Minecraft makes it to the movies and Microsoft strikes at Apple | 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.

Microsoft claims App Store’s 30% fee “makes it impossible” to monetise its cloud gaming service

Another week, another headline about the App Store’s 30% commission.

This time it’s not the European Union’s Digital Markets Act. This week, the latest story centres on the UK’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) and its investigation into market dominance in mobile browsers and cloud gaming service distribution.

The regulator is seeking feedback from various parties, including Microsoft and Apple. For its part, Microsoft is sounding the alarm that it’s Xbox cloud gaming services is “impossible” to monetise with such a high revenue share (it also has other issues surrounding alleged inferior functionality compared to native iOS apps).

Microsoft even went as far as to say the 30% fee imposed by Apple on IAPs “is the result of a lack of competition in the distribution of native iOS apps”.

Apple, of course, is having none of it. It simply said there’s no basis for treating cloud gaming apps different from other apps – it actually means from other games and non-Reader apps – and that the issues raised are “notably” from “very large developers, some of which are known for their commercial disputes with Apple more generally”.

We’ve heard a lot of this before, of course. But this week’s story reminded me of how Facebook tried to get Instant Games up and running on Android. Initially, it aimed to take a 30% share of revenue from in-app purchases. Nothing strange there.

But because Google Play would take a 30% cut of sales that took place on Android, and Facebook still wanted its cut (like it would naturally take from web sales), it left developers effectively getting a 49% share of IAP revenue.

Facebook soon had to drop its 30% fee on Google Play completely. Facebook was cast as a bit of the villain, but looking back, Google didn’t come out of the situation smelling of roses either.

It’s fascinating to see how these platforms and revenue share requirements – which we can argue all day, as lawyers are now, about whether it’s right – impact the kinds of experiences you’re able to get on your mobile device. And more fascinating still, how that can affect the viability of a service outside of it.

Minecraft Movie starring Jack Black and Jason Momoa gets its first trailer

Not the biggest news of the week, but as a massive game and movie fan, I always love it when two of my favourite mediums cross over. 

Next up in the long string of games to become a movie is Minecraft! I can’t personally say I’ve played much of it besides when my Nephew was hooked on it, but it’s a game you have to admire, from its beginnings as a one-person development to being the best-selling video game of all time.

Frankly, I’m surprised it’s taken this long to receive a movie adaptation, but maybe it should have taken a while longer after watching the new trailer. I watched this thing multiple times and still don’t fully understand how I feel about it. Ultimately, I don’t think it works, and I can’t help but think they should have made an animated movie. 

Although a younger audience may engage with the movie, and if it were animated, you wouldn’t have Jason Momoa running around in a bright pink leather jacket and Jack Black popping up, as you know, just Jack Black. But to me, the trailer gives off this really strange look, and from the general reception I’ve seen online, many Minecraft fans feel the same way. 

Video games have a bad history with poor movie and series adaptations, but in recent years, we’ve seen some incredible ones breaking that mould, such as The Last of Us and Fallout.

Despite my personal reservations about the trailer, I have no doubt that the movie will still be a hit at the box office, and again, it just shows moviemakers can’t help but continue to tap into the potential of bringing games to the big screen, for better or worse.