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Korean Indie Games: Pioneering Global Success

Korean indie games are making waves in the global gaming industry. In recent years, several Korean indie titles have gained recognition and acclaim across the world. Let’s explore some of the standout ones. The Devil Within: Satgat Developed by Newcore Games, The Devil Within: Satgat blends traditional Korean culture with a post-apocalyptic narrative, creating a unique and immersive gaming experience. Set in a fictional Joseon era, the game tells the story of ‘Kim Rip’, a loyal bodyguard betrayed by his comrades and driven by a desire to restore justice in a world overrun by demons. The game draws heavily on Korean historical themes while incorporating dark fantasy elements. The title Satgat refers to a traditional Korean hat worn to protect against rain, snow, or sunlight, adding a cultural layer to the game’s aesthetic. The Devil Within: Satgat has received numerous […]

Myoungwon Kim September 12

Journal

New Korean Game Releases in Late 2024

As we enter the second half of 2024, the Korean gaming industry is gearing up for significant changes, with several highly anticipated titles set for release. This period is crucial for developers as they aim to build on the successes of the first half of the year while strengthening their business strategies through new game launches. These new titles will span multiple platforms, including mobile, PC, and consoles, as companies push to expand their global presence. Many of these games leverage popular IPs or bring fresh innovations to the market, offering players diverse experiences. Nexon: Mobile Adaptations of Popular IPs and New Genre Challenges Nexon is preparing to launch several highly anticipated games in late 2024. Among these is Mabinogi Mobile, a mobile adaptation of the beloved Mabinogi IP, which originally debuted as a PC MMORPG in 2004. Known for […]

Myoungwon Kim September 5

Journal

The Buzz Around Pearl Abyss’s Upcoming Game ‘DokeV’

Pearl Abyss's DokeV, an open-world action-adventure game, gained widespread attention after its 2021 Gamescom trailer. As Crimson Desert nears completion, Pearl Abyss plans to focus on DokeV development, with more updates expected soon.

Myoungwon Kim August 14

Journal

The Future of F2P Games and Hybrid Monetization

Systematic and emergent gameplay mechanics are a powerful tool in game design; shaping some of the most memorable and engaging player experiences.From physics-driven mechanics, puzzles, etc. to open-ended economic and systemic simulations, these mechanics allow players to interact dynamically with a game world rather than following pre-scripted paths. However, despite their growing popularity, their full potential for F2P mobile games and premium games incorporating F2P economies is still largely untapped.In this article, we'll explore how systematic and emergent gameplay can be leveraged for monetization, engagement, and live service sustainability — making it a cost-efficient alternative to content-heavy LiveOps while maintaining player retention. We’ll also take a look into how these mechanics align with intrinsic motivations, intrinsic monetization and social group monetization, creating deep and meaningful engagement-monetization loops that extend beyond e.g., traditional extrinsic reward systems.The Efficiency of Systematic and Emergent […]

Antti Kananen February 4

Highlights

Türkiye’s Laton Ventures raises $50M to invest in Game & App Startups

🚀 🟣 Laton Ventures announces:- $50M Fund I raised- 5 investments were completed in TR/EU/US, 2 of them raised Series-A rounds within a year. Grand Games, one of our first investments, raised $30M- Ranked among the global top 10 most active gaming VCs- Backed by 40+ exited gaming/tech founders and industry veterans from 10+ countriesWe are grateful to our great portfolio founders, our investors, and stakeholders 🙏 We look forward to keeping working with the best.Laton Ventures, Melisa Yaguboglu, Volkan Özen Laton Ventures: Görkem Türk (left), Melisa Yaguboglu, Volkan Özen. Laton Ventures, a Gaming & Apps focused VC firm founded by Görkem Türk, has closed its first fund with $50 million. The Istanbul venture capital fund is the largest gaming and apps-focused fund in Türkiye, which has become one of the prominent global hubs for the gaming industry, said Türk […]

Gamigion February 4

Highlights

1287326723 new AI tools every day!

