With Epic Empire, Pocket Gems aims to prove casual mobile gamers aren’t dead

With Zynga on the ropes, casual mobile games aren’t king anymore. But Pocket Gems isn’t forsaking the casual mobile gamer, and it’s targeting those players with Epic Empire: A Hero’s Quest.

Despite the hardcore name, Epic Empire: A Hero’s Quest is for light players who snack on games, not hardcore or midcore gamers who feast for hours at a time. Pocket Gems developed this free-to-play game in San Francisco, and it has a lighter, cartoon-style look.

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Dean Takahashi

Dean Takahashi is editorial director for GamesBeat. He has been a tech journalist since 1988, and he has covered games as a beat since 1996. He was lead writer for GamesBeat at VentureBeat from 2008 to April 2025. Prior to that, he wrote for the San Jose Mercury News, the Red Herring, the Wall Street Journal, the Los Angeles Times, and the Dallas Times-Herald. He is the author of two books, "Opening the Xbox" and "The Xbox 360 Uncloaked." He organizes the annual GamesBeat Next, GamesBeat Summit and GamesBeat Insider Series: Hollywood and Games conferences and is a frequent speaker at gaming and tech events. He lives in the San Francisco Bay Area.