Journal

Supercell Takes Full Ownership of Space Ape: Why Now and What's Next? 🎯 Space Ape Games' recent hits, Beatstar and Chrome Valley Customs, have influenced developers around the world and put the studio at the top of my favorite companies out there. 🌟According to AppMagic, Space Ape Games has generated over $280M in IAP revenue alone! 🚀But why is acquiring the remaining 25% shares now? After all, Space Ape has been Supercell's subsidiary since 2017. 🤔Several factors could explain this move:1) Straight from the press release: fully acquiring Space Ape is the best way for Supercell to expand its presence into London. 🇬🇧2) If long-term incentives were in place, Space Ape’s founders, with their strong track record, may have hit their KPIs and been ready for an exit. 💼3) With Squad Busters being Supercell’s first global launch since 2018 but […]

Mastering innovation is challenging, and predicting how a new feature will perform is even harder. Yet, there is one thing that every successful game excels at: Adaptation. Adaptation isn’t about simply copying what works elsewhere. It’s about understanding why a feature succeeds in a specific context and figuring out the best way to implement it in your own game. Sometimes it’s a simple transfer; other times, you need to fight an uphill battle before adapting it successfully.And you need to be fast while doing it all. In fact, between the time this article was written and published, more games have adapted features in unique ways. Hint: Gardenscapes indeed adapted Super Light Ball much like its sibling games. If you want to learn more about how different games adapt features, you can find the link to the article in the comments.

Second painting 🎨 Before reading this, check the first painting here. This time I decided to try different colors and lines as I was working with a different platform.The idea was the same though: Running a single campaign in a country where I barely had traffic and see how organic was affected by my campaign. This time, I even created two campaigns to see if scaling spend could really help to increase organic traffic.This piece is even clearer than the previous one:👉I launch my first campaign and both search and explore grow👉I launch my second campaign and again, both "organic" sources jump👉And the best part, I paused for few days and reactivate later and... the search and explore traffic grew proportionally to the previous period with the second campaignAnd I even took the time to give you exact percentages:-Since first […]

Unlocking Skip-it Strategies in "Coin Sort" by Lion Studios 🚀 In "Coin Sort", Lion Studios has crafted a smooth psychological journey to introduce players to the value of "Skip-its." Here’s how they guide players through the experience:1️⃣ Free Introduction🎁: Players are given a free Skip-it ticket during the tutorial, which they can use immediately. This gives a firsthand experience of the feature without any commitment.2️⃣ Immediate Utility🔄: Right after receiving it, there’s an easy opportunity on the board to use the Skip-it, so players see its impact in real-time and feel the benefit of skipping ads for rewards.3️⃣ Desire Creation💡: After using the free Skip-it, players instantly encounter a dedicated screen offering a bundle of 10 Skip-its at a small price. This “out-of-stock” moment creates a subtle urgency, tapping into the desire to regain the convenience of skipping ads.4️⃣ Value […]

What Does Take-Two’s Potential Sale of Chartboost Mean for Mobile Mediation? 🎮💰 The global mobile ad market is driving massive revenue—around $40 million daily, or roughly $14.6 billion annually, from network-to-publisher payments in mobile games and apps. Take-Two Interactive alone reported $613.3 million in ad revenue in 2023, capturing an estimated 4.21% of in-game ad revenue, making Take-Two a major player in mobile advertising. But with rumors of Take-Two selling Chartboost, what impact could this have on the industry? 🤔Why This Matters:Mediation platforms often act as loss leader products, offered at no cost to publishers in exchange for valuable user data that powers networks' UA campaign profits. Take-Two’s games are currently mostly mediated through Chartboost, giving them direct control over ad placements and margins. If Chartboost is sold, Take-Two might shift its portfolio to a third-party platform like AppLovin or […]

