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Session: AI Creative Factory: How We Scaled Performance Creative Without Scaling Costs - A. Kempe.
The rapid escalation in demand for performance creative in mobile app marketing has necessitated a shift from individual, manual ad production to an industrialized, assembly-line approach.
- Modern performance marketing success is driven by the volume of distinct creative concepts rather than minor iterations, as platforms like Meta and TikTok prioritize fresh content.
- Industrializing creative production through AI allows teams to scale output from dozens of ads per week to hundreds, directly improving cost-per-install (CPI) and hook rates.
- Organizations should transition from fragmented prompting to a centralized system that trains LLMs on brand guidelines, competitor research, and historical performance metrics.
Session: From Workflows to Agents: The AI Shift Redefining UA Creative Production - I. Kuznetsov.
The shift from static AI workflows to autonomous agentic systems is fundamentally redefining user acquisition (UA) creative production in the mobile gaming industry.
- Top-performing mobile developers are now shipping up to 15,000 creative assets per quarter, with many studios tripling their ad iteration volume over the last three to four months.
- Fully automated AI creative workflows using UGC components have demonstrated significant performance gains, including 4% lower CPI, 7% higher CTR, and 8% higher ROAS compared to control groups.
- The shift from manual node-based AI workflows to agentic systems allows teams to generate multi-format ad campaigns from a single brief, eliminating the need to write individual prompts for every concept.
Should devs center their plans on Next Fest?
The gaming industry is currently navigating a transition characterized by rising hardware costs and a shift away from subsidized pricing models.
- Steam Next Fest has shifted from a leaderboard-driven event to a personalized algorithm, making it unlikely that a game can achieve success solely by announcing or launching during the festival without prior momentum.
- Valve has restricted the use of banner cross-promotion on game details pages to prevent 'guerrilla' sale tactics, forcing developers to move away from ad-hoc publisher sales toward more structured, Valve-approved promotional events.
- Physical retail sales for video games are in significant decline, exacerbated by big-box retailers locking products in cabinets, which creates a poor shopping experience and further pushes consumers toward digital-only purchases.
Session: Demystifying China UA: Reverse-Engineering AI Advice (Fact vs. Fiction) - Yolanda Huang.
The presentation evaluates the reliability of large language models (LLMs) in providing strategic guidance for user acquisition (UA) in the Chinese gaming market.
- Mainstream AI tools currently provide inconsistent, contradictory, and often inaccurate advice regarding China market entry, failing to serve as a reliable source of truth for UA strategies.
- Contrary to common industry misconceptions, a full ISBN license is not required for initial market testing; a software copyright license allows foreign entities to conduct paid media and influencer marketing tests.
- Ocean Engine, the ad platform powered by ByteDance, is the primary and most scalable channel for testing mobile game performance in the Chinese market.
Session: Hit Music In UA-Unpacking the Impact of Commercial Hit Music In Mobile Games - T. Jenneborg
The integration of commercial hit music into mobile game user acquisition (UA) represents a significant, largely untapped opportunity to drive engagement and install rates.
- Reactional Music provides a platform that handles music licensing and technical integration to enable the use of popular, high-stream-count music in mobile game user acquisition (UA) campaigns.
- Early testing indicates that incorporating hit music into playable ads increases install rates and engagement compared to baseline assets.
- The platform utilizes a patented engine to synchronize game events with music, allowing publishers to batch-export multiple ad variations that react to specific beats or vocal melodies.
Designing for the Rewarded Pathway: Why Product Teams are Critical to Ad Strategy
The integration of rewarded advertising into mobile game design has evolved into a critical component of long-term monetization strategy.
- Monetization through rewarded advertising must be integrated as a core pillar of game design during the initial development phase rather than treated as a peripheral business function.
- Product teams should shift focus from isolated early-stage metrics like day-seven ROAS to a holistic view that prioritizes long-term user engagement, retention, and progression.
- AI-driven hyper-segmentation and automation are required to manage complex player segments at scale and dynamically adjust live ops to prevent churn.
What Makes Award-Winning Gaming Campaigns?
The evaluation of award-winning gaming campaigns centers on the intersection of creative strategy, authentic community engagement, and measurable behavioral impact.
- Award-winning campaigns prioritize solving specific brand challenges through deep insights into player motivations rather than relying on vanity metrics like view counts or influencer reach.
