AppLovin’s Gaming Portfolio

Yesterday AppLovin announced that it is selling it's whole gaming portfolio for $900 mil. 🤑 in order to focus only on Ad tech. The buyer was not announced. 🤔 Who could it be? Let's look closer at the performance of the games portfolio to get some hints 😎 ▪️ The ten studios that are being sold are Magic Tavern, Zero Gravity, PeopleFun, Lion Studios, Belka, Zenlife, Clipwire, Leyi, Machine Zone and Athena. On a surface look, the whole games portfolio did around $50 Mil. in IAP revenue only for last month. This is exactly half 📉 of what it did at its peak in January 2021. Downloads wise last month there was around 19 Mil. downloads, which is 10 times less compared to its peak in January 2021, which was 190 Mil. 😱 Of course let's be real, the peak […]

Jakub Remiar February 13

Journal

How do you design an addictive game?

How do you design an addictive game? 𝟭. 𝗦𝘁𝗮𝗿𝘁 𝘄𝗶𝘁𝗵 𝗮 𝘀𝘁𝗿𝗼𝗻𝗴 𝗰𝗼𝗿𝗲 𝗹𝗼𝗼𝗽: • A simple, repeatable cycle: Challenge → Action → Reward • Instant gratification with quick loot and flashy visuals • Small dopamine hits to keep players coming back 𝟮. 𝗣𝗿𝗼𝗴𝗿𝗲𝘀𝘀𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝗸𝗲𝗲𝗽𝘀 𝘁𝗵𝗶𝗻𝗴𝘀 𝗶𝗻𝘁𝗲𝗿𝗲𝘀𝘁𝗶𝗻𝗴: • Quick upgrades for short-term wins • Unlockable skills for mid-term goals • Achievements and leaderboards for long-term motivation 𝟯, 𝗥𝗲𝘁𝗲𝗻𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝗵𝗼𝗼𝗸𝘀 𝗽𝗹𝗮𝘆𝗲𝗿𝘀 𝗶𝗻: • Daily rewards, time-limited events, and seasonal content • FOMO mechanics with exclusive items • Social incentives like guilds and team challenges 𝟰. 𝗕𝗮𝗹𝗮𝗻𝗰𝗲 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗳𝗲𝗲𝗱𝗯𝗮𝗰𝗸 𝗺𝗮𝘁𝘁𝗲𝗿: • Gradual difficulty scaling to keep players in flow • Rewarding visuals, audio cues, and haptics • Emotional connection through narrative and characters 𝟱. 𝗦𝗼𝗰𝗶𝗮𝗹 𝗳𝗲𝗮𝘁𝘂𝗿𝗲𝘀 𝗱𝗿𝗶𝘃𝗲 𝗲𝗻𝗴𝗮𝗴𝗲𝗺𝗲𝗻𝘁: • Leaderboards, rankings, and PvP battles • Clans, co-op modes, and community-building mechanics • […]

Anton Slashcev February 13

Journal

Decoding VC responses

Decoding VC responses - here's what they actually mean: "Let's keep in touch" = It's a NO. But they want optionality if you become hot later."Too early for us" = Either they don't believe in the space, or your team isn't experienced enough. It's anyways a NO. "Need to see more traction" = They don't have conviction in current state. Get them to be specific about what metrics would change their mind."Great vision, but..." = They don't believe you're the team to execute it. Or the market isn't ready yet."We need to see a lead first" = They're interested but won't take conviction risk. Good signal - use this to get other investors excited.Real talk: The only response that matters is a term sheet. Everything else is just varying degrees of "no" or "not yet."Pro tip: If they don't provide […]

Joakim Achren February 13

Journal

Monetization in Sort Games – A Sneak Peek!

💡 Monetization in Sort Games – A Sneak Peek! 💡 Here’s a small teaser for my upcoming two-part blog series on monetization strategies in sort games! 🧩 🔹 Part 1: IAP Strategies – How sort games design their in-game purchases for maximum impact. 🔹 Part 2: RV Strategies – How rewarded video is integrated to drive engagement and retention. Stay tuned – plenty of insights coming soon! 🚀✨

Michael Kopelovich February 13

Journal

Sort Puzzle: The Hottest Genre Of 2024

Sort Puzzle: The Hottest Genre Of 2024 🔥 The genre saw explosive 460% YoY revenue growth in 2024! Already popular in Tier-1 West, it made a breakthrough by finding the right monetization strategies 💪🤩 6 out of the top 10 grossing games are 2024 newcomers.👑 Newcomer Hexa Sort by Lion Studios replaced Block Jam 3D after its 15-month reign.🍦Water Sort Puzzles are fading from the rankings, while a new theme of household goods sorting is gaining momentum.

Andrei Zubov February 13

Highlights

AppLovin divests all its Game Studios for $900 million.

