🚨📢 BREAKING NEWS: Pokémon Go Made MORE Money by Going Free + Xbox Cuts 3,200 + AppLovin Opens Axon

Daily spend went from 3.9 million on July 5th to 9 million on July 6th, which is 129% [music] increase, then to 10 million on July 10th, which is another 50% jump when Go Fest opened.
Two and [music] a Half Gamers exclusive.
Breaking news. [music]
Literally breaking.
Hello everybody. This is Matej Lancaric and I'm here alone, which means this is a news episode. And what a week. Oh my god, what a week. So, I have Pokémon Go for you, 11 deep space controversy, Xbox uploading actually went self-serve, and Meta is labeling your images. Well, let's dive right into it. So, this is the story of the week and it's monetization masterclass. Pokémon

Go made more money by making their event free. So, Pokémon Go hits its 10th anniversary on July 6th. Sensor Tower estimates more than 9 billion in lifetime revenue spent across Google Play and App Store, highest grossing mobile title of the past decade. And that excludes brand partnerships, alternative stores, and they are using FastSpring and web shops. Ooh, FastSpring, hello. So, then they did something very, very interesting. Go Fest 2026 global run from July 11th to July 12th [music] as the first-ever free Go Fest event, no ticket needed. And it triggered the game's highest daily revenue in half a decade, more than 15.1 million on July 11th. Daily spend went from 3.9 million on July 5th to 9 million on July 6th, which

is 129% increase, then to 10 million on July 10th, which is another 50% jump when Go first opened. And then it jumped 17 positions in the monthly revenue ranking to number two with 96 million in the first two weeks of July, closing on Honor of Honor of Kings, which is 99.2 million. They removed the paywall on the event and made more money than any paid Go first event in the last 5 years. So, removing [music] the ticket maximized partic- participation and participation drove IAP. Really, really interesting. It's pretty much, you know, we touched this in our latest episode about Pokémon Champion. Well, then we have Love and Deep Space Catastrophe, which is really big controversy. Cuz we talked about this game on our channel a couple months ago, maybe even a year ago. So, this is the most instructive

disaster in the mobile this year and it's still unfold. So, quick recap. Infold announced the Valco, a sixth love interest, on June 22nd. Just over a week later they announced he would never ship. And that the game will never add another love interest ever. Players, primarily in Asia, boycotted, protested, and harassed the company arguing the team was neglecting the main storyline and existing five characters. But it escalated to angry players sending funeral flowers, cow dung, and ritual items to Paper Games office. Hmm, this reminds me a little bit of our story with that horse head, but let's not go there. Well, then it got really worse. The fan petition to restore Valco crossed 230,000 signatures. So, now both sides are furious, and this week Infold canceled Love and Deep Space Bilibili World 2026 appearance entirely

two days before the event and committed to fully reimburse fans for tickets, airfare, and hotel cancellations. Statement also said the studio will conduct internal training while honoring Chinese culture and history. Oof. This is what happens when character-driven monetization collides with a fan base that feels ignored. They cave to one mob and then created another. Compensation is now 30 days of deep space wishes, free outfits, and promised story updates for Raphael, Caleb, and Silas through November. Well, the lesson isn't don't add characters, is that live service trust that compounds, [music] and when it comes to no amount of free currency fixes it. Be careful. Xbox, 3,200, Gone, and King is in the blast radius. Slightly outside the the this weekly news, but it's still pretty much everywhere and hits mobile directly. Microsoft cut 4,800 jobs

total, which is about 2.1% of global work for workforce. And this is including 1.6 thousand Xbox with more coming this year. Reports put the Xbox figure at 3.2K over the next year, roughly 20% of the division,
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and the fifth series Microsoft layoffs wave in three years. The memo is [music] brutal. Xbox CEO says, "Our business today is not healthy." Well, no Sherlock. "We are operating at margins that are three to 10 times lower than comparable platform and publishing businesses." So, Xbox will close the fiscal year '26 at roughly 3% profitability margin against the 30% Microsoft demands of of major divisions. So, the cuts vary in size across Activision, Bethesda, ZeniMax, Blizzard, King, Mojang, and Xbox Game Studios. So, King, the mobile crown jewel jewel, is affected as well. The CEO says, "In a typical year, we lost 64 cents for every dollar we invested."

Well, that's that doesn't sound like a great deal. She also flagged that the AI-driven DRAM shortage has pushed hardware component costs to multiples of 2025 levels. Well, some insiders are calling it potentially the largest single gaming industry layoff in history. But, here are some better news. AppLovin with Maxon went self-serve, and the stock went vertical. Genuinely, this is this week very interesting. So, the late June rollout opened Axon, AppLovin's targeting engine for everybody. And it was controlled driver only model, but now it's globally open self-serve platform, which is the story. Anyone can now buy into the machine. The The market loved it. The stock ripped from the mid-440 to 564 in about 2 weeks. And, you know, there are two things worth worth flagging. Opening Axon to unvetted global advertisers is a

real execution risk. They've done it before. It wasn't that great. But, maybe this time it's going to be better. I don't think so. I can already see an interesting fluctuations on the campaign level, but that's a story for later. Onboarding friction, platform instability, dilution of ad ecosystem quality, all threaten those premium margins. Going self-serve is how you scale. So, that's it. Ferro and Victoria Valenzuela sold tens of millions in stock in June while keeping sizable holdings. Insiders have collectively sold 700 794 million more than they bought over the last 12 months. Let's see Q2 earnings land on August 5th. Meta with their Muse image lands and AI ads now are getting labeled. So, real UA relevant changes shipped this week. On July 7th, Meta released the Muse image code name Mango, the second major model for Meta super intelligence labs and it's riding into the Advantage

Plus creatives. Muse powered image variants reach advertisers in the coming weeks and Advantage Plus reportedly runs roughly a 60 billion annualized revenue rate. Not bad. The transparency piece is one of the The transparency piece is the one to actually care about. Meta now auto detects ads created or edited with third-party AI solutions or tools via C2PA metadata and ads containing a photorealistic AI-generated person get the label placed next to the sponsored rather than buried in the three-dot menu. Product shots and background gets the menu level disclosure nobody opens. AI spokesperson creative now carries a visible feed level label. If your account leans on AI humans, taste the labeled format now. Thank you for we have few more quick hits. This UK survey 22% of UK games workers

experienced job loss in the past 3 years, though half found a new role within 3 months. Slightly less grim than the US numbers. Neopets becomes Remade's largest shareholder with 40% stake closing July 15th. Well, this week, that's it. Pokémon Go proved free events can care can out-earn paid ones. Well, no Sherlock. Infult proved you can't buy your way out of broken trust. Xbox proved scale doesn't equal health. Apple haven't proved that open opening the floodgates is very good for a stock price. Up to the right. Thank you very much, guys. See you next week. Bye-bye.