- Successful initiatives eschew transactional incentives, such as coupon codes, in favor of organic integrations that respect community sentiment and player time.
- High-impact results, including significant sales increases, are best achieved by aligning brand messaging with the specific cultural contexts and behaviors of target fandoms.
🚨📢 BREAKING NEWS: New Hoyoverse game, D2C stuff, layoffs and a WhatsApp game
The current state of the mobile gaming industry is defined by a significant shift toward direct-to-consumer (D2C) monetization, ongoing corporate restructuring, and the integration of artificial intelligence in operations.
- Mobile game direct-to-consumer (D2C) revenues are projected to reach $17 billion this year, driven by 53% of publishers planning to port titles to browser platforms to bypass traditional app store billing.
- AppsFlyer secured over $1 billion in funding at a $2.7 billion valuation, signaling continued investor confidence in mobile infrastructure despite broader industry volatility.
- Corporate restructuring persists as Electronic Arts continues workforce reductions during a $55 billion acquisition process, alongside notable layoffs at Netmarble subsidiary Kabam.
Google Play store fees, Kingshot's World Cup ads, AppsFlyer gets $1bn, Kabam layoffs, more
The mobile games industry is currently navigating significant shifts in platform policy, investment trends, and studio operations. A primary development is Google’s adjustment of Play Store fees, effective June 30.
- Starting June 30, Google Play is lowering store fees for most developers in Western markets, effectively reducing the standard 30% fee to approximately 25% for in-app purchases.
- AppsFlyer secured a $1 billion investment from Google, Meta, Unity, and Moloco, a move analysts suggest is intended to bolster the company's independence and measurement capabilities against AppLovin's market dominance.
- Queen Digital Entertainment, a startup founded by former King executives that raised up to $50 million in VC funding, has ceased operations after failing to scale its casual puzzle game portfolio.
S07, E21: AppsFlyer and the new dynamics of mobile attribution (with Olivia Kory)
The mobile advertising landscape is undergoing a significant structural shift, underscored by a recent one-billion-dollar investment in AppsFlyer by a consortium of major platforms including Meta, Google, Unity, and Moloco.
- A consortium including Meta, Google, Unity, and Moloco has invested $1 billion into AppsFlyer to maintain the neutrality of mobile measurement infrastructure and prevent data monopolization.
- Mobile Measurement Partners (MMPs) remain essential for daily campaign management because they provide the granular, ad-level data that platform-provided frameworks cannot replicate.
- AppLovin has emerged as a dominant force in the mobile ecosystem over the past 15 months, consistently outperforming competitors in efficiency and capturing a larger share of advertiser budgets.
Kingshot ads with Harry Maguire, Michael Owen, John Terry, Fabrizio Romano, Thiago Silva + Jorginho.
The marketing strategy for the mobile game King Shot centers on a high-profile influencer campaign featuring prominent football figures, including Harry Maguire, Michael Owen, John Terry, Fabrizio Romano, Thiago Silva, and Jorginho.
- The mobile game 'King Shot' utilized a high-profile influencer marketing campaign featuring football stars Michael Owen, John Terry, Thiago Silva, Jorginho, and journalist Fabrizio Romano during the 2026 World Cup.
- The core value proposition emphasized across all influencer creative is the complete absence of in-game advertisements, positioning the title as an uninterrupted, 'ad-free' gaming experience.
- Influencer messaging consistently targets the 'waiting' periods surrounding major sporting events, framing the game as a casual, easy-to-pick-up companion for football fans.
Is Summer Game Fest worth it for devs?
The current landscape of the video game industry is defined by a shift toward targeted digital marketing and strategic platform integration.
- Summer Game Fest has shifted from a broad industry trade show to an intimate, invite-only event focused on high-impact influencer and press relations, making it a more efficient alternative to the high-cost, high-volume spectacle of traditional E3 booths.
- Participation in major streaming showcases during June can drive significant wish-list growth, with top-tier events like the Xbox showcase generating approximately 46,000 wish lists, while smaller indie-focused showcases typically yield around 1,000.
- Epic Games is positioning Unreal Engine and Fortnite as an open-ecosystem alternative to Roblox, focusing on platform-level tech updates—such as persistent level counters—to bridge the feature gap between the two platforms.