How to Spot a successful Hybrid Casual Game?

How to Spot a successful Hybrid Casual Game?Is it the IAP or the downloads? Answer is surprising: You simply can never be sure. (Why? on PS)Yet you can get PRETTY close.and trust me, you want to get close. Here is my theory:Let’s take puzzles: you are looking for stability.Track the RETENTION. Like day 60+.How do you find that?Well check out the downloads and Revenue.Revenue that starts piling up after 60 days.Cause, thats gonna be almost 100% IAP.Therefore, your IAP Rev chart is actually yourLONG TERM retention. like d60-d180For education purposes, I used 2022-2023-2024.Numbers won’t matter cause these are Top ones.When you spot a game scaling for a year,And THEN getting IAP, again for a long period.Congrats. You got yourself a fantastic game. 🦄 To measure this accurately, you gonna need toSet up your custom dashboards on AppMagicCheck it out once […]

Gökhan Üzmez February 20

Journal

Candy Crush Solitaire by King

Candy Crush Solitaire by King had it global launch two weeks ago (Feb.6th). Looking at the numbers the game did just $260K in revenue on 3 Mil. downloads in that time. This doesn't seem like the result King was looking for? why is this happening? 🤔 Compared to competitors, and there are many, there is one major change in core gameplay, where players can store 1 extra card as another "connecting" card, instead of just linear connecting of all the cards on the board. This gives them much more tactical gameplay ⚔️, where they can save this card for later, when they run out of their current chain to immediately start the next one. Because of predominantly older female players, this seems like a step too far into the puzzle, strategic depth direction, which makes the game much more niche, […]

Jakub Remiar February 20

Journal

Big Fish Games Pulls the Plug on New Titles

Big Fish Games is stepping away from new game development, shifting its focus to running and monetizing its existing live titles. The move comes as part of a major restructuring by its parent company, Aristocrat Leisure, which is scaling back investment in the studio’s portfolio. No Sale, No New Games After putting Big Fish and Plarium on the market last year, Aristocrat found a buyer for Plarium—Sweden’s MTG scooped it up for $620M. But Big Fish? No takers. Instead, Aristocrat held onto the studio’s social casino games and is now reshaping its business. The company is also retiring its Pixel United reporting segment, replacing it with Product Madness, which will now house Big Fish’s operations alongside its core slots business. Leadership Shake-Up As part of the shift, Superna Kalle, Aristocrat’s chief strategy officer, will take the reins of Product Madness, […]

Ömer Yakabagi February 20

Journal

Jam City Offloads Ludia in Strategic Sell-Off

Just after 3.5 years. Jam City is cutting loose its Montreal-based studio, Ludia, selling it to a consortium of Canadian institutional investors in a deal currently under review by the Canadian Competition Bureau. The price tag? Still under wraps. A Jurassic Exit The sale includes Ludia’s full game catalog, home to mobile hits like Jurassic World: The Game, Jurassic World Alive, and Ninja Turtles: Legends. Despite the shake-up, Jam City claims the move won’t disrupt its core business, as its biggest successes come from casual narrative and puzzle-style games. A Quick Flip The deal comes less than 3.5 years after Jam City acquired Ludia for $165M, backed by a $350M funding round as part of its ambitious—but ultimately scrapped—plan to go public at a $1.2B valuation. Now, Ludia is being sold off. "If the sale is approved, we’re committed to […]

Ömer Yakabagi February 20

Journal

Nitro Games Hits Record Growth in 2024

Autogun Heroes developer Nitro Games delivered a standout year in 2024, with revenue surging 29% to €11.4M ($12.3M) and EBITDA skyrocketing 241% to €2.4M ($2.6M). Net profit more than doubled, hitting €475K ($495K), up 114% YoY. Q4 Snapshot: Revenue: €3M ($3.2M) (+5.3% YoY) EBITDA: €556K ($578K) (-29.3% YoY) Net profit: €78K ($82K) (-74% YoY) Nitro Games credits its success to an expanding game portfolio—including Autogun Heroes, NERF: Superblast, Warframe Mobile, and an upcoming Netflix project—along with tight cost control. The studio also highlighted growing demand for cross-platform titles, particularly those with mobile support. "All-Time High" CEO Jussi Tähtinen emphasized the studio’s momentum:📈 €9.4M in new B2B orders & partnerships🔥 Profitability sustained despite market challenges🎯 Expanding shooter/action brands across platforms "Looking at our history, this isn’t a one-off—it’s a logical next step. We stayed profitable throughout 2024 while investing in future […]

Ömer Yakabagi February 20

Journal

My Take on Liftoff 2025 App Marketers Survey

🔴 Here's my take on what 700+ mobile marketers revealed in the latest industry survey from Liftoff Mobile: Source 📱 The big trend? Diversification.56% are working with MORE partners in 2024 (up from 42% last year)But here's where it gets interesting...Traditional paid channels aren't enough anymore:62% use organic social/viral (easy to talk, hard to walk the talk)51% leverage influencers 29% focus on community buildingAnd AI?34% see biggest benefits in creative production20% in creative optimization💰 Where's the money going in 2025?Ad networks: 41% (↑ from 36%) - Maybe, all meant Applovin. Self-attributing networks: 36%DSPs: 14%The message is clear: successful mobile marketers are expanding beyond traditional UA channels.

