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🚙 30 Rewarded Ads, No Daily Cap: How Hill Climb Racing 2 Monetizes 2.5 Billion Downloads
Hill Climb Racing 2 is presented as a case study in rewarded-video-led monetization, with the game's physics-based arcade driving and layered power progression supporting a revenue mix of roughly 70 percent in-app purchases and 30 percent advertising.
- Hill Climb Racing 2 reportedly earns about 70% of revenue from in-app purchases and about 30% from advertising, with a parts gacha system driving most purchases.
- The developers run nearly thirty rewarded ad placements, many without daily caps, based on the view that paying users also watch ads heavily.
- Interstitial testing showed little retention impact even when frequency was delayed or reduced, while a 180-second cooldown after rewarded views reportedly lifted earnings by encouraging higher-eCPM rewarded impressions.
The Games Market Is Growing. Or Is It?
The global games market is experiencing a period of stagnation when adjusted for inflation, with real-term growth estimated at approximately 2% annually.
- The global games market is experiencing stagnation, with real-term growth adjusted for inflation at only 2% annually despite higher nominal figures.
- Market revenue is highly concentrated, with just five companies responsible for nearly all recent industry gains.
- Consumer spending on PC and console platforms is heavily risk-averse, with 93% of revenue directed toward existing titles rather than new intellectual property.
Rewarded Ads Pay Back in 30 Days for Small Studios
In this interview, Tatem Games CEO and founder Igor Karev discusses how his studio, active in mobile games since 2009 and running rewarded advertising for roughly eight years, treats rewarded as a profitable user acquisition channel.
- Rewarded advertising can reach payback within about 30 days, which is especially valuable for smaller studios that cannot sustain the longer paybacks typical of conventional performance campaigns, though results depend on the game, funnel and network.
- Rewarded users behave differently from standard players, so products, data infrastructure and onboarding must be adapted to fit them rather than reusing standard player assumptions.
- Players in Japan engage with rewarded placements far more deeply and for longer than in Western markets, which Tatem links to cultural familiarity with reward-based systems, so campaigns are optimized by geography and by network.
People Can’t Stop Playing These Games
The gaming industry is currently defined by a tension between entrenched player habits and the rapid, albeit cautious, integration of emerging technologies.
- While 94% of large studios have integrated AI into production pipelines, adoption remains superficial and focused on general productivity rather than deep pipeline integration.
- Player engagement remains heavily concentrated in established ecosystems like Roblox and Fortnite, though high-quality titles like War Dogs, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4, and Final Fantasy Resonance continue to capture significant market share.
- AI-driven tools are accelerating the discovery of security exploits, forcing console manufacturers like Sony and Nintendo into a continuous, reactive battle against piracy on platforms including the PlayStation 5 and Switch 2.
"Anyone can make a game now" — Meta Horizon VP Interview
This interview with Sax Persson, VP of Meta's Horizon platform, centers on Meta's new prompt-based game creation tools, Horizon Create and Horizon Studio, which let users generate 2D or 3D mobile games from a text description and publish them to Facebook, Instagram, or Meta's Horizon platform.
- Meta's Horizon Create and Horizon Studio let users generate 2D or 3D mobile games from a text prompt and publish them to Facebook, Instagram, or Meta's Horizon platform, aiming to lower the barrier to game development.
- Meta's VP of Horizon, Sax Persson, frames the tools as complementary to the traditional games industry rather than a replacement, calling them "the modern way of making games."
- Persson argues that user-generated content on platforms like Roblox, Fortnite, and Minecraft already accounts for a major share of player hours, supporting the case for creator-made games.
What Happens When AI Becomes Your Gaming Teammate
The integration of foundation models into game development is shifting the industry toward autonomous behavior engines capable of managing complex, goal-oriented decision-making at runtime.
- Foundation models are shifting game AI from scripted behavior trees to autonomous, goal-oriented agents capable of improvising based on player intent.
- Hierarchical training models allow studios to reduce AI inference costs to single-digit cents per player hour, making the technology economically viable compared to using expensive frontier models.
- Successful agent implementation requires 'agent empathy,' where virtual entities are designed with environmental awareness to ensure they function naturally within the game world.
