Zynga sells Chartboost, Epic partners with Telefónica and Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp Complete hits $3M | 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.

Craig Chapple

Head of Content

Zynga sells Chartboost to LoopMe

The news train has certainly slowed as we approach the Christmas holidays, but the mobile games industry never sleeps.

Zynga sold mobile ads and monetisation platform Chartboost to LoopMe this week for an undisclosed fee. You may remember that in 2021, the publisher acquired the company for $250 million. At the time it was said to host more than 90 billion advertising auctions per month and engaged with over 700 million users.

For LoopMe, it said the deal is part of its M&A strategy as well as plans to expand its AI-powered brand advertising and performance platform. For Zynga, the uncoupling reflects where the company is now at: it’s part of Take-Two following a $12.7 billion acquisition in 2022.

For a few years, there seemed to be a trend of games publishers and ads/data companies merging. IronSource acquired mobile monetisation platform Supersonic and then became a leading hypercasual games publisher, while AppLovin launched Lion Studios, a publishing division also specialising in hypercasual and casual. In fact, it later began investing in and acquiring various developers, including MZ, as it built up its development and publishing arm.

It was controversial at the time. As developers saw it, IronSource and AppLovin had access to rivals’ data, while also competing with them. It was an uneasy relationship for some.

Flash-forward a few years, with hypercasual largely crushed by Apple’s privacy changes, these companies now appear to be splitting apart. Zynga has sold Chartboost. IronSource has since been acquired by game engine maker and ads firm Unity. After a series of cuts, it may decide it no longer needs a publishing arm. 

AppLovin, meanwhile, has mentioned for a while now in its financial reports that it conducted a strategic review of its apps portfolio, which resulted in the divestiture or closure of certain studios and a reduction of headcount. The company has experienced huge growth in its ads business, but has recently made job cuts at Game of War and Mobile Strike developer MZ and Adjust.

I’m curious whether we’re seeing an end to this coupling of ads, data and games publishers, or whether there’s still value in these deals.

Epic Games partners with Telefónica to pre-install Fortnite and the Epic Games Store on Android

Epic Games has entered a partnership with Telefonica, which will see the Epic Games Store and Fortnite come pre-installed on Android devices compatible with Telefonica’s network in various countries. 

Later down the line, players will also be able to download third-party apps in addition to Epic’s own offerings. 

This is an interesting deal that can be seen from different perspectives. In a year where we have had a lot of discussion about monopolies with the likes of Google and Apple, I suppose it was inevitable that we would see other stores taking up arms; Epic, particularly, has been very active in 2024 towards this. Telefonica has a broad reach, and with this deal, Epic is ensuring greater visibility for its own store and bypasses others.

It’s great news for Epic Games; they gain increased accessibility and the potential to reach new audiences, and it gets the Epic Games Store out there in front of players. 

However, on the other side of the matter, most people, are against having more pre-installed apps on their devices; not only does it take up already limited storage on your phone, but there are also going to be people who have zero interest in Epic Games offerings.

Then there is the issue of falling into the same anti-trust issues that Apple and Google have found themselves in, making deals that guarantee your app comes pre-installed could be something that is looked into by regulators more in the coming years.

So, while this deal will no doubt boost the reach of the Epic Games Store, there is also the risk of facing potential regulatory repercussions in the future. 

Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp Complete surpasses $3m with highest daily spend since 2017

While free-to-play has plainly won mobile’s monetisation war, it’s always fascinating when a game hits its mark down the premium route.

Card game Balatro proved there’s still money to be made in premium and now Animal Crossing has followed suit, though in much nicer circumstances.

This August, Nintendo announced the coming closure of Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp, a free-to-play game with microtransactions, a subscription service, and all the strategies we’ve come to know and expect from the industry. But the end of service didn’t necessarily mean the end.

Instead, Nintendo later confirmed a premium version of the game, Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp Complete, would release this December as an offline means of continuing to play.

Now that version is here, and while certain features are stripped back, others have been added and it at least offers long-time fans a way to keep playing – even with the same save file, if they completed the necessary steps in time.

The Complete version will recycle old content rather than introduce any new events, but it’s still a win for game preservation and takes off the pressure of development costs for Nintendo, meanwhile making an extra surge of cash from this once-flagging game. In fact, by making a premium purchase the only way to play, Complete’s daily spending has surpassed the original Pocket Camp’s going right back to 2017.

It looks like the right call after all.