Kickstarter’s curious campaigns, Finland’s new immigration rules, and why publishers love solitaire | 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.

Clash of Clans Tabletop Game surpasses $50,000 Kickstarter goal in 30 minutes

It’s been a big week for mobile game-related crowdfunding campaigns (remember Kickstarter?).

I’ve always felt uncomfortable with how some companies approach Kickstarter. At its worst, it imposes financial risk on consumers that aren’t always aware a project can experience significant delays, changes, or even fail. And for the latter, that means throwing their money down the drain.

These aren’t rich VCs and angel investors – it’s normal people excited about a product that have less/no money to just throw around.

That’s a highly negative view – crowdfunding can also be a great way to get projects off the ground that might never come to life otherwise. So when it works, it can be great! But when it doesn’t… not so much.

This week, the Kickstarter campaign to bring the multi-billion dollar hit Clash of Clans to the tabletop world kicked off, smashing its $50k goal in less than 30 minutes. It currently sits at $406k raised, with 28 days left to go.

To be fair, this is creator Maestro Media’s modus operandi – it previously held a campaign for The Binding of Isaac: Four Souls and Sally Face: Strange Nightmares. It has a track record of delivering.

But it’s curious why Supercell, which is investing heavily in extending its IPs to new mediums, couldn’t just foot the bill with Maestro.

Meanwhile, Mind Candy is crowdfunding the return of Moshi Monsters as a mobile game. The IP was once a monster success, with 10s of millions of players, once valuing Mind Candy at $200 million. 

That success collapsed, however. Now the studio is bringing the franchise back and asking for £250k. Unfortunately for Mind Candy, its campaign has been sabotaged due to a “malicious actor” making multiple fake pledges. It looked like the company had surpassed its goal in 24 hours, now it’s back to £84k.

I remember reporting on the early days of Kickstarter while at Develop, when the ill-fated Ouya Android console launched a campaign and raised $8.5 million. The company’s backers included box co-creator Ed Fries, Jambox designer Yves Behar and former IGN VP of business development Julie Uhrman, who was its CEO.

Its endorsement list included Mojang’s Markus Persson, Brian Fargo, Jenova Chen and Jordan Mechner, pledging either their support or interest for the concept. Despite the impressive list, it still went to Kickstarter, later raising $15m from actual investors. It was discontinued in 2015.

Consumers share the risk, but they don’t get the upside – aside from the pre-order of a concept they like the sound of that might release (Fig later tried to change this up a bit).

When cash-rich companies are involved and there are big name supporters, it raises an eyebrow as to why consumers are footing the development bill.

Finnish Aliens Act amendment gives international talent just three to six months to find new employment

Finnish immigration laws have seen some significant changes recently that could be cause for concern. The government has amended its Aliens Act so that if you are an international worker from outside the EU or EEA and you lose your job in Finland, you’ll have just three to six months to find a new one. Otherwise, you’ll have to leave the country.

The exact time that you get depends on your role, higher positions likely mean you get more time, but for many, it’s a short window of three months. 

Obviously, these new laws apply across the board, but this has serious implications for the Finnish games industry, which attracts a lot of international talent.

These changes come with various problems. First, suppose you’re already an intentional worker living and working in Finland. Given the rocky state of the industry over the last few years with layoffs across the games sector, this now adds even more uncertainty because if you were to lose your job, you would need to find a new one pretty quickly.

Then there’s the impact of attracting new talent. I know that if I were considering moving abroad for a job, a law that limits my time to find another job to just three months would certainly factor into my decision.

While I understand these laws have their reasons for being, it simply doesn’t feel like enough time to give many people a fair shot at finding a new job, and it makes taking up a position at a Finnish studio come with more risk.

Why are the world’s top games publishers making solitaire games and has Playtika already won?

World-renowned card game solitaire has found quite the lucrative home on mobile, generating $470.2 million in player spending last year while 348m installs broke all prior records for the genre.

Not only that, AppMagic data suggests that player spending in mobile solitaire games has nearly doubled in five years.

As I took my latest data dive, this time down the solitaire-shaped rabbit hole, I spoke with game design consultant Jakub Remiar about the two types of solitaire game, the innovators and the download drivers, and found out just how impactful ads can be for a genre like this.

Remiar also shared his thoughts on why King’s Candy Crush Solitaire has come up short against Superplay’s Disney Solitaire – suggesting that the latter’s lack of a Hold Slot has actually played to its advantage.

Considering Playtika’s dominance in the solitaire genre, we also discussed where the mobile industry might go next with classic games. Now I’m wondering if something like “Candy Crush Chess” could be on the horizon.