🚨📢BREAKING NEWS: Mobile Gaming Hits $121B + Makers Fund's $250M + AppsFlyer's $400M Loan

AppsFlyer secures $400 [music] in credit line from Bank Lumi. So, the [music] credit line allows AppsFlyer to fund operations without additional equity financing. So, they have actually been given a traditional loan [music] where you pay interest for a very, very large amount of money.
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Two and a Half Gamers exclusive.
Breaking news.
Literally breaking. [music]
Hello and welcome everyone to another fantastic solo news episode [music] brought to you by Felix and the Two and a Half Gamers. Today, it is Friday. I'm recording [music] this on Thursday, the 3rd of September, and we must do the news because it's Friday. That's what we always do on Friday. So, I have three news stories for you, and then we're going to do the weather and give it a little bit of conversation on what I think is [music] actually happening in the world of gaming today. So, let's

start off by a great report [music] that was launched recently by Newzoo, which is the 2026 Global Games [music] Market in key numbers. So, this is their estimates of where 2026 will land in terms of revenue. [music] So, the Global Games Market by revenue. I read this is from [music] Michael Bosman, who's the principal games market analyst at Newzoo from the 25th of August. So, the Global Games Market is forecast [music] to reach 213.9 billion in 2026, up 6.1% [music] year-over-year with growth across all three platforms and every major region. Wow, interesting. Okay, let's go. Mobile remains the largest at 121.1 [music] billion, plus 6.78% ahead of console at 46.9 billion, [music] plus 5.1 year-over-year growth and PC at 45.9 [music]

billion plus 5% year-over-year. So, let's just pause here, right? So, if we remember when we had our friend from FastSpring on the podcast 2 weeks ago, we also did an estimate in 2025 that it was about 10 to 15 billion currently being off platform. So, that adds another 7% of the mobile games industry here that's probably not covered cuz it's usually forgotten since it's done off platform. [music] Anyway, that's just some color. So, Grand Theft Auto 6 November launch anchors the year, obviously. The rising memory and component cost are shared head are shared headwind. While 52% of all consumer spending on games in 2026 is expected to come from China [music] and the US. So, each platform tells a distinct story. PC growth is forecast to moderate to 5.3 to 2025's 12% [music] the highest annual rate in Newzoo's data

sets. Microtransactions are expected to regain share as the larger business model. While premium and mid-priced releases sustain full game revenue. Growth should stay geographically broad led by Asia Pacific alongside faster growing Latin America and MEA. Console is forecast to grow at 5.1% [music] on a multi-game subscription higher game and service prices. The November launch of Grand Theft Auto 6, which is expected to lift the full gaming spending to spending 17% the strongest [music] growth of any business model. Yeah, I mean, consoles kind of been dying. It's good that GTA is coming out. Mobile remains the largest platform and is forecast to grow fastest at 6.8. That's from big number as well, so it's even more impressive. [music] Even as downloads fall, growth increasingly comes from deeper spending per player. Chinese [music] publishers gaining share abroad and expanding

direct-to-consumer channels. I guess we can add some headwinds there as well. What we are seeing is that short story drama [music] is actually quite a big competitor to mobile gaming, so it'll be interesting to see how that plays out. Probably we'll start seeing that in the start of next year. Uh the global players by forecast, so total CAGR from 2016 to 2029 shows a 3.2% increase. Player growth is increasingly [music] concentrated in emerging markets. Asia Pacific remains the largest player region, while Middle East and Africa expands the fastest and North America and Europe grow slowly. Makes sense. Developing and uh uh developed markets, it's kind of to be expected. Uh global players are forecast to reach 3.7 billion in 2026, up 4.4%. Player growth is expected to slow steadily across the forecast, [music] easing to a 3.2 through through 2029. When the global player base reaches 4.07

