FT: “Puzzle app Royal Match, developed by a small team in Istanbul, has overtaken Microsoft-owned Candy Crush Saga as the most lucrative mobile game in the world, outshining other smartphone titles during a lacklustre 12 months for the industry. Royal Match became the biggest mobile game by monthly revenue globally in July and has held the top spot since then, according to Data.ai, which tracks consumer spending on Apple and Android app stores. Launched in 2021, it is the debut title from Dream Games, a Turkish start-up valued at $2.75bn early [2022]. Consumer spending on Royal Match more than doubled in the year to October, increasing the game’s annual gross revenue run rate (before paying out app store fees) to $2bn, said Soner Aydemir, Dream Games co-founder and chief executive.”
Tim Hartford: “The economist Alex Tabarrok notes that “a price is a signal wrapped up in an incentive”. What he means is that an increase in the price of a product informs everyone that the product is in short supply, and also rewards consumers who buy less and producers who make more. A well-functioning price system — that is, one in which prices can rise (and fall) — is absolutely fundamental to encouraging an efficient use of resources in a complex economy. These relative price changes are useful, even if a generalised rise in prices is unwelcome. The challenge is to allow relative prices to change without allowing average prices to rise. That contradiction is why most efforts to control inflation start by trying to influence the price of money itself.”
NYTimes: “More than two billion people in roughly 50 countries, including India, Indonesia, Mexico, South Africa, the United States and the 27 nations of the European Parliament, will head to the polls. Altogether, participants in 2024’s elections olympiad account for 60 percent of the world’s economic output. In robust democracies, elections are taking place as mistrust in government is rising, electorates are bitterly divided and there is a profound and abiding anxiety over economic prospects…The winners will determine crucial policy decisions affecting factory subsidies, tax breaks, technology transfers, the development of artificial intelligence, regulatory controls, trade barriers, investments, debt relief and the energy transition.”
Bloomberg: “Four decades ago, computer engineers were theorizing that the mind-bending mechanics of quantum physics could be harnessed to make a new kind of computer that’s exponentially more powerful than conventional machines. A series of breakthroughs has now brought “quantum utility” within reach, with engineers showing off computers capable of calculations of a complexity that would confound the most powerful supercomputers. A race is on to develop bigger machines that can accurately model the behavior of complex real-world phenomena and deliver a leap forward in fields as varied as drug development, financial modeling and artificial intelligence.”
