Ex-King and Ex-Apple Team Raise $9 Million Seed Round for Metica to Revolutionize Gaming Growth with AI-Powered Personalization and Monetization

Metica, a cutting-edge technology company building AI-driven customer engagement and personalization solutions for the gaming industry, has announced the successful raise of $9 million seed round. The round was led by top-tier venture capital firms Play Ventures, 13books, and Firstminute Capital, with participation from renowned angel investors including Riccardo Zacconi, founder and ex-CEO of King (makers of Candy Crush), Caro Krenzer, CEO of Trailmix, Klaas Kersting, CEO of Phoenix Games, Michail Katkoff, Founder of Deconstructor of Fun, Roland Rudd, Chairman of FGS Global, Nigel Morris, former CEO of Dentsu, and René Rechtman, founder of Moonbug Entertainment. Metica is on a mission to help games grow faster by uniting user acquisition (UA), in-game monetization, and AI-driven personalization. Founded by serial entrepreneurs Phil Mohr and Puli Liyanagama, Metica marks their third successful venture together. Their previous startups include Comufy, acquired by King, […]

Ömer Yakabagi January 16

Journal

Top 10 Turkish Mobile Game Publishers

🇹🇷 Top 10 Türk mobile game publishers you need to know!What makes a publisher successful in your eyes? We, have been rapidly growing over the years.While getting faster in game production,Adapting to the marketing trends is a MUST.These studios not only mastered the development,They also kept their marketing uplift.Now that’s the challenge.Now that’s success… 🥂 Cheers!Data by AppMagic as always. PS: These publishers/self publisher developers have all different strategies.DM for deeper conversations. Data is worldwide, numbers are approximate estimations, rounded for better display.Not included in game ad revenue, which can significantly change the listing. #gamedevelopment #videogames

Gökhan Üzmez January 16

Highlights

Former Space Ape Exec Simon Hade launches NextBeat

The creators of Space Ape Games’ popular music rhythm game Beatstar have spun the title out into a dedicated music-gaming company called NEXTBEAT. The move follows Supercell‘s full acquisition of Space Ape Games in November 2024 – a deal which is expected to close in the spring. Beatstar was launched globally in 2021 after five years of development within Space Ape Games by a team that included Simon Hade as COO and co-founder of the studio, and Olly Barnes, who led music strategy and rights acquisition. Barnes is the co-founder of Voisey, a music-making app that Snapchat acquired for $70 million in 2020. Snapchat later offloaded Voisey in 2022 as part of Snap Inc.’s wide-scale restructuring. Beatstar is a free-to-play mobile game often compared to Guitar Hero. It features over 850 global music hits secured through music licensing deals with major labels, indie publishers, and dozens of rightsholders. In September 2022, MBW reported that Beatstar shared USD $16 million of its revenue with music labels and […]

Ömer Yakabagi January 16

Highlights

The Strategy Behind Aonic’s $70M Acquisition of Mega Fortuna

Turkish Ad Tech startup Mega Fortuna boasts 10 million MAUs for its mobile gaming discovery and loyalty platform. Aonic, a fast-growing video gaming and technology group, has completed a $10M minority investment in Mega Fortuna. The deal includes an option for Aonic to acquire the entire share capital of Mega Fortuna for a valuation of up to $70M. The WHY behind the investment Paul Bowen This acquisition is logical in the highly fragmented Play & Earn (P&E) ecosystem, which is experiencing unprecedented growth. With 27 companies listed in the Incentivized Advertising Database offering gift card reward services, consolidation is inevitable as larger players and their owners absorb smaller companies to expand their P&E portfolios. However, key questions remain, particularly around the total addressable market (TAM) for users interested in earning gift cards by playing games. I anticipate we'll see further consolidation […]

Ömer Yakabagi January 16

Journal

Mobile Gaming 2022 to 2025

Mobile Gaming grew in 2024 by 5.3% YoY (Sensor Tower, worldwide data excluding China) 📲 . But downloads are lagging both on Android and iOS... are we seeing a shift towards smaller number of bigger games? At the same time concentration among top publishers is not necessarily growing🤔 ... Genres that had significant scale and high growth rates were Board, Casual, Strategy, Puzzle - they were growing both in 2024 (2024 vs 2023) and in 2023 (2023 vs 2022). All details how mobile gaming was behaving in 2024 you can find in my report 📕 📕 📕 - almost 60 pages with different data analyses, data points around mobile gaming (from various data sources).#mobilegaming #data #insights #gaming #market #mobilegaming2025

Mariusz Gąsiewski January 15

Journal

Game Development Renaissance

Extremely happy to have contributed to Metaplay’s most recent survey and e-book on the “Game Development Renaissance”. It’s really cool to see my name and Kwalee’s game assets in this book surrounded by so many interesting data points and expert opinions!If you’re in mobile gaming and thinking of doing live ops (which you categorically should) then make sure to download the report via the link today!

