GTA just saved Netflix Games + latest mobile games and sales

Mornin'! Here’s a quick quiz to wake you up: which mobile game received the most downloads in 2023? The answers is at the end of this email 😉 

In today’s newsletter: Netflix Games are booming (thanks, GTA), Bethesda announces The Elder Scrolls: Castles, Apple creates new hurdles for devs sending users to external webshops, and don’t forget: you can get FREE games by referring your friends! More at the end of this newsletter.

🎮 Top Story: How GTA is Saving Netflix Games!

Netflix has released some great games over the past few years (Death’s Door, anyone?), but their total download numbers never impressed.

But that changed in Dec. 2023. I mean, just look at the graph above. That spike is almost entirely caused by the 3 GTA games Netflix released that month. In fact, San Andreas alone drove more than 11m downloads, according to Appmagic.

And in a recent letter to shareholders, Netflix even said that engagement for their games tripled last year.

So love them or hate them - subscription services for mobile games seem to be here to stay. But how do you feel about them? Hit “Reply” to this email to let me know.

📢 Mobile Gaming News

The latest mobile gaming news from around the block web.

• Bethesda announces The Elder Scrolls: Castles after 4 months in early access

• Apple adds new hurdles for devs looking to push users to external webshops with ‘scare screens’ and a 27% cut of all iAPs 

• Death Stranding Director’s Cut gets a 50% pre-order discount and launches a day earlier - on Jan. 30th

• The first chapter of Erabit Studios' new visual novel series Methods: Detective Competition launches on mobile

• Dreamster World, a Pokémon-like RPG enters early access for Android in selected regions

🔥 Fresh Reviews

So, we played some games… and now we just can’t shut up about them on MiniReview.

🚀 New releases

Watch out! These games are so fresh they might still be hot! 🥵 

🏷 Games on sale

What’s better than great premium games? Great premium games that are on sale! So here are some of this week’s most interesting ones.

• $7.99 $1.99 This is the Police

• $3.99 $0.49 LIMBO

By sharing our project with your friends, you help them find the hidden gems of mobile gaming, while supporting awesome game developers… and you get great games in return! It’s a win-win-win 🥳

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🤔 Community Poll

Last Week’s Results
What do you think of the new iOS Sideloading news?

🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 I'm looking forward to new app stores (50%)

🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ I'll keep using the regular app stores (11%)

🟨🟨🟨🟨🟨⬜️ I don't really have an opinion on this.. (39%)