Don't Finish Your Game. Do This Instead.
The speaker argues that indie developers should stop treating a 1.0 launch as the finish line and instead treat their game as a platform: a continuously updated intellectual property that grows alongside a community.
- The speaker argues indie developers should treat a 1.0 launch as the start of a continuously updated platform rather than the finish line, nurturing an existing audience instead of competing with the flood of new releases expected in 2027.
- The thesis is based on personal experience and industry conversations rather than formal research, and is presented as a strategic perspective rather than established fact.
- The example is Twisted Tower, which the speaker says has roughly 230,000 wish lists along with strong sales and reviews.
🦆 Duck Survival: The Legend of Mushroom Team Plays a 4X Game Without the 4X Map
The discussion centers on Duck Survival, a mobile game that the hosts describe as a 4X-style title lacking a traditional 4X map but built on a roguelite tower-defense core borrowed heavily from Kingshot.
- Duck Survival, a 4X-style mobile game built on a roguelite tower-defense core borrowed heavily from Kingshot, reportedly launched with about 270,000 daily downloads and is now the publisher's largest Western title, though the hosts cannot verify revenue by store.
- The game layers the full Legend of Mushroom monetization framework (capture mechanics, gacha, and account-age gating) over an early honeymoon phase of abundant resources and rewarded ads that gives way to grinding or spending once progression walls appear.
- Revenue growth came from expansion out of Taiwan and South Korea into Japan, a market driven largely by iOS, while the United States contributes roughly 20 percent of revenue and ad income is estimated at around 50,000 per day, likely with a large share from Russia.
EA shuts down BioWare and Supercell buys Metacore | Week in Mobile Games
The mobile gaming industry is currently navigating a period of significant structural change, characterized by studio closures, strategic acquisitions, and a shift in how developers approach user acquisition and market viability.
- Electronic Arts is closing BioWare and laying off approximately 400 employees to prioritize established live-service franchises like Apex Legends and Battlefield over high-budget single-player projects.
- Supercell has fully acquired Metacore, the developer of Merge Mansion, to bring the title under direct management following a long-standing financial partnership.
- Mika Games has launched a $10 million funding initiative specifically designed to support mobile studios during the soft-launch phase by financing user acquisition testing.
How Final Fantasy Went Old-School Again
Final Fantasy Resonance, released in 2026, represents a strategic pivot for Square Enix, reimagining the 2015 mobile gacha game Final Fantasy Brave Exvius as a traditional, premium console and PC role-playing game.
- Square Enix released Final Fantasy Resonance in 2026 as a premium console and PC reimagining of the 2015 mobile gacha title Final Fantasy Brave Exvius.
- The project successfully transitioned the mobile game into a traditional JRPG by removing free-to-play gacha mechanics and utilizing the company's signature HD-2D art style.
- The game achieved early commercial traction with over 26,000 concurrent players on Steam shortly after its launch.
He Quit His Job & Became The Lead Artist On Twisted Tower (w/ Felipe Caravelli) — Ep 73
The independent game development landscape is currently defined by a tension between the efficiency of automated tools and the enduring value of human-centric, handcrafted artistry.
- Prioritize a cohesive, intentional aesthetic over generic high-fidelity realism to stand out in an oversaturated market.
- Utilize modular, grid-based geometry and exaggerated art styles to maintain economic viability while ensuring consistent performance and visual depth.
- Transitioning to an independent career requires shifting from traditional employment to a freelance model, necessitating strong financial discipline and the ability to manage project-based income instability.
Steam Next Fest is cooked! It's the slop right? It is cooked slop?
Steam Next Fest has evolved into a critical barometer for indie game success, driven by a surge in developer participation and the increasing accessibility of AI-assisted development tools.
- Steam Next Fest functions as an amplifier for existing momentum rather than a discovery engine for unknown projects, making pre-event marketing essential for success.
- Success is heavily dependent on genre selection, with strategy, simulation, and crafting-oriented games consistently achieving superior peak concurrent user counts and wishlist growth.
- Platformer genres, including 2D, 3D, and puzzle variants, consistently struggle to capture significant player engagement compared to systems-driven titles.