Another day, another AppLovin update! As reported by mobilegamer.biz, AppLovin is offloading its ten-game studio portfolio for $900 million as it pivots to focus entirely on Ad Tech. Check out: AppLovin Empire: Monopoly in Mobile Gaming? AppLovin’s decision to sell its gaming studios signals a major shift in the mobile gaming industry. While the company has not revealed the buyer, the move highlights the growing dominance of ad monetization over traditional game publishing. We’ve seen similar transitions before, such as [another company’s example]. Given these trends, it raises the question: will more gaming giants follow suit? This means Machine Zone, PeopleFun, Magic Tavern, Lion Studios, Belka, Athena, Clipwire, Leyi, Zenlife, and Zero Gravity will soon be under new ownership. However, AppLovin has not disclosed the buyer. More: AppLovin’s Gaming Portfolio CEO and co-founder Adam Foroughi announced the decision during the company’s […]

Gamigion February 13

Highlights

Brutally Honest #151

Hey, FAM! What’s up? 🥃 Drink talk Jumped on a podcast last week with our dear friends from Gamigion! Check it out because this wasn’t about the UA! 🦩Tip of the week When should we start Applovin as a channel? I often get this question: When should we start? Is it a good channel? Are we ready? First, we need to ensure that our in-app purchase volume is strong enough for the algorithm to optimize effectively. We aim for at least 10–15 unique purchases per day. To figure out if we’re ready, we can do a quick math exercise using our D7 cost per purchase (CPPD7). For example, if our CPPD7 is $800, then multiplying that by 10 tells us we need an $8,000 daily budget to kick things off. If our CPPD7 is lower, say $150, then around $1,500 […]

Matej Lancaric February 13

Journal

Be Careful with TikTok’s Attribution Settings!

🚨 Be Careful with TikTok’s Attribution Settings! 🚨 Today I am sharing a case study that I recently saw with one of my clients on TikTok.We started this channel to see if we could outperform Meta with the new creatives that we produced so we simply copied the setup that was working well on Meta:👉One campaign based on signup (upper funnel event) --> Campaign 1 - Event 1 if you look at the screenshot👉One campaign based on an activation event (lower funnel event) --> Campaign 2 - Event 2 if you look at the screenshotAfter running both campaigns for a couple of weeks, we analyzed attribution types to compare them with Meta and Google. We do this because we have a strong organic presence in the country that we are targeting so we wanted to avoid as much as we […]

David Vargas February 13

Journal

AppLovin stock has jumped 30% after hours after another insane quarter.

Yes you are reading that correctly, AppLovin stock has jumped 30% after hours after another insane quarter. Check out: AppLovin Empire: Monopoly in Mobile Gaming? Highlights from the earnings call earlier today were:• Revenue Growth: The company reported a 44% year-over-year increase in revenue for Q4 2024. • Earnings Per Share (EPS): Adjusted EPS for the quarter was $1.73, surpassing market expectations. • Future Revenue Projections: AppLovin forecasts Q1 2025 revenue between $1.355 billion and $1.385 billion, exceeding analysts’ expectations. • Strategic Shift: The company is expanding its advertising platform beyond gaming into e-commerce, marking a transformative period (please refer to my 2025 marketing predictions after with Deconstructor of Fun to read more about this).• Divesting From Games: AppLovin plans to sell its gaming studios for approximately $900m to focus on its core advertising technology and software platform, AXON is […]

John Wright February 13

Journal

5 takeaways from Supercell CEO’s Blog Post

I don’t think there’s many people in gaming who doesn’t look forward to reading Supercell’s CEO Illka Paananen yearly blog post that addresses the industry. If you haven’t already read it I suggest you check out the article and look over it, but if you want my key 5 takeaways and highlights it would be:• Brawl Stars’ Remarkable Surge: Over five years post-launch, Brawl Stars achieved unprecedented growth, with metrics such as player count, engagement, and revenue increasing multiple times over. To go from $10-20m a month to $70m+ is one of the biggest success stories I’ve ever seen in mobile, another key indication of the importance of live ops in todays games. • Squad Busters’ Introduction: Supercell released Squad Busters, its first new game in over five years, which generated over $100 million in gross revenue during its first […]

John Wright February 13

Journal

Phynd’s $10M Bet: Mobile Gaming to Smart TVs with Ad-Supported Cloud Play

Phynd’s $10M Bet: Bringing Mobile Gaming to Smart TVs with Ad-Supported Cloud Play Phynd, a cloud gaming platform designed for smart TVs, has secured $10 million in funding to disrupt the gaming industry. Led by Wellington Management, with participation from Bessemer Venture Partners, the investment will fuel Phynd’s 2025 beta launch, offering a subscription-free gaming experience powered by ads. A New Frontier for Mobile GamingPhynd’s focus on smart TVs presents an opportunity for mobile gaming studios to expand their reach beyond smartphones. With 500 million smart TVs globally capable of supporting cloud gaming, developers can port mobile games to a larger screen without additional hardware. This model aligns with the free-to-play (F2P) and ad-driven economy of mobile gaming, allowing studios to monetize their games via non-intrusive sponsorships and in-game advertising. Disrupting the Traditional Gaming ModelUnlike Google Stadia or Xbox Cloud […]

Gamigion February 12

Journal

The dollar value of 1 impression on Mobile?

💸What’s the dollar value of an impression💸? How much is an impression worth to a mobile publisher? Honestly, it depends… It's such a boring answer, I know. I don’t like boring answers, so let's break down the factors that decide what an impression is worth and make some models you can use to factor in impressions in your game design. Ok, everyone! Off into the ad revenue Rabbit hole🐇! First, here’s a helpful formula: Ad Revenue = Fill x eCPM. Let’s start with eCPM. eCPM (effective Cost Per Mile) is the price an ad network will pay for 1k impressions. Let’s go down one more layer. How do ad networks calculate eCPM? All ad networks consider various factors to decide what an impression of a publisher’s user is worth. Google is roomered to use 94 different factors in their algorithm […]

Felix Braberg February 12

Journal

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