billion, as penetration and conversion conversion flatten, future market [music] growth will depend increasingly on retaining and monetizing existing audiences rather than [music] adding players. I hear all the retargeting providers in mobile salivating reading that line. Player penetration edges up slightly from 61 to 62% [music] of the online population. That leaves limited room to grow the base through deeper penetration. Growth instead reflects an online population expanding to nearly 6 billion, so that's plus 3.5% year-over-year. So, to finish up, the key numbers uh are an excerpt from Newzoo's uh free global market report [music] 2026. You can see the preview here. I'll also put a link in the description. Kind of expected. Yeah, if you look here at the numbers, 4% growth in APAC, 8% growth in MENA, [music] Europe 2.7% growth, Latin America 4.7,

and North America 1.5 growth. So, that's quite interesting. Good to see. Biggest question mark for me here is just what is the actual [music] number earned on mobile right now because we don't know how much is done off platform, and we won't know for a while. So, moving on to the next story, which is that Makers Fund closes 250 million in fund four [music] to back the next generation of interactive entertainment. And I read from Business News Wire, top 1% global venture performance, 1.5 [music] billion under assets under management, and a decade-long track record of backing breakout creators from Dream Games and Boltrend up to General InZation,
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Fuel Market, Makers Next Chapter. So, from this San Francisco, Makers Fund, the venture capital firm built around [music] interactive entertainment, has closed its a 250 million-dollar fund, bringing

total assets under management to 1.5 billion. The new fund will back the founders shaping what games and interactive [music] entertainment will look like. So, let's pause there because basically they say next what I'm expecting [music] to say as well. Most notable portfolio companies here is Dream Games from Turkey, obviously back big backers of Makers. Very impressive. This is great for the industry. This is what we need, more investments to flow through [music] VCs to actually back the next generation of gaming. So, moving on to the last story of today, uh and that is about AppsFlyer. This is reported [music] from Pocket Gamer's Esa Mohammad, and that's AppsFlyer secures [music] $400 million in credit line from Bank Leumi. So, the credit line allows AppsFlyer to fund operations without additional equity financing. So, [music] they've actually has been given a traditional loan where you pay interest for a very, very large amount of money. The facility allows a June transaction that valued

AppsFlyer 2.7 billion. Google, Meta, Unity, and Moloco participated in the June June transaction as minority investors. The company has over $500,000,000 in [music] annual recurring revenue. So, AppsFlyer has secured a 400 million credit line from Bank Leumi to provide the company with additional financing following a June transaction that valued it at 2.7 [music] billion. As reported by Calcalist Tech, the credit facility comes on top of more than 1 billion involved in the June [music] transaction, uh which included investments from Google, Meta, Unity, and tech company Moloco. And the June deal primarily provided liquidity at some to some of AppsFlyer's long-term investors, uh including General Atlantic, Magma, [music] Apax, Goldman Sachs, allowing them to sell part of their holdings. The new credit line will give AppsFlyer additional financial [music] flexibility and to allow it support its ongoing operations without raising [music] additional equity that could dilute existing shareholders. So, what is this?

I guess it's a
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from my brief stint in finance, the way I would read this is basically they took on a massive investment, bought out the investors [music] that wanted to get out because probably they wanted to get out because the IPO failed. And basically now when they paid [music] them off, they were a bit short on cash, so they took out a debt credit line to basically [music] fund growth so they can grow into being big enough to go public. So, that's how I see this. Quite interesting nonetheless. Let's finish off the news today by looking at the weather as I like to call it, which is the [music] top charts on gaming in the US as of yesterday. So, on the iOS side, Smash Fest leads the free downloads chart, which is impressive. Meow Doku is number two. Block Out by Grand Games is number three. Number four is also Grand Games by Magic Sword. And uh [music] Bus Traffic Fever by Goodroid is number five. Vita My Young is number six. Let's look at Google Play for free

downloads. [music] Meow Doku there is number one, very impressive. Roblox beating out Roblox and [music] Evony: The King's Return. And then Royal Smash by Cypher Games is number four. So, very impressive growth there as well. These two companies look like they're [music] fighting it out for, yeah, the title of who will be the biggest smash game. All right, so that was 9 minutes of news, [music] perfect on mark. I am Felix Brämberg from Two and a Half Gamers. Thank you so much for stopping by. Bye-bye.