MDM Podcast, Season 7, Episode 7: MDM Mailbag #7 (with Matej Lancaric)

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The problem is that the distinction needs to be drawn between the competence of the economists and the correctness of their analysis. Welcome to the Mobile Dev Memo podcast. I'm your host, Eric Suffort, and I am

joined today by Mate Lenarich for the seventh edition of the Mobile Dev Memo Mailbag, which is a Q&A show where I will ask my esteemed guest questions that were submitted from the audience. So, first of all, Mate, welcome.
Thank you very much for having me on the show. It's nice to be on the other side of the barricade for once.
Yeah, I bet. Uh, so you're the interviewee.
Yes.
So before we hopped on, I was trying to remember when we first met. I mean, it was years and years ago. I think it was when I came to Pixel Federation and did the consulting project there, right?
Yeah, I think I think so. Which was 2015, 16, I don't know. It's
15 or 16. It probably probably 16, but yeah. I mean, so 10 years ago. Um, yeah, I came to Bratislava and I never I had never been there before, but I I liked that city. It was like a mini Prague. I remember.
Very true. I mean, we're not getting any younger 10 years ago. It's Yeah, time flies.

Time does fly.
So, most people who are listening to this probably know of you from Two and a Half Gamers, from your presence on LinkedIn, but for those who don't, can you just please introduce yourself before we dive into the questions?
Absolutely. Thanks. Uh, thanks again. Uh, so yes, so my name is Mate. I'm B. I've been in the industry for like 12 years. I'm uh mostly working as a UA consultant. I have my own creative team of 10 motion designers. I also do playables because it's very important. I'm now building my own no code playable tool which is called playable maker and I started doing also a little bit of apps and games here and there. So I'm I'm busy and I love it and I absolutely love it. But my main business is still UA consultancy. So that's that.
We bumped into each other at uh Pocket Gamer Connects uh what 3 weeks ago.
Yeah, it was a nice nice show. I love I love PGC. It's kind of the opening of the year anyway, right?
Yeah. So that's actually that's maybe

the first question. So this one's from me. This was not from the audience, but
So I know I just see from from Facebook that you go to a lot of conferences. I think you were just coming back from one right in Barcelona. Was that right?
I Yes, I was in Barcelona. So I mean there was a time when I was doing way more conferences but now I tried to pick my battles pretty much PGC London then usually games for in Barcelona. I had a long pause for GDC but I was there last year but this year I said I will maybe just go on a vacation instead. So then I'll be at MAU afterwards. So those are I think like the first big shows at the beginning of the year and then I was just trying to draw maybe at the like in summer and that's pretty much it.
Well, so that that was the question. So which conferences do you prioritize? What about Gamescom? No Gamescom.
Oh, I mean I was there for eight times maybe and it's same people all over again. Everybody ends up in Mario hotel

lobby which is always crowded. Now there's even a bouncer that either lets you in or or or don't. So not anymore for some reason. But maybe I will come back to Gamescom next year. We'll see.
So how do you view MAU from like a relevancy standpoint? MAU used to be from my perspective it used to be the conference. I mean like and it was it's broader than gaming for sure. I mean it covers kind of the whole spectrum of the app space. But how do you view it now? I mean it got acquired a couple years ago. there's a lot more friction with putting on the side events and uh I I think it's still very popular but like I think basically the the value or I I think the priority of these conferences got totally reset postcoid like so precoid you can't use that as a as a guide for what's on the calendar now but but actually I think that that worked in PGC's favor
because
yes
that blew up postcoid pre-COVID I mean it was a good show but postco it became

the show
exactly pre yeah pre-co was like okay I was like h maybe I will go now it's like that's the first one beginning of the year and now it's like 2800 people which is insane
so so definitely yes for MAU it definitely changed I still think it's the conference to go uh and visit now it's not mobile apps unlocked but mobile audiences unlocked which is interesting and that broader spectrum I guess I mean I'm now also doing a two and a half gamers gaming summit before the MAU. It's kind of still at like the MAU content. So it's like one day before when the there is the badge pickup. So I'm a friend of the conference for for a long time. So I think it's still worth it. I still I think it's still worth it. In terms of the content, most probably not exactly the same as it was pre-COVID, but what's the same, right?
Yeah. Yeah, I mean MAU was I think

distinguished by the content. The content was always really strong.
Yes.
So, so actually I I spoke to MU about doing something similar like an MDM, you know, little mini conference beforehand. We never kind of converged around that, but that was we had sort of spoken about that. Yeah. I mean, I think and I I haven't been to MAU in a couple years, but that's just I'm just a lot busier now uh with two kids.
I bet. I bet. But uh it's still like it's one of the ones that I I feel jealous when it's going on and I'm at home like like GDC I don't really feel jealous. I I feel like
it's a grind. GDC is a grind and just being in San Francisco for a large conference is is not necessarily pleasant.
Yeah, it's not pleasant experience. I mean I haven't bought a ticket for a long time and I don't even go to the actual venue. So now it's again like meeting everybody at like W berry or whatever else is around that. So that's why I was like h you know vacation GDC

