In-Game Advertising reports and market data
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STOP Making These 4 Ad Monetization Mistakes | A Guide to Higher CPMs
Game studios frequently experience stagnant revenue despite traffic growth due to inefficient ad stacks and hidden technical fees that erode net margins.
- Prioritize the net dollar amount received from ad networks over negotiated revenue-share percentages, as contracted splits often do not reflect actual payouts.
- Adopt in-app header bidding as the primary monetization strategy to reduce operational overhead, as it requires significantly less manual maintenance than traditional waterfall setups.
- Optimize ad frequency and placement based on the specific game genre and player journey rather than industry averages, as casual games can support higher ad loads than creative or lifestyle-focused titles.
💰 Ad Monetization Trends - Prison games take over by Felix Braberg
The mobile gaming market is currently experiencing a significant shift in simulation and idle arcade genres, characterized by a widespread transition toward prison-themed titles.
- The mobile simulation and idle arcade genres are shifting toward prison-themed titles, replacing the previous market dominance of supermarket-themed simulators.
- Supercent's 'Prison Life' generates an estimated $38 million annual run rate by combining high-frequency rewarded ads with interstitials and a free-to-premium speed-up onboarding funnel.
- Developers are successfully reskinning existing supermarket simulator mechanics to fit prison settings, as seen in titles like 'Prison Escape Journey' and 'Prison Escape Simulator'.
Masters of Publishing 3: Ads Don’t Kill Retention, Bad Ads Do (Maayan Aharonovitch, Monetization)
Hybrid casual gaming represents a distinct industry segment that requires a sophisticated, integrated approach to monetization.
- Hybrid casual games must integrate monetization into the core gameplay loop during the initial design phase rather than treating it as an afterthought.
- Successful monetization relies on dynamic, automated player segmentation that identifies friction points and offers rewarded video ads as value-driven solutions.
- There is a strong synergy between ad-watching and paying behaviors, as high-value users often engage with both rewarded videos and in-app purchases simultaneously.
From Offerwall to Always-On: Xsolla’s Take on Player Engagement
The evolution of game commerce is shifting toward integrated, "always-on" ecosystems that prioritize player engagement through a combination of brandformance, gamification, and unified monetization tools.
- Xsolla is consolidating game commerce tools—including webshops, offerwalls, and social quests—into a single integration to reduce resource overhead and eliminate fragmented data for publishers.
- Brands are shifting toward 'brandformance' marketing, which moves beyond passive awareness to trackable, measurable return on ad spend (ROAS) within gaming environments.
- Offerwalls are evolving from simple reward mechanisms into sophisticated engagement platforms where users earn virtual currency by interacting with brands, such as subscribing to services like Paramount+.
Is Roblox Turning Into TikTok?
Roblox’s recent developer conference (RDC) signaled a strategic shift toward aggressive platform expansion, characterized by an 8.5% increase in the developer exchange (DevX) rate and the introduction of new monetization and engagement tools.
- Roblox is shifting from a game engine to a vertically integrated social and advertising ecosystem, aiming to maximize platform GDP through increased user attention and ad revenue.
- The platform increased its developer exchange (DevX) rate by 8.5% to incentivize creators to retain capital and reinvest within the Roblox ecosystem.
- Economic disparity remains significant, as only 29,000 of the 3.1 million total developers—less than 1%—successfully cash out earnings annually.
Why Adding Brands to Games Is So Hard with Bastian Bergmann
Video games represent a uniquely powerful medium for human transformation, driven by the fundamental human impulse for play.
- Brands should prioritize low-lift partnerships within existing gaming ecosystems rather than building custom experiences from scratch to mitigate risk and development costs.
- Successful brand integration requires shifting from traditional advertising to gamification that aligns with the inherent mechanics of play, as seen in Peloton’s Lane Break and Dettol’s Roblox campaigns.
- To move beyond vague awareness metrics, organizations must establish business-aligned KPIs such as loyalty sign-ups and long-term retention to track the effectiveness of gaming initiatives.
