8 Ball Pool. Sony MIcrosoft Riposte mobile M&A in '24?, Owen Mahoney, Top 5 FPS Games, Starfield "Mostly Negative", Top Steam and Nintendo Games of '23, Layoffs in '23 | GO #5

We discuss game industry news for the past week: Joseph Kim and Arthur Trusov.

0:00 Intro - New Years Eve

2:52 Top Steam charts - Baldur’s Gate 3, Lethal Company, Elden Ring and Cyberpunk 2077 big jumps 

6:27 Top mobile charts - Ice Scream 8, 8 Ball Pool, Royal Match vs. Monopoly GO

9:40 8 Ball Pool Keeps Trucking from Gamemakers Newsletter, innovations and early history, opportunity in runner games

14:52 Sony Activision Riposte will involve mobile gaming from Reuters

20:27 from Owen Mahoney interview: “Nobody in the industry is happy” from Game File newsletter - game projects getting too big

32:11 Top 5 FPS mobile games for 2024: Polygon Arena, Rainbow Six Mobile, Warzone Mobile, Valorant Mobile, and Arena Breakout Season 2

40:30 China’s NPPA walks back some Chinese gaming restrictions on WeChat, approves over 100 game licenses in response to backlash

44:45 Bethesda’s Starfield reviews tank to mostly negative

50:55 Valve’s bestselling games of 2023

54:00 Nintendo’s best downloaded games on Switch for 2023: Suika + new Dragon Quest game

59:30 Ghost Runner is free on Epic Games

1:00:00 Layoffs in 2023

1:03:30 Thoughts on 2024

1:07:55 Games we’re playing: Diablo 4, Block Jam 3D, Ghostrunner