutes.

I’m intrigued to see how the game progresses in the coming months. With a premium model, you expect highs, but declines are always expected without additional content or updates. Either way, it’s one hell of a success for a solo developer. 

“Unconventional characters” and “respect for creative freedom” drive Reverse: 1999’s $100m success

At a glance, the gacha genre may appear increasingly dominated by big-name publishers and well-established IPs, but that doesn’t mean there’s no room for newcomers to make a splash.

With “respect for creative freedom”, Chinese developer Bluepoch has found a niche for debut title Reverse: 1999 in the gacha genre and already made $100 million in just over a year by AppMagic estimates.

I sat down with the development team to talk all about how it’s growing an original IP, standing out in the gacha genre, designing deep and intricate characters that players want to obtain, and more. There’s even a hint or two at updates still to come.