vacation. Yeah.
Yeah. Right.
For sure.
So it became a lot more popular in the last few years for you know companies to build out their own you know little circuit of events you know where they'll do like three or four I don't I want to call them dinners. They're usually bigger than dinners, but it it'd be like a company specific event where, you know, they'll run out of space and they'll do presentations uh for the day and then they'll have like a party after any any of those that that are on your radar that for for being like very high quality or or like high signal to noise.
Uh well, now when you know like when we do like as as two and a half gamers do these things as well, so I would definitely call out mine for obvious reasons, but it's pretty much it. I usually don't do these like too many of these side events because it's usually distraction and again presentation and then networking. I rather do a networking sessions because sometimes I feel people are kind of filled up with content already. So people are there just to

talk to people instead of just sit there and listen. So I try to do also my side events as just no music, less of a drinks, just talking and people love it. So, and that's that's what I also usually enjoy.
Okay. And so, now moving on to the questions that I didn't, right? We got a number of questions about web. So, web on boarding, web UA. Let's maybe start there. So, I mean,
web UA, let's let's call it web on boarding. Does that work for games? Have you seen any games implement that in a way that that scales?
Well, those are two separate things. So we implementing that yes scale not yet I think cuz it's super super popular on the app side and I started talking about this couple of months ago and I already see some some companies from from Turkey that are already implementing this let's say semi successfully. So it's not there yet. It's not there yet because it's a little bit more more

complicated than just putting few quiz questions into the web and that's that's pretty much it and then ending it with the subscription. So here I'm kind of experimenting with the web where you actually have full build playable. So you kind of play or like like the yeah to play the playable after let's say a minute or two minutes you get the you get an event like hey download the game afterwards. So again on paper works the the technical complexity is a little bit different and more more tough to to crack but I'm pretty sure I will I will see this way more often in 2026 maybe even with like the the subscription or purchase/ebop component there as well.
Oh interesting. Okay I want to talk to you about that. Um but let's let's table that for a second. Do you think it's it's a certain type of genre that can make that work? I mean, I don't think like a a casual game could could make that work, right? Or do you think it

does it matter?
Well, it's that's a fair question. I think I think the genre doesn't matter that much. For example, I saw even royal match or match villains using let's say jig solitire which is 3x3 puzzle playable as their end cards in different UA networks. So if you use that on the on the web, again, it should potentially work. I don't think it represents the real gameplay that much. So it would be a little bit misleading. I mean, even if it's a little bit misleading, nobody cares anymore that much, right? So I would still rather see like a little bit more real gameplay on that website and in the in the playable rather than just a fake because then it most probably won't work. So not not really the genre, but the actual playable and that's like the the style of it.
So So Playa had the whole web arcade concept where they could do kind of web

on boarding because it was synchronized from the web to the app. Do you need that or can you just do web as a pure play onboarding mechanism and then drive people to the app where that's where you expect them to play the game?
Yeah, that's the two separate things. I think uh you can still do the web on boarding. Uh and then uh on top of that if you have any anything connected to the actual web shop and then the payment on the web that definitely helps with like more signals back to the to the UA channels and then then you send afterwards the the players to the app. That's where the complexity kicks in.
Mhm. Yeah. And then syncing everything up.
Yeah. Exactly. I mean, you can still do it with Facebook conversion API on the landing page and then with the MMP afterwards and then sync up in the in the MMP, but again, it's it's easy to talk about and it'll be harder to sync up in the real life afterwards.
Yeah. Well, I mean, where do you think at the end of the year we'll see anybody that has
Oh, 100% 100%. I'm pretty sure if Well,

I'm not sure if the big companies because uh they move slow. I mean it's still pretty big chunk of the revenues but I think smaller teams which are you know eager to to earn more money on top of what they are whatever they are earning in the in their apps. So I think that we will see definitely that and I'm still expecting it in 2026.
Do have you seen larger companies move slower with anything related to the web because they're worried that Apple will retaliate against them?
I had few conversations like this. So the companies just actually in in Barcelona, one of the big bigger companies from from Israel, they said, "Oh, we don't really want to do this because we really like um organics from Apple and we really we don't know
if it's going to happen." And it's an interesting boogeyman. So I can I can understand that obviously if I have so many of yeah such a big portion of revenue coming from App Store, then I might be scared.

