Game On: Apple opens App Store to competitors in EU

Roblox on track to pay out $1B to creators in 2025

“Game On” is The Fly’s weekly recap of the stories powering up or beating down video game stocks.

APP STORE EU: 

Apple (AAPL) announced last week that the European Commission has required the company to make a series of additional changes under the Digital Markets Act. Apple stated: “Today, we’re introducing updated terms that let developers with apps in the European Union storefronts of the App Store communicate and promote offers for purchase of digital goods or services available at a destination of their choice. The destination can be a website, alternative app marketplace, or another app, and can be accessed outside the app or within the app via a web view or native experience. App Store apps that communicate and promote offers for digital goods or services will be subject to new business terms for those transactions – an initial acquisition fee, store services fee, and for apps on the StoreKit External Purchase Link Entitlement Addendum, the Core Technology Commission. The CTC reflects the value Apple provides developers through ongoing investments in the tools, technologies, and services that enable them to build and share innovative apps with users. Music streaming apps on the App Store in the European Economic Area wanting to use the Music Streaming Services Entitlement can use these options.” The Fly notes that a number of top video game makers, including Take-Two (TTWO), Electronic Arts (EA), Nintendo (NTDOY), Capcom (CCOEY), Square Enix (SQNXF), Ubisoft (UBSFY), Warner Bros. Discovery (WBD), Roblox (RBLX), Tencent (TCEHY), and NetEase (NTES) have games on the App Store.

ROBLOX CREATORS: 

Roblox said on Wednesday that it is on track to pay out $1B to creators in 2025, as it revamps its rewards program to encourage creators to bring more players onto the platform. “Creator Rewards was designed to boost earning opportunities for all creators, and better recognize the contributions of emerging creators than the legacy EBP program. On average, we expect that smaller experiences (outside the top 10,000) will see an even larger percentage increase in earnings from Creator Rewards.”

Meanwhile, Wells Fargo raised the firm’s price target on Roblox. Developer and agency checks suggest the platform poised for ad acceleration in late 2025, with the hit game Grow a Garden adding 10 points to FY25 bookings, the analyst tells investors in a research note.

JPMorgan also raised the firm’s price target on Roblox, noting that Grow A Garden has reached about 20M concurrent players each of the past two weekends, calling this a “historic level of player engagement” as well as “a scale that Roblox and the broader gaming industry have never seen before.” The rise of Grow A Garden has coincided with shares trading up over 100% since early April, notes the analyst, who has “meaningfully” increased the firm’s estimates for Roblox.

Additionally, BTIG increased the firm’s price target on Roblox. The firm is citing the beneficial near and medium-term impacts of the company’s Grow a Garden game, stating that it sees upside to FY25/FY26 estimates and potentially faster run-rate Bookings growth thanks to rising creator-side investment in the platform and a growing on-platform earnings opportunity, the analyst tells investors in a research note.

Click here to check out recent Media Buzz Sentiment on Roblox as measured by TipRanks.

PS PLUS: 

Nick Maguire, vice president of global services at Sony’s (SONY) PlayStation, told GameFile that its PlayStation Plus subscription service is growing faster on PlayStation 5 than it did on PlayStation 4. “Engagement in Plus has never been higher than it is right now,” Maguire told Game File. “Our strategy of finding four or five independent day-and-date titles-and using that to complement our strategy of bringing games in when they’re 12, 18 months old or older-that balance for us is working really well across the platform,” Maguire said on adding games to the service on day one of their release, though the company maintains that it still won’t release its first-party titles on PS Plus immediately upon launch, as Microsoft (MSFT) does for Xbox Game Pass.

NINTENDO/AMAZON: 

Nintendo has pulled its products from Amazon’s (AMZN) U.S. site following a disagreement over unauthorized sales, meaning the platform missed out on the recent debut of Nintendo’s Switch 2, the largest game console launch, Matt Day of Bloomberg reported. Nintendo stopped selling on Amazon after third-party merchants were offering games for sale in the US at prices that undercut Nintendo’s rates, a person familiar with the matter said.

EA COLLEGE BASKETBALL: 

In a post on X, formerly Twitter, Electronic Arts teased that it is working on a college basketball game, which would be the first from the company since 2009’s “NCAA Basketball 10.” “Bring the Madness,” the company said. “Let’s run it back.” The Fly notes that the company brought back its college football video game series last year with the release of “EA Sports College Football 25.”

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Originally Posted July 1, 2025 – Game On: Apple opens App Store to competitors in EU