Age of Empires Mobile is earning 🤑 $500k/day right after the global launch. Nostalgia doesn’t mean $100 million/month. But in this case, “only” $11mil/month. 👇 Well, no hypercasual gates mechanics, no fun... Ehm, I mean, no revenue! Ehm, I mean no scale. Well, what the fuck do I even mean, then? Well, that is what I wrote in the very beginning. Nostalgia is not enough! In this episode, we delve into the nostalgic world of the Age of Empires, discussing its recent mobile adaptation and the implications of Tencent's involvement. We explore the gameplay mechanics, including various mini-games and the integration of elements from Vampire Survivors, while also reflecting on the challenges of maintaining the essence of a classic strategy game in a modern mobile format. The conversation highlights the balance between nostalgia and innovation in game design.Wake up, Microsoft! […]

🚨 Meta new ad-free subscription is here! 🚨 After the whole DSA (Digital Services Act) and a €390M fine, it’s official: ad-free subscriptions for Instagram & Facebook are available in the EU. - Subscription plan: ➡️ €12.99/month, no ads! 🤑 An extra 8€ for each additional account... a bit much, don’t you think?- Free with ads: ➡️ The usual setup🤔 Does it give Meta a free pass to add even more ads for non-subscribers?So many questions on my end:Does this mean Meta values user LTV at around €12.99/month (let's remove the store fees but you get my point)? Who came up with that price point? And if this model catches on, would it even be profitable long-term if more people pay to avoid ads? Maybe we’ll see this option spread globally?🚨 This could be bad news for advertisers. If lots […]

20 traps that ruin your Live Ops (and how to avoid it) I teamed up with Sergei Vasiuk to break down the most common mistakes in Live Ops and share tips on how to improve them.• Trends• Events• Whales• Failures• Metrics• Content• Updates• Paywalls• Feedback• Segments• A/B Testing• Community• Progression• Onboarding• Radio Silent• Past Success• Monetization• Tech Performance• Customer Support• Cultural RelevanceThese elements combine to satisfy players.It's where design meets player satisfaction.It’s not about perfection ↳ it’s about continuous improvement.That’s the mark of a truly great game.A standard we can all aim for.

💡 Understanding eCPM Averages Could Save You Big in Ad Monetization! In our latest review on two & a half gamers, we looked at My Supermarket Simulator 3D by Game District and highlighted a key ad monetization insight: Game District chose Google’s App Open Ad format over a simple interstitial with a small reward. Based on eCPM benchmarks across main geos, this choice could potentially mean an extra $20-30K per day in ad revenue. 📈💸eCPM rates are influenced by around 90 factors, including competitiveness, CTR, install rate, user location, and active UA spending. Here’s a quick benchmark to estimate your ad revenue potential, assuming a 70/30 IAP to IAA split:🇺🇸 USA:- Rewarded Ads: $30- Interstitials: $15- Google App Open: $1-3- Banners: $0.60-0.90🌍 Tier 1 Geos:- Rewarded Ads: $15-20- Interstitials: $7-12- Google App Open: $0.50-1.5- Banners: $0.28-0.35🌏 Tier 2 Geos:- Rewarded […]

Part 1 of 5: Where has the year gone? With Slush being next week it signals to me that the year is practically gone, or atleast, Q5 is on our doorstep, with that in mind I wanted to share my 2024 predictions from this time last year plus the addition 4 I did at the 6 month mark to take stock before putting out my 2025 predictions this week.So overall how did my predictions fair against the year?Well, as always, there's winners and losers but I would say overall, and mostly, correct, with a few exceptions and caveats as always.1. Consolidation? Yes we continued to see big companies acquire smaller ones and overall the big get bigger (no sh*t sherlock).2. Mergers and Acquisitions? Yes, namely SuperPlay being acquired by Playtika and I would have liked to seen more deals in […]

Pokemon TCG Pocket is killing it 🤩 still doing more than $5 Mil. 🤑 a day! I had to pull out my old cards from the "childhood box" to confirm that a lot of them are now in the mobile game using the exact OG illustrations 😁. Couldn't be more happy to play again with these familiar faces 😊. The DeNA team did a great job by streamlining the original physical Trading Card Game rules. Instead of 60 cards you now only have 20 cards in your whole deck. Energy system was again simplified. Similarly how Hearthstone removed the lands as it was streamlining Magic the Gathering gameplay, Pocket also removed energy cards out of the deck and made it an automatic resource that is constantly given to you each round regardless of your cards. If you go for double […]