But then I would say like high risk, high reward, high reward.
Could you see any games at the end of this year monetizing almost entirely from the web and and not using APS at all?
So actually one case study interestingly connected to the what we just discussed. They it was an app they removed payments from the from the app and then moved everything to web and then suddenly they saw a huge dip in organics. So basically if you're not getting revenues to the app store which are signals then well suddenly you are losing the rankings. I mean it can be also the tactic from Apple but also I mean logic because if you don't see any purchases then obviously why why should you get organic installs?
So I don't think it's like fully going to happen.
Yeah. I mean that's one of those things that is pretty logical right. I mean, like, you could view that as like some sort of, you know, evil policy, like, oh, we're going to starve you of organic discovery if you don't have any AIPS.

But then how do you tell if the game's any good if there's no?
Exactly. Yeah, that's that's the point. How can you get the signal and then like, okay, well, this is just an app without anything. Well, I guess,
right,
doesn't work. Or is it? So, Exactly.
Yeah. And then I mean, you know, it's it's what Apple said to defend its policy is correct. I mean, they do implement a lot of security and you have no idea what people are doing on the web and there's no way to audit that or it's very difficult and you could be just ripping people off. I mean, there is truth to that. I mean, it's not
that's true. Yeah. But it's also true like you can actually earn more money on on the web shop anyway, which is true.
Yeah. Yeah, I mean, you know, my sense is like they could have saved themselves a lot of pain here and I think it probably there there was a point, I think, in the last two years where it probably would have worked out in their favor monetarily if they would have just switched to 15% across the board.
Yeah. Yeah. For sure. Because at 30% it's not really justifiable to be honest.

Yeah. At 15% you probably wouldn't have that many people pushing into the web at all.
Yeah. Exactly. because like the people wouldn't care that much. That's why it's that's my opinion because it's it is a hustle honestly and it's like again like there's the gray area blah blah blah whatever else. So yeah 50% nah people would just say okay that's fine.
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shops for years and years. Supercell have been doing web shops for years and years. Playa we just talked about it. They had the cross compatibility thing. Can smaller games do that? Can they drive people to the web with link out and see the I mean how does a conversion rate change from big game to small game?
Uh even even Pixel Federation does that. I was just talking about about it with them and some smaller companies they it's still I mean you can do link out you can link out from the app. You can do all sort sorts of other stuff as the email marketing and all the all the different activities even social media which if it's uh good enough then it can work. Zinga is doing this. So it still can be like 20 30% of the revenue on top of it. Of course like if if you're not big enough then it's not maybe as sexy but even though like for them it's it's the additional margin. So I was still I'm talking to our our sponsors as well and they're saying even smaller companies making couple millions

a month it's still pretty big chunk of the revenue so why not
a couple million a month I don't know if that's small that's
okay
medium size to be
well small meaning okay so I'm I'm working with one game which is let's say 400,000 per month which is smaller okay so anything between 100k to 400k. Uh I would still do it less than 100k. Yeah, that's might be just like not really something which is interesting enough.
Okay. Because that that was going to be my next question is like where's the threshold? When do you start investing here? Because it is an investment and you have to build stuff.
Yeah. Yeah. Exactly.
I mean, you know, you work with Exola who's a sponsor. Thanks to Exola for sponsoring the the show, but I mean, you have the pipes and and that's great and it's very helpful and it saves a lot of time, but you still have to build out the store. Or you still have to get the connectivity going and and the fulfillment. So I mean it's not not work. I mean it
exactly and someone needs to actually manage that. And also you need to find a proper partner. So if they have someone

else and also not all these partners are equal because some they some of them they know more they have integrations with MMP some they they have not. So it's yeah it's it's actually quite quite a big chunk of work.
So you brought up MMPs. So, that's actually a question we got and I'm actually curious to hear your thoughts here because this just feels like such a dynamic space. I was I was talking to some people at at PGC and and like there's a large diversity of viewpoints here and I I'm curious to get your take. So, let me just let me So, I'm I'm kind of taking a couple questions we got about MPs and and combining them into one and and adding my own lens on it. But,
let's say we reconvene here uh what's today? Feb we reconvene February 16th, 2027. Are games still using MMPs or how many games are not using MMPs or is it just taken for granted that everyone has an MMP or what do you think the uh the use case for the MMP is in a year's time? I feel I feel even if we do like one year

from now like people are still going to use MMPs and it's maybe connected to the the question before like some of the people that I talked to there first of course some of them they even don't know what MMP is which is terrible if like in this 2026 for god's sake but uh I still think uh people are going to use it why not because still some of the smaller teams they don't know they don't have data teams they still need to attribute players they still need to use it for running at least some some UA So, I still think it's like it's still going to be here. Of course, we have other other companies, but still I don't think it's going to go away anytime soon.
You think there's will there be like let's say like let's let's define big as like I don't know 10 million a month or something in in in revenue. You think there's any big games where the studios have moved off of MMPs completely in a year's time or they'll still be using them but they'll be cuz my sense is like I I've changed my view on this too. I think the MMP is here to stay.
I think it's here to stay and and but you you need a lot more tools than just

