I’m used to playing ‘spot the mobile game’ at big industry events, but at Summer Game Fest this year it was hardly even a game at all.
There were no mobile-exclusive games in Friday’s big showcase, and it was the same across this weekend’s Play Days gathering, a bespoke event for press and influencers.
For those keeping count, multiformat games Wuthering Waves and Fortnite were the only games featured in Friday’s event that were playable on mobile. And later, I spotted four or five mobile ports among the hundreds featured in the other streaming events like Day of the Devs and Wholesome Direct.
In fact, the only encounters I’ve had with made-for-mobile games here in LA were strolling past a Love and Deepspace mural in downtown LA, and squinting at a Monopoly Go TV ad from across a Mexican restaurant. (El Cholo, in case you’re wondering).
Last year, Niantic had a presence at Play Days and we spoke to the minds behind Pokémon Go. In 2024, Netflix had a beefy presence. This year, though, there was practically nothing. And yes, let’s take into account here that Geoff Keighley and his SGF team maybe just don’t want mobile games here at all.
Indeed, we learned back in 2024 that Supercell practically had to beg to get Squad Busters into the show – as well as paying for the privilege, of course.
In a way, it’s a real shame that mobile games are so anonymous at events like these. Our half of the games business reaches a much more diverse and mainstream set of players all over the world, and that’s a great story to tell – especially given how many of the trailers from this past week were so gory and grim.
So should the mobile game business be pushing and promoting itself harder at events like this? Probably not, actually.
Mobile has always been a data-driven business, and the value of turning up in force to an event like Summer Game Fest is not clear at all. Its predecessor E3 also suffered – and eventually died – from this. It is very expensive to be here, and there’s very little measurable ROI.
But as everyone reading this knows, a thing you can measure pretty well is UA. I would guess that 99% of mobile game companies would rather spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on UA than on placing a trailer in a summer showcase that is for the wrong audience and will get lost in the noise anyway.
SGF might look bright and breezy, but the audience for this stuff is hardcore players – the kind that regard most mobile games with suspicion, and often contempt. We’ve already explained plenty about why consumer game websites never write about mobile games, and indeed why mobile games never win at award shows.
The same principles apply here, I think. Take as an example Monopoly Go. It is one of the biggest games on the planet and its moneybags creator Scopely is headquartered down the road in Culver City. It also has a massive Simpsons crossover event to promote right now. And still Scopely is sitting this one out.
Actually, let’s look at it the opposite way: maybe it’s the PC and console business that needs to sit down and think a little harder about how effective its marketing spend is. This week I have heard tales about money spent by Xbox, IO and Amazon that would get your average mobile game executive fired on the spot.
Of course, part of me would love to see mobile represented better at events like Summer Game Fest. It is certainly odd that such a giant, vibrant and important chunk of the games business is so anonymous here.
But the mobile business is nothing if not pragmatic. Your marketing dollars are likely better spent elsewhere, and mostly on UA. And if you want to feel part of something, there’s GDC, MAU, Gamescom, TGS, G-Star and ChinaJoy.
SGF will be just fine, I think.