🌾 Little Farm Story: SayGames’ New #1 Title. The Ad Simulator Farming.
Little Farm Story has emerged as the primary revenue driver for SayGames, currently generating between $67,000 and $70,000 in daily global revenue.
- Little Farm Story is currently SayGames' primary revenue driver, generating between $67,000 and $70,000 in daily global revenue.
- The game utilizes a balanced monetization model that splits income almost evenly between rewarded ads, interstitial advertisements, and in-app purchases.
- The core progression strategy relies on aggressive, annoyance-based ad gating to funnel players into a one-time purchase for ad removal.
The 4 Generations of Rewarded Ads: Personalization + LiveOps = The Future of Offerwalls
The evolution of rewarded advertising has transitioned through four distinct stages, moving from rudimentary rank-boosting installs and simple level-based rewards to the sophisticated, playtime-centric models popularized by platforms like Mistplay.
- Rewarded monetization has evolved into a fourth generation characterized by hyper-personalization, data-driven targeting, and LiveOps-powered engagement.
- Offerwalls can contribute between 5% and 30% of a game's total revenue, serving as a critical alternative monetization channel for non-payers and 'dolphins'.
- Modern offerwall solutions must integrate media source data from platforms like AppLovin, Unity, and Google to dynamically match game offers to specific user acquisition sources and behaviors.
Inside RDC 2025: How Roblox Is Courting Pro Developer
Roblox is undergoing a strategic transformation to transition from a hobbyist-driven ecosystem into a professional-grade gaming platform capable of competing with major industry incumbents.
- Roblox is shifting its strategic focus toward professional-grade content to compete with industry incumbents, supported by 112 million daily active users and 48 million concurrent users.
- The platform is incentivizing the creation of high-fidelity, mature content by increasing the developer exchange rate by 8.5 percent.
- New monetization tools include a mobile-style ad technology suite featuring rewarded video ads developed in partnership with Google.
(Live Case Study) AdMon for Beginners: Full Setup Walkthrough by Matej & Felix
Setting up ad monetization (AdMon) is a critical, albeit labor-intensive, process for mobile app developers.
- Implement an app-ads.txt file on the developer's official website to comply with IAB anti-fraud standards and verify all integrated ad networks.
- Integrate ad networks—including Google AdMob, AppLovin, IronSource, Unity, Meta, and Mintegral—into a centralized mediation platform like MAX to enable payout reconciliation and fraud protection.
- Maintain a centralized documentation system to track unique publisher IDs and ad unit configurations, as each network utilizes distinct protocols and administrative portals.
✈️ Epic Plane Evolution: The $150K/day Hypercasual comeback
Epic Plane Evolution demonstrates a resurgence in the hypercasual market, currently generating approximately $150,000 in daily revenue and securing over 100,000 daily downloads.
- Epic Plane Evolution is generating approximately $150,000 per day in revenue with over 100,000 daily downloads, primarily driven by a hypercasual model.
- Revenue is heavily skewed toward iOS (80–85% of total earnings) due to the inclusion of VIP subscriptions and gem bundles that are entirely absent from the Android version.
- The game utilizes a 'convert or die' monetization strategy, relying on aggressive rewarded ad placements and interstitial spam to drive an average playtime of 13 minutes per day.
Why do apps with in-app advertising (IAA) love Tenjin?
Tenjin provides mobile app developers with a dual-method approach to measuring in-app advertising (IAA) revenue, offering both ad mediation revenue and ad revenue sourced from monetization channel APIs.
- Tenjin provides a dual-method approach to IAA measurement by integrating ad mediation SDK data with ad revenue sourced from monetization channel APIs.
- Ad mediation revenue is captured at the impression level to facilitate real-time optimization and automated ROAS-based bidding.
- Ad revenue via channel APIs is pulled on an aggregate, country-specific basis and proportionally allocated to user acquisition campaigns based on session volume.