the MMP now than you did. But I mean, yeah, like I mean, some companies use the MMP as their analytics back end. I mean, that's just what it And so
not not completely, but like that's it's a big chunk of it. And so, you know, you're never going to get rid of it. It's it's
Yeah,
it's too integrated. But
but do could you see a big company just moving away completely building some internal tools that just replace it altogether?
Well, big company, not really. I mean if it's a big company then it's going to take five years
and then a lot of money and then eventually it's like ah we have this internal tool which is great but it's so slow if something moves quickly in mobile games industry or the games industry which often happens then I'm not sure if they're going to be able to react. So, and I've been yeah I've been working with some big companies and they are always these teams like oh we will build any everything inhouse and it either takes again like as I said like million years or it never happens because it's too expensive. So I think yeah it's not going to move anywhere just people build stuff on top of it

that's it that's the kind of more efficient use of the MP.
Yeah let's go back to subscriptions. So how do you see subscriptions playing a role in game growth today? So that was that was a question and then I would just kind of add on to it like is that do do you see that growing as a share of revenue? Do you see it shrinking? Is it not changing or like how do how do you see that changing over time?
It's like blast from the past. I think like games and subscriptions like that was the thing a couple years ago and then it absolutely disappeared. So maybe with like the growth of apps and that subscription, it's going to maybe reignite some of that discussions, but I don't think like there is anything really meaningful in terms of the subscription. Maybe the battle passes should be a subscription recurring one, but if would that help? I have no idea. I don't think it's going to go I mean it's just going to be very small portion of the revenue which is usually like 10% maybe is 15.
Yeah.

So and then that's that's it. I don't see like the actual usage of that in in games that much.
Yeah. Well, I mean, the battle pass makes sense and, you know, just some sort of recurring, you know, gem pack or soft currency pack makes sense if you have like a really strong live ops loop.
Yeah.
But a lot of companies are not good at building those. And so, you can't really you can't layer a subscription on top of a weak live ops loop because no one sees the value, right? It's
Yeah. And then and then I can see the stom of people. Oh, I forgot to unsubscribe and now you're charging charging me even more money, you evil game. So, yeah, I I would really love to see that the discussion. So, I mean, it's interesting tool, but not for games that much.
Yeah. And even in the in the app space, I've seen the shape of subscriptions change a lot. So you see a lot of like the subscriptions being like differing uh like you know sort of non-stand like not what you'd expect in terms of the regularity of the the recurring payment

and just experimenting with that has I've seen companies like unlock a lot more revenue just playing around with different um time frames for the subscription. So it's not and then having different tiers of the subscriptions. I think
my sense is like
actually this is a good this is maybe a good follow-up question but like my sense is like where you know this is so use case specific and so context dependent that you just have to try a bunch of stuff.
Yeah.
And like gaming companies tend to be pretty bad at that. I I think just because like because gaming companies I I and you know I get yelled at whenever I say this but I think it's true. Gaming companies are not led by product managers or let's let's say g games are not led by product managers. Games are led by producers.
Yes. Exactly.
Producers wear beretss and they see the game as their canvas.
Yeah.
To express their artistic vision. They're not like a PM. You know, go walk into an app company, talk to the PM,
and you say, "I want to change the onboarding flow and, you know, do this this and he's like, "Okay, well, we'll test it."

You say that to a gaming producer and they'll yell at you.
Yeah. Don't touch my baby.
Don't touch my baby. This is art. I've made art. you don't understand it,
you know, you brute, you buffoon.
And so, like, it's just you don't have that. And, you know, look, I get yelled at all the time because people are like, "Well, we experiment with everything." And, you know, we we have no sacred cows. Okay, fine. You're the exception.
Usually, they're not,
but let's say you are. But, I mean, for the most part in the main, dealing with producers tends to be kind of excruciating because they don't want to change anything. Everything has been summoned from, you know, some deep well of artistic insight that can never be questioned. And, you know, if you as like the analytics guy like I was for a long time, try to push like, ah, why don't we try this or just have something set up where that allows us to test different things, they just reject that out of hand.
Yeah. Well, I remember this discussion when I had with like the actual producer, guys, I see let's say five placements for ads. we can easily implement that and it's like oh don't

even tell me like the revenue is growing I mean call me when when is the other way around and when it's going to be decreasing I was like then after a couple of years then he implemented the ads and then earn like four or five millions on top of the revenue that they were earning like I do kind of you know realize like this could be already done
oh no no no no so like yeah and this is I know this is very tough discussion to have and always the I when I see the on different onboardings in the apps business on the app space it's insane like how many different variations they're testing just to
kind of get better and like the higher conversions I haven't seen these types of AB tests for let's say special off I mean kind of special offers yes maybe messaging yes but then it's not exactly the same and I can yeah people can argue like testing on boarding on apps is very it's easier than testing on boarding and