Samet Durgun February 20

Journal

Brutally Honest #152

Hey, FAM! What’s up? 🥃 Drink talk So much stuff happening at 2.5gamers! GO listen to our album or get our Merch. 25gamers.com/shop 🦩Tip of the week Look, testing new channels is always risky, but you can’t grow without taking risks. New channels will underperform at first. That’s normal. Expect 20–30% higher CPIs and lower ROAS initially. Your goal is to learn, not to profit immediately. Kill Fast, Scale Faster: If a channel isn’t showing promising signals (e.g., decent ROAS, install volume, or retention) after 2–3 weeks, cut it. Don’t waste time or money. But if it works, double down aggressively. When to Say It’s Enough and Move On? This is where most people mess up. They either give up too soon or waste money chasing a dead end. Here’s my rule of thumb: Set Clear KPIs: Define what success […]

Matej Lancaric February 20

Journal

Meeple Secures £500K to Digitize Tabletop Games

Newly formed UK-based digital board game developer and publisher Meeple Corp has raised £500,000 ($629K) in pre-seed funding to accelerate its mission of bringing tabletop games to digital platforms. Founded by former Marmalade Game Studio senior programmer Matt Hilson and ex-Electric Square game designer Harri Elmer, Meeple Corp partners with publishers to digitize board games. Its debut title, Kingdomino Digital, is set to launch later this year. Investors include Hiro Capital, The Mini Fund, and industry angels. Hiro Capital co-founder Ian Livingstone praised the team, stating that the investment supports their vision to create top-tier digital board game experiences. CEO Matt Hilson emphasized the company's goal of expanding game communities and advancing technology to offer fresh experiences for board game fans. Source: PocketGamer

Ömer Yakabagi February 19

Highlights

The State of Turkish Gaming Ecosystem: Invest in Türkiye

The Turkish gaming industry has emerged as a global force, particularly in mobile gaming. With Istanbul ranking as the second-largest gaming hub in Europe, following London, the region has demonstrated rapid growth, a strong investment climate, and a thriving startup culture. This article dives into the factors driving Turkey's mobile gaming success, key acquisitions, and what’s next for this booming industry. Published by Invest in Türkiye A Thriving Hub for Mobile Gaming Over the past decade, Turkey has evolved into a key mobile gaming market, attracting both local and international investors. The country has produced major success stories, including Peak Games (acquired by Zynga for $1.8 billion), Gram Games, and Rollic, which have set the stage for a new generation of game developers. Hyper-casual and hybrid-casual games have flourished, with Turkish studios leveraging efficient production cycles and data-driven decision-making to […]

Ömer Yakabagi February 19

Journal

Scopely to buy Pokemon GO from Niantic

Data: SensorTower Scopely is in talks to buy Pokémon GO from Niantic, Inc. for $3,5B according to Bloomberg. Another week and another big company exit from the game industry as we saw with AppLovin last week, selling its whole gaming portfolio to yet unannounced the buyer. ◾ The deal would include the whole gaming portfolio of Niantic, but realistically speaking, only Pokemon GO matters there, as it did 80% ($30 Mil.) of the whole portfolio revenue in the last 30 days. Monster Hunter Now is doing $4 Mil. a month (10,7%) and Pikmin Bloom doing $2,4 Mil. a month (6,6%). After the colossal success of Pokémon Go, the geolocation game that started it all in 2016, Niantic was never able to replicate similar success with other big IPs such as Harry Potter 🧙, NBA, or Marvel in the geolocation genre […]

Jakub Remiar February 19

Journal

META: Is this for REAL?

Meta is this for real????? 😳 😨 I mean, this looks like a clear intention to me. I honestly expect that they will get rid of manual campaigns at some point and this is scary. This is forcing advertisers to feed their crappy inventories!!!Man, this industry really kills me more times than I deserve.I CAN'T EVEN FIND AN OPTION TO DISABLE THIS SH****!!!!!!

David Vargas February 19

Journal

Secret to Growing on iOS?

“What’s the secret to growing on iOS?”.It’s the question I get asked the most. My answer? There’s no one-size-fits-all strategy.Looking back at the game developers and UA teams I’ve worked with at Apple & ironSource, I noticed one thing:1. The most successful teams know their strengths. 2. Then they double down on them.Take Trailmix Games.With Love & Pies 🥧, they stood out in the competitive Merge category through strong storytelling, inclusive characters, and sweet visuals.And it worked: looking at their App Store reviews, 40% of players mentioned loving the game for these exact reasons.The next step? Leaning into it and making sure their UA campaigns + ASO strategy highlight what players love.That’s exactly why I built the DICE Framework - to help teams identify their strengths and use them to drive growth, focusing on 4 key UA pillars:- Data- Innovation- […]

Julie Tonna February 19

Journal

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