Start your week right, with our quick take on the stories that are impacting the mobile industry right now.
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) Supercell launches eagerly awaited new game mo.co in the US
A few weeks on from Supercell’s new game announcement, mo.co has launched to Android users in the US with a beta test. Players are donning their monster hunting caps as they portal-hop and explore new worlds, joining lead characters Luna, Jax, and Manny.
“Join us, and take a leap into the unknown. Except, this unknown is full of monsters, dungeons… and things that can slay you almost instantly, but in a fun way!” invited Supercell.
2) Harmony Games raises $3M in seed round to build an AI puzzle game
Harmony Games has raised $3 million in a seed funding round led by venture capital firm Griffin Gaming Partners, with other investors including Kristian Segerstrale and Akin Babayigit. The plan is to use the funds to “revolutionise” gaming with Harmony’s debut puzzle AI game Tiles Delight.
There are also ambitions of building The World of Tiles universe, with Tiles Delight characters and narratives crossing over into future Harmony games too.
Assemble with Care from Ustwo Games started out as an Apple Arcade exclusive but is now available as a free-to-start game – a change allowing players to experience the game’s opening chapters at no cost with no ads. The decision also places the game in front of a new, non-Apple subscriber audience for the first time.
“Now anyone with a half-decent mobile device can go and try the game for free, and if they like it, it’s a one-off small payment to own the whole thing,” CCO Danny Gray told us. “We’ve had so many comments from fans about wanting to try the game, but they don’t believe in paying for subscription services and want to own their media.”
4) Netflix plans to win “The Big Prize” of gaming
Netflix co-CEOs Greg Peters and Ted Sarandos and VP of finance Spencer Wang discussed how Q3 went for the streaming giant, plans for the future, and how to win “the big prize” of gaming.
In particular, they focused on strategies leveraging IPs from shows, making games from them to entertain fans while waiting for sequels. They also discussed Netflix’s gaming advantage over many developers, “essentially side-stepping the biggest issue that the mobile games market has today”.
5) Tencent acquires two million shares in Goddess of Victory: Nikke makers Shift Up
Tencent subsidiary Aceville has purchased roughly two million shares in Shift Up, known for hit game Goddess of Victory: Nikke. The purchase cost Aceville ₩79.9 billion ($58.8 million), following Tencent’s 20% acquisition of Shift Up back in 2022.
This makes Tencent the largest investor in Shift Up, coming at a time when many Chinese companies have been making moves outside of China in response to regulations imposed by the government.