gaming and tutorial and stuff but all theum live ops things they can be tested so much until forever and I didn't see like that happening that often exactly because because of what you just said which is interesting and it should be it should be tested basically everything even even when when I'm talking like to my team and then producing creatives and we are saying maybe brainstorming and then like people from the from the actual product that they're just going and then tell me their feedback for creatives. And I guys,
I don't want to know your feedback,
right?
You Yeah. You I don't want to know what you think about the critics because this is going to be wild. And every time they see like, "Oh my god, we can't this again. This is my baby. I this can't look like this. Needs to way more polished." Guys, no. How about no, let's test it out then we can we can talk about it.
Yeah. I mean, don't get me started on that. I mean that is you know so the toughest conversations I've had about creative I mean you you end up having you know really challenging

conversations just about call it like brand integrity
certainly certainly like like like fidelity in terms of like representing the actual gameplay and and we can we can talk about that because I got a question about that too but someone submitted a question about fake game ads of you know you've been pretty vocal about it recently but what I would respond with is like look if you want to provide feedback on every ad we're going to here all week.
Exactly.
I mean, you understand that I'm going to deploy 200 ads this week.
Like, there's no time. I can't possibly collect your feedback on every single one. Like, we're going to test stuff and see what works. On the brand suitability side,
yes, I I accept that and I'm happy to have that discussion and you just give me a list of things that are red lines that I won't cross and and that's fine. Like, that I'm totally willing to do that. Like, that's the easiest way to do it. But I need to be able to test too many concepts, much less variants a week for you to be able to give feedback on any given thing. And and if you just eliminate things, all you're doing is you're reducing that scope of

performance. I mean, because ultimately that's what it is. Like we're going to find stuff that works and it's it's some set of coordinates on some, you know, multi-dimensional plane that I don't even really think it's interesting to try to dissect. If it works, it worked. All that tells me, and I mean, this is where I get a lot of push back, too. I am focused on the process. I'm not focused on the output. If the output worked, that means the process worked. It didn't mean that there's something to learn from the output. That's been my position for a long time. But it's even more so my position now because of the ramp up in volume that you have to produce. So if the creative worked and it was a winner, great. That means the process produced something that worked. Now what I care about is the consistency of the win rate. I don't care about what the creative looked like. And if you say, well, the creative worked because of XYZ thing. had a red tint or it had a tank in it or it had a dog. I say that's you can't know that. You can't possibly know that. What I know is that the process produced something that worked. And if the hit rate stayed the same, if the rate of change is increasing in favor of more winners, that's what I care about, not the actual output. And

I'm not going to try to dissect the output. And I'm not certainly not going to try to psychoanalyze the person that clicked on it. What I'm going to say is like there's too many variables here for me to ever be able to comprehend why someone clicked it. What I care about is the process. If the hit rate is steady or increasing the process works and that is yes or no.
Yeah 100%. Because then yeah we can enter the the never- ending feedback loop and then suddenly it's like nothing is going to win because we are just stuck in the feedback loop forever and then we're not testing enough. And I'm yeah I'm also talking about you need to just test volumes of creatives now. It's like I mean there's no other way unfortunately and if the creative looks like it it usually is even performing better than the high polished ones because it doesn't look like an ad. So I don't really care and sometimes when I say oh let's just you know because I I I really care about the people in the within the company and I

say okay let's just review this afterwards I know I made a very big mistake because then that's exactly the never ending uh feedback l we we don't we want to avoid and then I was like okay you know what stop let's just get back to the testing and then we can we can talk after we get some data in because that's it that's pretty much it
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So, we did get a question about fake ads. I'm going to adapt it to the conversation, but but so but there is a red line, right? I mean, there is a red

line here. I mean, some of these ads have gotten perverse and disturbed
and I don't I wouldn't feel comfortable associating my company or my game with them. Certainly games that are designed for, you know, primarily to be played by
Well, I mean, kids games are one thing. I mean kids kids games you can you can kind of put that to the aside because I don't really think there are that many successful studios making like kids focused games. I mean a lot of you know for the most part I think you're targeting you know 40 plus women
parents anyway. Yeah exact even if it's kids game you're targeting or yeah like parents but of course I don't really like producing sexist ads like anything gross. It's just yeah I mean given like the ethic ethical reasons obviously I don't want to do it. Fake ads or misleading ads I don't care that much. Uh also like it needs to have like certain visuals and logic behind let's say the runner gates mechanic in forex needs to have different like specific elements within the within those ads to make it work. But yes, like anything which is like freezing families. H