1287326723 new AI tools every day! If you don't use these AI tools, you are already obsolete. 𝗝𝘂𝘀𝘁 𝗾𝘂𝗶𝘁 𝘆𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝗨𝗔 𝗷𝗼𝗯 𝗿𝗶𝗴𝗵𝘁 𝗻𝗼𝘄👇 🔍 𝗦𝗲𝗮𝗿𝗰𝗵 & 𝗥𝗲𝘀𝗲𝗮𝗿𝗰𝗵 • OpenAI o1 — The most advanced reasoning model. • DeepSeek AI - yes. I use it too! • Gemini Live — Engage with AI as it watches your screen. • Perplexity — Combines AI with powerful web search.⚡ 𝗣𝗿𝗼𝗱𝘂𝗰𝘁𝗶𝘃𝗶𝘁𝘆 • Superhuman AI — Turbocharge your email writing. • Wispr Flow — Achieve 99% accuracy in speech-to-text dictation. • Lindy — Simplify your life with seamless task automations. • Delphi — Create a digital version of yourself. • Granola — Your go-to AI meeting notes assistant.🎨 𝗖𝗿𝗲𝗮𝘁𝗶𝘃𝗲 𝗧𝗼𝗼𝗹𝘀 • Midjourney (DALL-E Open Ai, Stable Diffusion AI, Leonardo.Ai) — Generate stunning AI-crafted images. • Krea — Your AI-powered visual design companion. • Freepik […]

Matej Lancaric February 4

Journal

Be Careful with the new adROAS campaigns in Meta

🚨Be Careful with the new adROAS campaigns in Meta🚨 As I recently shared on LinkedIn (I’ll leave the link in the comments), Meta has rolled out a new Value Optimization (VO) campaign specifically for mobile games that monetize mainly through ads rather than in-app purchases. For now, this is only available on Android..I started testing this with one of my clients, and the initial results were impressive. We were reaching profitability in a much shorter period compared to other main channels like AppLovin and Google. Naturally, we began scaling gradually, as you can see in the graph.But then... things took a turn. Once we reached $1k/day in ad spend, we saw a drastic drop in efficiency, which is clearly reflected in the declining ROAS.The main reason seems to be the steady decline in retention rate (see screenshot 2), which is […]

David Vargas February 4

Journal

Review Radar #7

Review Radar #7 📡 is back with 15 games that we already covered on the podcast in last 3 months, as we keep them on our "radar" 😅. Get the latest status updates from big names such as Homa, Habby, Voodoo, Tencent, Crazy Maple Studio, Lion Studios, Game District, Burny Games 😎. Reelshort continues to scale, breaking $31 Mil. for last month January 🤑 Pokémon TCG Pocket released the second set which mean they did $70 Mil. in last 30 days 💹, steady on its way to $1 Bil. after 12 months from launch. Homa finally started to scale up All in Hole, making $3,5 Mil. just from IAPs 😅 last 30 Days. Lastly both Impulse and Colorwood Sort are continuing to take on scale in the winner bracket 😁. On the looser bracket, Valve's Deadlock has run out of […]

Jakub Remiar February 4

Journal

Gaming AdTech: Bigabid raises $25 million Series A

The round, led by MobilityWare, will fuel expansion and enhance ad-based gaming models. Bigabid, a data-driven ad-tech company specializing in machine learning (ML) based solutions, has raised $25 million in a Series A round and signed a cooperation agreement with the gaming company MobilityWare to expand its media activity in the gaming sector. The company’s $3 million Seed round took place in 2016. The company’s CEO, Amit Flohr, told Calcalist that Bigabid faced challenging years in its early stages, but now that it is profitable, it has decided to raise new capital. “MobilityWare and several leading angel investors participated in the round. We’ve had many offers to raise funds, but I didn’t want to dilute the shareholders. I was looking for an investment that adds strategic value, which makes the collaboration with MobilityWare especially important. The funds will also be […]

Gamigion February 4

Highlights

Mobile Gaming Today: 45

Hola Fam ☃️ I guess many of you are in Gamesforum Barcelona right now. Perfect time for it. 🕺🏻 ENJOY! Soooo - Lezgo 👇🏻 Mobile Marketing » Surprise, You’re Hooked: The Fun World Of Gacha Games 📩 Mobile Ad Monetization Newsletter #8 🎮 Color Block Jam by Rollic scaled to $300K A Day 📢 How Top 100 Games implement Interstitial Ads & IAP 💖 Love this rolling offer design in Coin Master! 🛠️ 25 Live-Ops Features Starter Pack 🔥 Not just great gameplay, master Live Ops. 🔍 Google Ads will cannibalize your organic traffic 👋 “Welcome Back!” screen from Travel Town by Moon Active Industry Highlights » Casual Games Report 2024 by AppMagic 🎰 Playtika Owns 4 of the Top 10 Casual Casino Games 📈 Evolution of F2P Monetization in Premium Games 🎯 9 truths about game product management. ⚖️ […]

Gamigion February 4

Journal

Market size isn’t venture scale.

