Hot Five: Balatro’s player spending surge, Supercell’s cultural shift, and Reverse: 1999’s “creative freedom”

To help get you primed and ready for another week in mobile gaming, we’ve curated the biggest stories you need to know from the last seven days.

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

LocalThunk’s premium roguelike card game Balatro earned almost $4.4 million in gross mobile revenue over its first two months on the platform.

After making $1 million in its first week according to AppMagic, spending had declined for six weeks in a row before a sudden turnaround, pushing the game past $4 million with a new surge of installs.

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

After hitting $100 million just after its first global anniversary, we spoke with Reverse: 1999’s development team about design philosophy, finding success in the gacha genre and more.

“Part of the philosophy that inspired us to create this world was a desire to look back at the amazing cultures and sub-cultures of the past and give them a fresh and modern look.”

3) Supercell CEO Ilkka Paananen: “I was actually quite worried about the company”

Supercell CEO Ilkka Paananen said he was worried about a lack of growth at the company prior to an all-hands last year, which focused on making cultural changes.

“We founded Supercell to create these games that as many people as possible would play for years and games that would be remembered forever,” he said.

“And if you think about the big picture, the fact was that we hadn’t actually been growing for a number of years, and at the same time the market was growing, therefore we were losing share.”

4) Royal Kingdom records $450k in first four days to beat Royal Match’s debut

Dream Games’ Royal Match spinoff Royal Kingdom generated $450k in gross revenue over its first four days since global launch, rolling out in new territories like the US and Japan.

This surpassed Royal Match’s debut, which accumulated $108,000 in its own first four days.

5) CMA Investigates Apple and Google’s dominance in UK mobile market

The UK’s CMA may use its powers under the new Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act to investigate Apple and Google’s potential anti-competitive behaviour over mobile ecosystem dominance in the UK.

The independent inquiry group accused Google and Apple of having a revenue-sharing agreement wherein Google is the default search engine on iPhones, reducing competition in mobile browsers.