freezing babies and like oh my god like come on I can see how it works and why it works but oh my I I tried to stay away from that
right I mean you know there's a lot of things that you know could could be you know commercially viable that we just disallow in our society. Uh and you know so like I mean some of these ads are are truly perverse.
Yeah it's it's terrible. It's terrible to watch. But then again, like people are just screaming, "Oh, why don't just, you know, the the platforms don't just ban this." And then it's like, "Guys, they're making money out of this." Like why would they ever ban anything like this? It's just it's never going to happen. And one exa like amazing example was like one of our friends like Paul West, he said like some of their competitors, they were using even like their ads with his face on in in the video. personal face.
Yeah. And he he was like, "Guys, like, can you take this down?" Like, "Oh, we need more evidence." Like, "What more

evidence do you need?" It's this is my face, which was in the creatives that our company their stole. Like, guys, come on. No, we need more evidence. So, it's like
Do they do that just to troll him?
I I have no I hope so. I really hope so.
Funny.
Yeah. So, I mean, yeah, they just platforms, they don't really care that much. So why would they? And this is just like the great example of it.
So So I'll tell a quick uh quick story. So this I mean this is recent like someone messaged me on the mobile demo Slack like I don't know two months ago and I had published a a course like years ago.
Yeah.
That was like pretty expensive and I you know it was up for a couple years and I looked at it like a year ago and I was like you know what this isn't I'm not proud of this anymore. It's just dated. like it just wasn't it just it just didn't it wasn't current and so I took it down
uh like I you know deactivated it or whatever and the reason this person

reached out was because like they had an account and they tried to like log in and it was it was down and so I was like oh okay so I just sent them the videos and they said by the way there's a website selling your course for $99 and like my my course was like almost a thousand
and I went I went to the website and it had the original price you know on it and and it had just a big line through it and it's like, "Oh, you're in luck. Uh, this is on like 90% discount."
And I was like, "What is this?" And so I looked up like, "How do you how can I get this taken down?"
And so Google has a way to, you know, submit a petition so they'll at least exclude it from search, right? And so I said, "Hey, this is my course. Like it's got my name on it."
Yeah.
And they, you could see the screenshot of, you know, the video and it's got my face in it. I'm like, "That's me. can you please and I I don't approve of this. Can you just take it down? And they're like, "How do" And they, you know, someone responded like, "How do we know it's you?"
And so I just took a picture of my face in front of the screen

with the the picture of my face on it, right? Like on the It's like, "See, it's me. It's the same." And they just never responded.
Yeah. Well, there you there you go. It's uh it's insane because what people do these days, it's especially companies from China, they just pretty much steal the creatives that you are running and they just crop the end card or Yeah. just remove the end card from the actual video and then just run and just run it as as their own video.
It works. That's like the worst part of of that whole exercise. It actually works. and some of the the new wave of the social casinos like the the Top Tycoon and Carnival Tycoons uh which have the different like different onboarding but then it's just pretty much slot machine afterwards. They're using creatives from different games which are idle games and it works so well. So I was like okay let's test it test this out. So my team made like 10 videos for for my let's say plant the

identification app for let's say $5 CPI. I stole some or like let's say it's yeah I just downloaded some of the planned apps creatives tested against each other and those stolen creatives have like $1.2 CPI. I was like oh okay interesting. So that's why people are stealing the creatives because actually if you find a good one that fits whatever you are running actually can work way way better than the new creative. Is it okay? I don't think so. But unfortunately, people found out about this long time ago and now I can see it across the whole gaming industry. So that's like that's I would say like that's where we draw draw the line of even worse than fake ass like stealing each other's creatives which is the worst case scenario I guess.
Well so that's that actually leads to another question. Again I'm going to adapt it to the conversation but so how long do you get like let's say you get a creative out and you know it just

outperforms everything. It's it's a massive winner. Like how long do you get to keep that to yourself? Like before someone discovers it and rips it off and clones it and
I think that's just a matter of like a week maybe. Well, yeah, depends on like who are your competitors. If your competitors are Century Games, then you have maybe couple of days because I know cuz I know some of my friends from from Turkey, they said every creative we produce like it's it's basically after a couple of days is already on on Sentry Games account and just adapted to their their their games. So, it's that quick. Obviously, uh if you have 400 people in the creative team, it's quite easy to uncover the new teams and creative winners. So yeah, but then I think even now with let's say with with the Pixel Flow uh guys and their creatives, I think now we're starting to see after their huge success starting to see the the conveyor belts and their kind of little bit of their mechanics in

different games genres like Forex and strategy games. So if it's the same genre, I would say weeks. If it's other genre, maybe couple of months. But yeah, it's not like 2014 or 15. No. Un unfortunately. Or fortunately. I'm not sure. I can't decide.
So, do do playables insulate you? Do they act as a defense a little bit because it's just harder to make a playable or or no? Because I mean those are you can basically make them in the same amount of time as a video now.
Yeah. I think it's uh you can make them in well let's say you can make it in like two weeks. If you have big big team then it's it can be even less than that which all the all the big companies have. But uh even now like some tools well mine included have we have like 150 templates. So you can just take a template and you have it playable out out there in like a day pretty much.
And if I when I I I saw the jigsaw pretty much scaling which is again just

