The makers of Clash of Clans, Candy Crush Saga and Subway Surfers have warned that a European proposal that could force mobile games to display pop-ups could make them “unplayable” and hobble a rare tech sector where the continent is leading.
The bosses of Finland’s Supercell, Sweden’s King and Denmark’s Sybo told the FT that an upcoming proposal by the European Commission would cause great harm to the mobile gaming industry, which created more than €5bn of economic value in Europe last year and generated almost €8bn in revenues.
“Basically, these games would become unplayable in Europe . . . Mobile games is one of the very few industries where Europe and the Nordics specifically can claim they are the leader [and] it is a really scary point if you think about European competitiveness at large,” said Ilkka Paananen, chief executive of Supercell, which makes Hay Day and Brawl Stars alongside Clash of Clans.