Sometimes the stories I spend the most time putting together – or are most pleased with – get lost or suppressed by The Algorithms.
I don’t fully understand or care why this happens – this site has a clearly defined and loyal audience so we don’t do any SEO shenanigans or algorithm juicing anyway.
But! It’s a quiet week and a couple of stories we had planned aren’t quite ready yet, so here’s a quick look back at some of those pieces that got a bit lost in the noise. I think they deserve a second chance, so enjoy.
That time Apple bought a mobile game studio to work on what became Vision Pro
The size and power of Apple means that by default whatever it does in games is fascinating, even if it rarely seems to care about the health or future of the mobile game business.
So when I learned that the founders of ‘playable video’ game developer Playdeo had suddenly disappeared and moved to Cupertino, I did a little bit more digging. Several sources told me that yes, Apple had actually ‘acquihired’ the London studio’s cofounders and set them working on what was then a top secret ‘mixed reality’ headset.
When I published this story, investor and analyst Matthew Ball confirmed the studio’s exit to Apple on Twitter and LinkedIn before – presumably – the shadowy figures that run Apple told him to delete the posts. Read the full story here.
The rise and fall of Kim Kardashian: Hollywood
Okay so this one actually got a decent number of readers, but not as many as I’d thought, considering the millions that played this game during its heyday.
It also contains what I think may be exclusive behind-the-scenes photos of Kim and Kanye, and even a video of Kim herself wishing then-Glu boss Niccolo de Masi a happy birthday. Read the full story here.
From Taylor Swift to Britney Spears and beyond, why Glu’s other celebrity games failed
This is effectively part two of the above Kim K story, and also contains more fun celebrity anecdotes and exclusive behind-the-scenes photos of Taylor Swift, Britney Spears, Katy Perry, Nicki Minaj, Sly Stallone and Gordon Ramsay at the height of the ‘celebrity game’ craze.
There’s also a fun tease of what a Glu 2.0 might potentially look like, which later turned out to effectively be Ares Interactive. Read the full story here.
The Secret Developer: a King veteran on ‘pampered’ staff, bad management, AI and Microsoft ownership
This was the third exclusive King story we ran last summer after news broke of 200 layoffs at the Candy Crush maker.
And yeah, it seems lots of readers did not want a third dose of controversy from King, even if this anonymous ‘Secret Developer’ blog was penned by a very senior former King manager who had plenty to say about the company’s management, culture and use of AI. Read the full story here.
Ubisoft’s weird, aborted Far Cry mobile game
Ubisoft made very little noise about Wild Arena Survivors when it launched in August 2022, and that struck me as more than a little bit odd, given its impressive production values and 40-player battle royale gameplay.
After a little digging, it turns out that – according to our sources – it was intended to be a Far Cry mobile game.
We’re told it was beta tested under a different name, Wild Arena Survivors, which stuck once Ubisoft realised the project wasn’t going to make its money back and never emerge as a ‘real’ Far Cry game.
It was eventually pulled from the app stores in April 2023. Read the full story here.
What happens to a game about pandemics when there’s an actual pandemic
Plague Inc has been bouncing around the top of the paid app store charts for well over a decade.
When COVID hit, its status as a grim plaything and educational tool was brought into sharper focus, and even seemed to alert the Chinese government, which appears to have leaned on Apple to remove it from the App Store in China. Read the full story here.
Devolver’s attempt to satirise mobile free to play games with…its own mobile free to play game
In January 2023, Devolver released a Disney Tsum Tsum-like physics puzzler starring characters from across its portfolio. It was dreamed up by the excellent indie game-maker Folmer Kelly, and is a fun satire of mobile monetisation mechanics.
It’s still live on the app stores, but didn’t get much traction, sadly; it seems that Devolver’s free to play mobile experiment started and ended with this game. Read the full story here.
Bacon: The Game’s creator on survival, ignoring metrics, viral marketing and his new game
Mobile indie auteur Philipp Stollenmayer talks through the run-up to and release of his second bacon-themed game in this quickfire interview. I still think this guy is fascinating, even if no-one else does. Read the full story here.
How HyperBeard escaped closure – twice! – before finding its ‘cute-casual’ niche
HyperBeard has quietly become a really prolific maker of what it calls ‘cute-casual’ mobile games.
The studios’ ups and downs before it landed on that successful formula involves an erroneous multi-million dollar FTC fine, near-bankruptcy (twice) and finding a solution to rising costs by outsourcing to some excellent Mexican developers. Read the full story here.