like puzzle game and it's pretty much jigsaw puzzle 3x3 or 4x4 doesn't matter. I just took one of the best performing static images that I had for uh a hidden object game. I took that playable, put it like took the template, put it on on AppLin, suddenly best performing playable out of all of them in in a couple of days and scale like 5x the budget and even the ROS they exploded. So you don't really need even weeks anymore. That's the scary part. That's the scary part.
Is it harder to clone a playable? Because I mean with a with a video ad you can just download the video like you said and swap a little bit. Yeah, it's hard to it's hard to clone the playable. Uh you can copy that. You just need to swap the assets. So yeah, that's that's that's a little bit the hardest part.
And is is that why you think playables are are becoming a bigger portion of of budgets for some studios? I think because of uploving rather than just because of that because up is already 50% well-ish depends on who who you talk

to but pretty big portion of the of the spend and you need absolutely like playables for uploving and
when when I was amplify they said top companies produce 60 playables per month
which is insane but I guess you know like it's like the white house revivals
ro matches and all all the big guys but still
that's a huge number
it's a huge Yeah, right. It's a huge number, but it's like uh high number of creatives in general cored success and and bigger success. The same thing for uploading and the playables. So, right now for me, I'm just doing what like two three playables a month at least. Ideal scenario is like five
and plus.
What uh so this is a question we we got. What tools are you using for creative production? What are the what are the kind of like uh most current most modern tools for for producing creatives?
Oh jeez. I mean where do I start? I actually just just um published an

article about the tool and the the actual step by step. So it's anything from all the AI stuff usually like the clo chip and Gemini to all the Adobe After Effects Blender and regular stuff for for the motion designers. But if I am producing a playable playable video, I'm just using all the all the cling and and the V3 pretty much AI stuff and I'm now working pretty much with the lay layer AI which com kind of combines all the all the tools out there.
So how automated can that get? Can that get fully automated?
It can get fully automated. I'm now actually building one one workflow which is pretty much connected to the tasty travels cute animal AI videos which are basically everywhere. So now I built this pipeline and I want to auto automate like fully automated. So I'm I have my own game assets. I want to to transform this asset with AI uh to the cute animals and then pretty much

add like slide animation on top of it and then stitch together add the the end card and then export. It's like five steps workflow easily done. Have you seen Sea Dance, too? Oh,
it's it's on my Twitter. It's pretty much everywhere. Oh,
and I also saw the Disney uh lawsuit against the
Yeah. Yeah. Well, they Yeah. Well, they also um Did you see the video? It was the the Cance produced fight between Tom Cruz and Brad Pitt and and then that immediately prompted a lawsuit.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I saw also the Wolverine versus Superman and and even Darth Vader versus Thanos. I was like, "Oh my god, this is exactly what I needed." So funny. But it was so so great. I mean, like the production value. Oh my god.
It's insane.
There was one of it was a curve your enthusiasm, you know, clip that was

produced with Cance 2 and you you wouldn't be able to tell that that was not and it was the the person pasted the prompt. It was like a sentence
and it produced a 30-cond and it was funny. It was like it came out of the
like it came out of the the show.
I mean, it's it's kind of it's this we're we're entering a a kind of bizarre strange new new era here, but but I think once you can get that hooked up for the purpose I I don't know where you can access Dance to right now. I was I was playing I was trying to play around with it last night and I couldn't find anywhere where you could actually get access to it. But
no, it's still it's still beta and it's still Yeah, invite only. But once you get that into a production workflow, I mean, we're talking like we're talking like real 3D render like live footage essentially that you're being able to add to your your creatives.
Yeah, 100%. Even even like the the Genie 3 that was launched uh recently. I don't think it's going to like
destroy games. I would rather use this for like building worlds for the creative, right? Like it's way way better usage of of that product. the the

tools that I'm using now with like all the like the the article that I mentioned it's pretty much talking about like the one video would take me or the guys from my team like a week now it's done let's say a day which because then you need to have like a professional voice over whatever else
right
lip syncing style and then like post-prouction all the all the AI like movements and it just speeds up pretty much everything if you if like if you know how to use it more efficiently, but then that's it. I mean, that's a huge help.
What about the platform tools? Like, are you using any of Facebook's creative production tools for games? I feel like that's more for ecom.
It's more for ecom. I tried to use it for for games or or some like experiments. It's not there yet. It's not there yet. But think about it. I was talking to Facebook about exactly this like if they can build a proper tool for for videos even while

using their own data to kind of let's say like showcase what is actually working on the platform for different genres
because for small teams and small developers they don't have like big creative teams. They have no idea what to do. And if they can use their data to just help these guys to spend more and show them like what works and they don't even really need to leave the platform. Yeah, sounds sounds interesting.
No, I mean they absolutely should. I I I'm a little surprised they seem to be moving pretty slowly.
I I would expect them to to have already launched these tools for for game advertisers. I mean, that's that's one of the reasons why I think they're poised for like a big year with gaming because I I think they have a lot of stuff that they could launch very easily that would just kind of get them to a state where they're providing functionality that some of these studios just don't have. And that's what's going to unlock
net new UA spend. Not just incrementally