John Wright January 15

Journal

Brutally Honest #147

Hey, FAM! What’s up? 🥃 Drink talk So much stuff happened in the last few days. We started the year strong! A few days ago, we hosted our first Play Global event of the year in Seoul in collaboration with Airbridge, Moloco, and Sensor Tower. Over 150 attendees joined us for a half day with valuable insights and networking opportunities. Sign up to our Korean Channel now! two & a half gamers MERCH is live. Go and grab it here! Yes, that's it! 🦩 🦄 🕺 Have you signed up to Gamesforum already? SIGN UP WITH MY OWN PROMOCODE - Unicorn20. Register now! 🦩Tip of the week In 2025, UA is set to undergo a transformative shift with a pronounced emphasis on creative excellence. The convergence of storytelling and motion design will become pivotal in crafting compelling narratives that captivate […]

Matej Lancaric January 15

Journal

The harsh reality of Mobile Game Dev in 2025

The harsh reality of mobile game dev in 2025: 97% of mobile games fail. Over the past 3 years, 139,396* games were launched. Only 3,704 reached at least 1 million downloads. ↳ That’s a success rate of less than 3%. Most games don’t even cover their development costs. Does that mean success is impossible? No. But it’s very difficult, even for experienced teams. Plus, the mobile market isn’t growing like it did during the pandemic.Here are two main paths forward for new teams:𝟭. 𝗥𝗲𝘀𝗶𝗹𝗶𝗲𝗻𝗰𝗲 & 𝗜𝘁𝗲𝗿𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 • Build a strong testing pipeline. • Keep learning from multiple failures. • Have a very long runway (>2 years) until success𝟮. 𝗘𝘅𝗽𝗹𝗼𝗿𝗲 𝗢𝘁𝗵𝗲𝗿 𝗣𝗹𝗮𝘁𝗳𝗼𝗿𝗺𝘀 • Think about PC, UGC, or web games. • They might offer smaller revenue, but better chances. • It’s a different risk-to-reward ratio.One thing is clear: There’s no easy […]

Anton Slashcev January 14

Highlights

Mobile Gaming Today: 42

Hey Fam ☃️ Hope you had a healthy, nice start to 2024! Let’s start with my favorite NY post on LinkedIn :)) Sweet work by Supercell Let’s start with a big THANK YOU. Already reached 6.4K followers on LinkedIn 🕺 Super grateful for all the love and support. Thank you, Gaming People! Game of the Week Magic Sort by Grand Games Magic Sort is an innovative sort puzzler that tries to disrupt the whole Sort genre, driven mainly by Ad Revenue. It applies the typical Royal match high production formula, together with some innovation regarding the core gameplay, such as fail state monetization. This is all validated by the 30M$ raise. Will be on Two & Half Gamers’ podcast this week. Mobile Marketing » How to Create Playables 🎨 Importance of Mixing Creatives in Meta 🏆 2024 Top Hypercasual Mobile […]

Gamigion January 13

Journal

Best of 2024: Top Numbers

📊 Revenue, players, and strategy: meet the 2024’s mobile champions. Cheers! PS: AppMagic for data.

Gökhan Üzmez January 13

Highlights

Mobile Game Leaders: 2024 Analysis

Market Performance Global consumer spending on Mobile Games declined for the second consecutive year, reaching $107 billion in 2023. Mobile game downloads fell for the first time, totaling 88 billion. Emerging Trends Casualization: There's a notable shift towards more Casual Gaming experiences, with Mid-core games facing challenges connecting with their audiences. Brands & IPs: Brands are increasingly engaging in partnerships to attract new audiences, leveraging well-known intellectual properties to enhance appeal. Regional Developments Chinese gaming companies have significantly expanded their global presence, with China-based publishers capturing a third of global revenue. They've successfully entered markets like Japan & U.S. through quality production and localization efforts. WeChat Minigames Are Crushing It in China Technological Innovations Advancements in cloud gaming and AI integration have been pivotal. Big Studios like Tencent and NetEase are leading with cloud gaming platforms and AI-driven game features, […]

Ömer Yakabagi January 9

Journal

Dark and Darker by Krafton

Dark and Darker mobile ⚔️ published by Krafton Inc. is on its way to launch in the first half of 2025. We couldn't wait, so we reviewed the PC version of the game and looked at the different monetization models that the mobile game will probably have. The game got taken down from Steam and after a victory in lawsuit over Nexon's copyright claim in January 2024 it is back on Steam from June 2024. The PC version relaunched as a free to play game with a very unique model, reminiscent of Path of Exile "pay for convenience". As you see in the image, by being free to play you can only enter the Normal dungeons, have 1 character slot and can't sell items on the marketplace. After a $30 purchase the game basically goes from demo mode into full […]

Jakub Remiar January 9

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