AppLovin and Unity spar, Talofa’s fitness-first focus, and is the Online Safety Act fit for purpose? | Week in Views

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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.

AppLovin brushes off Unity Vector challenge to ads business

I love it when big companies get openly competitive with each other. This week, Unity CEO Matt Bromberg did a big PR push for its AI ads platform Vector, which saw revenue rise by 15% quarter-on-quarter in Q2. Though worth noting that overall Growth division sales were down year-over-year.

Bromberg said its latest quarter marks an inflection point for the firm that is still trying to recover its reputation from the disastrous runtime fee, has laid off thousands of staff, and is searching for profitability.

Bromberg thinks AI is the answer. He believes Vector can make up the significant ground lost to AppLovin in the ads business. He also claims that tapping into data from games that use its tools could be its biggest competitive advantage in that battle. Unity has previously said 70% of the top 1,000 mobile game studios use its tech.

In its own earnings call, AppLovin CEO Adam Foroughi was asked directly about Vector and Unity’s potential use of engine-related data. He brushed off the challenge.

“We don’t know what game engine data even means,” he said, adding: “Our market penetration inside gaming is really large at this point. It’s materially higher than 70%. We’ve got very good visibility into what matters in the gaming category given how large we’ve become.”

The stakes are a lot higher for Unity than AppLovin. For the former, competing is existential to its entire business. For AppLovin, a new competitor in the space is something to keep an eye on, but I doubt the team is losing sleep right now.

Unity is coming back in the race very late. I’m curious to see how using data from its engine and other companies’ games will actually work, and what is allowed.

It’s worth noting Unity released a data framework in Unity 6.2, as part of plans to scale AI investments across the business. The idea of the data framework is to give developers control over how their data is collected and used across Unity’s ecosystem.

It feels like Unity is saying ‘we want to use your data for our tools and UA’. If that’s the case, it might be a tricky proposition for a company looking for reputational wins. So it’ll be interesting to see what it gives developers the options to do, and what it ultimately just takes.

Like airport security for UGC”: The Mobile Mavens react to the UK’s Online Safety Act

In the past week or so I have seen a lot about the Online Safety Act, which marks a shift in how digital platforms are expected to manage user safety in the UK. While it mostly targets social media and messaging services, the games industry is also under the microscope.

For those who aren’t aware, the legislation requires platforms hosting user interactions to take additional steps to mitigate the risk of harm to children. So, for games that have online features such as chat systems and UGC, that could mean stricter content moderation or even age verification methods. 

However, straight from the get-go, is the Online Safety Act even working as intended?

There are clearly workarounds for some of the age verification systems I have seen. As for uploading IDs and card details, how can you be sure that someone isn’t just using a parent’s or sibling’s ID or credit card? And while I understand the aim is to protect people, the answer being to cough up a scan of your face or sensitive details is understandably an uneasy thing for many to do.

Regarding the impact on games, simply put, it could deter some developers from making games with online features altogether. Especially smaller teams that don’t want to run the risk of not meeting the compliance requirements and then facing fines.

While I appreciate the need for measures to protect children in online spaces and agree with the act’s intentions, I just question whether the current implementation is the most effective approach. 

How Talofa Games’ Monster Walk aims to stand out from Pokémon Go

After raising $6.3m in seed funding last year, Talofa Games is bringing its second fitness-focused mobile game to the US this September.

The title, Monster Walk, is part RPG, part walking game, with bullet hell gameplay and a focus on physical and mental health.

I spoke with the company’s founder and CEO Jenny Xu about how Monster Walk is taking inspiration from Pokémon Go while walking its own path with a Gen Z lens.

Perhaps its biggest standout is its pedometer approach, rewarding points to use in-game for every real-world step rather than tracking a player’s location. This allows games to play when suits them, rather than feeling obligated while out at a specific spot like in Pokémon Go.

Xu also discussed the game’s monetisation model – primarily built around customisation and character skins. A limited number of step multipliers can be purchased, and some bonus steps can be earned through rewarded ads, but for the most part the game does require players to exercise.

“We don’t want to monetise your movement,” Xu said.