I mean incrementally new UA spend, but like big chunks of it from studios that just don't have those capabilities.
Exactly. Yeah. That was that was exactly my pitch to them. guys like if you want to grow again and there I mean certain extent to grow again uh like to have more small size developers and there is lot of them I mean this is exactly how because they don't need to leave the platform and they need they need creatives I mean they need lots of creatives
and this is how you easily can build that
analytics what are you using for analytics what's what's state of play what's what's the best of the best with analytics right now
I mean there's usually I plug myself into whatever company is using. So there's usually MMP and then Looker or anything for for actual dashboards and then whatever like Amplitude and what else? I mean and obviously Firebase, but that's pretty much usually like internal internal stuff.
So just kind of Firebase plus MMP plus maybe some internal
dashboarding. Yeah, internal. Yeah,

internal dashboarding tools and then that's pretty much it.
All right. What about competitive analysis? What are you using for competitive analysis?
I usually do I mean if I have if you have paid uh access to sensor tower that's my go-to usually. If you don't then I'm you know like ads library, Google transparency and Tik Tok and I use even Tik Tok for trends pretty much. But since you know we are doing the the compet creative analysis for for podcast like I'm always in sensor. Got
it. Let me talk about Tik Tok. How do you feel about Tik Tok for gaming?
Oh, it's my let's say third best ch Well, depends on the game, but like second or third best channel for for iOS.
Really?
Yeah.
Wow.
It's working really well. Yeah. Behind Apple obviously.
And then what's three? Google then then Meta.
Yeah. Then Yeah. Usually Facebook is uh is on the second or third spot, but FA Well, Tik Tok is always up there with

Smart Plus and then the the Tik Tok one creatives. I mean, amazing. Still works.
Wow, that's surprising.
Yeah, it doesn't matter really like like what kind of genre. It works for me, for hidden object, for metry, for strategy as well.
Yeah, their their smart plus has improved a lot. You know, when they first launched it, I was a little bit skeptical because it didn't it didn't really seem to do much.
Terrible. It was terrible. But it's interesting to see how Tik Tok evolved over time and especially even like now in last four four months pretty much.
Yeah. I mean I had a lot of conversations with people that where you know they kind of thought that Tik Tok had kind of pressed pause on doing anything like really innovative because they just didn't know what the status of the company was going to be. I don't know if I find that to I didn't hear that from anybody in Tik Tok, but I heard that from people who apparently knew people in Tik Tok that were saying that. I found that a little hard to believe because I felt like
well it's still going to exist. I mean, no matter what, but and it felt like I

mean Trump said I mean, you know, before he even got elected that he was he was going to find a way to to to not ban Tik Tok. So, it didn't feel like there was a huge risk there,
but uh but yeah, I it's it's improved. Tik Tok's improved a lot for other categories. I haven't I don't have too much access to it on the gaming side, but Okay. It sounds like it performs well.
Yeah.
All right. And then this one, I'm just really curious to hear what you have to say. So, what genre are you most excited about this year? What what do you think is going to be a breakout or what do you think is going to be uh just uh capturing the most revenue or or or is it just, you know, nothing's going to change?
I don't think a lot's going to change. Uh, I know there's at least 100 Forex games coming from China to the store this year from my friends. So, that's going to be an interesting battle there. But then like there the first genre that works really well. Then the second one is by tree. Great. What else do we have? Honestly, I'm pretty skeptical about anything else.
Where do you think hybrid casual sits?

It sits right before match free because even all like these new titles that are growing revenues are way more close to casual than the hybrid casual that was let's say two years ago. So it was a stepping stone towards casual games and I'm pretty sure like the the Pixlow is the the great example. It is still close to hyper casual but way more casual than the rest. That's why they're earning so much money on IP side,
right? I'm going tell you, there were a couple questions that we didn't get to. Just have to bring you back again. Uh, yes, but I appreciate this. This is great. We covered a lot of ground. Thanks so much. And you know, feel free to plug your stuff now. Where can people find you? Where can they consume your your wisdom and your insight?
Yeah, just LinkedIn Matthew or it's actually the brutally honest newsletter, which is lancherish.subststeag.com. And yeah, just hit me up on LinkedIn or just go to Two and a Half Gamers on YouTube and then subscribe there. Thanks, Eric. This was amazing. Thank you very much. Smash that subscribe

button. All thank you so much. Good to see you.
Good to see you. Thanks.