Hot Five: Royal Kingdom’s soft launch success, Microsoft eyes another acquisition, and Disney considers its next CEO

To help get you primed and ready for another week in mobile gaming, we’ve curated the biggest stories you need to know from the last seven days.

1) Royal Kingdom surpasses $20m in soft launch revenue with November 21st global release date set

Dream Games’ upcoming Royal Kingdom will be released on November 21st, building upon the Royal Match brand with another match-3 entry.

Royal Kingdom has been in soft launch in select territories since April 2023 and has already generated $20.5 million, with levels of spending only accelerating since worldwide pre-registrations opened last month.

2) How Almedia is riding the rewarded play wave

Gamified promotion platform Almedia’s services recently ranked fifth for absolute ad spend growth in Singular’s Q3 2024 quarterly trends report, behind TikTok, Snapchat, Blisspoint and Google.

"Advertisers have realised that rewarded user acquisition works, and they are willing to spend a lot of money when the performance is there," said Almedia founder Moritz Holländer, who was just 17 when he set up the company in 2020.

3) Report: Disney eyes EA's Andrew Wilson as potential CEO

EA CEO Andrew Wilson is reportedly one of three external candidates being considered to succeed Bob Iger as the next Disney boss.

The identities of the other external candidates are currently unknown, but internal candidates being discussed are believed to include Disney co-chairs Dana Walden and Alan Bergman, ESPN chairman Jimmy Pitaro, and Disney Experiences chairman Josh D’Amaro.

4) Monster Hunter Now’s Carnival Global a "roaring success" with 151% revenue surge

Niantic’s Monster Hunter Now has concluded its largest-scale paid event yet with over 38 million monsters slain.

Called Carnival 2024: Global, the event offered exclusive content to ticket holders over two days and saw a 151% revenue spike on the first. Daily earnings spiked by another 20% on day two, hitting $722,000 between Apple’s App Store and Google Play.

5) Microsoft eyes potential mobile studio acquisition

Microsoft is considering another mobile games studio acquisition following the purchase of Candy Crush Saga maker King through Activision Blizzard.

Microsoft Gaming CEO Phil Spencer has said that no mobile studio deals are "imminent" but did note "geographic diversity" would be of interest, particularly in Asia.