When VCs pass on investing, the most common reason cited is "market size isn't venture scale." But there's a deeper layer worth examining. While market size is indeed critical - you need a massive market to generate venture-scale returns - what often goes unspoken is the founder's capacity to capture that market opportunity.Think of it this way: you might be operating in a $50B market, but if your execution strategy, go-to-market approach, or leadership capabilities can only capture a tiny slice of it, the massive market becomes irrelevant. The best founders demonstrate not just market understanding, but also the strategic thinking, adaptability, and execution horsepower to dominate their space.This is why VCs obsess over founder-market fit. It's not enough to point at a huge market; we need to see the founder's ability to build and scale an organization that can […]

Joakim Achren February 4

Journal

Hypercasual publishers always adapted to stay ahead

Hypercasual publishers always adapted to stay ahead, evolving so much that they are now called hybridcasual publishers. With each shift, they innovate, now exploring the puzzle genre through hybridcasual puzzles. Hybridcasual puzzles have been around for a while, and it’s clear they’re not going away anytime soon. By combining hypercasual marketability with casual monetization, they have created a compelling formula that continues to attract new ideas and iterations. It’s no surprise that countless teams are pushing the boundaries of the hybridcasual puzzle space with fresh mechanics and creative twists.These games have already proven their ability to capture and retain a significant share of the market, but there is still plenty of room for growth. If you want to learn more about the next step in their journey, you can find the link to the article in the comments.#gamedevelopment #puzzlegames #hybridcasual

Ahmetcan Demirel February 4

Journal

Blue Ocean Subgenres in Mobile Gaming in 2025

Blue Ocean Subgenres in Mobile Gaming in 2025 Here's a structured look at market size, growth, success rate, and oligopoly index:--- 𝗕𝘆 𝗿𝗲𝘃𝗲𝗻𝘂𝗲: ---𝟭. 𝟰𝗫 𝗦𝘁𝗿𝗮𝘁𝗲𝗴𝘆 • Revenue: $7B in 2024 • YoY growth: 14% • Success rate: 14.8% • Top games of the genre: https://lnkd.in/eub3cEKu 𝟮. 𝗜𝗱𝗹𝗲 𝗥𝗣𝗚 • Revenue: $2B in 2024 • YoY growth: 31% • Success rate: 5.8% • Top games of the genre: https://lnkd.in/eSU2EBSG 𝟯. 𝗥𝗼𝗴𝘂𝗲𝗹𝗶𝗸𝗲 • Revenue: $436M in 2024 • YoY growth: 44% • Success rate: 4.3% • Top games of the genre: https://lnkd.in/eFGy73ux 𝟰. 𝗠𝗲𝗿𝗴𝗲 𝗚𝗮𝗺𝗲𝘀 • Revenue: $1.2B in 2024 • YoY growth: 94% (!) • Success rate: 1.4% • Top games of the genre: https://lnkd.in/eJGWpT8i --- 𝗕𝘆 𝗱𝗼𝘄𝗻𝗹𝗼𝗮𝗱𝘀: --- 𝟭. 𝗝𝗼𝗯 𝗦𝗶𝗺𝘂𝗹𝗮𝘁𝗼𝗿 • Downloads: 520M in 2024 • YoY growth: 42% • Success rate: 11.7% • Top games of the […]

Anton Slashcev February 4

Highlights

Mobile Ad Monetization #9

The “British Invasion” was a cultural phenomenon in the mid-1960s, when rock and pop bands from the UK became popular in the USA. Today, there’s a similar global trend in mobile gaming: Vietnamese-made ad-driven mobile games are taking the global download charts by storm. In December, the 10 largest publishers from Vietnam were downloaded 143 million times (that’s a lot). Looking at the top 25 mobile game studios by downloads, 4 out of them are Vietnamese. iKame, a Vietnamese studio based in Hanoi, is about to overtake Outfit7 as the 7th largest studio in absolute download terms. Undoubtedly, there’s a “Vietnamese Invasion” in mobile gaming. So, let’s look at the main Vietnamese studios that are leading the charge to take over the download charts and estimate their ad revenues. * Top 25 publishers by global downloads December 2024. Vietnamese developers […]

Felix Braberg February 4

Journal

Casual Games Report 2024

Casual Games Report 2024: Following 5 Routes to SuccessAppMagic's much-anticipated 2024 report is now live.This year, we’re diving into key trends across 5 genres in Tier-1 West: Match-3 with Complex Meta, Merge-2 with Complex Meta, Match 3D, Sort Puzzle, and Casual Casino 🎮 Inside, we’re answering big questions like:— What are today’s hottest genres, and how can you spot the next big one?— Why does market structure matter more than genre growth?— How are UA challenges reshaping monetization strategies?But most importantly, the report highlights that even during the most challenging times, there are opportunities to thrive across genres of all sizes, complexity, and competitiveness.Enjoy the read!

Gamigion February 4

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