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King dodges Xbox cuts, Destiny Rising, Google's store fees, Ustwo slams platforms, more
The mobile games industry is currently navigating a period of significant structural adjustment, characterized by platform-level policy shifts, studio restructuring, and evolving monetization strategies.
- King has largely avoided the recent Xbox layoffs, with the studio now reporting directly to Xbox leadership due to its high monthly active player counts, though internal uncertainty remains regarding future financial performance.
- Destiny Rising appears to be in a 'death spiral' with declining revenue, dropping from $6 million in its launch month to approximately $300,000 in monthly in-app purchase revenue over the last three to four months.
- Ustwo Games has shifted its focus away from mobile platforms like Apple Arcade and Netflix, citing the inability to make their single-player titles profitable on mobile and criticizing platform holders for failing to solve game discoverability issues.
In the Hot Seat: Stefan Lampinen on how Chinese publishers are outpacing the West
Stefan Lampinen, founder of Game Advisor Ltd and a veteran of the global gaming industry, provides a strategic analysis of the evolving dynamics between Western and Chinese game markets.
- European markets should not be treated as a single entity; successful expansion requires a granular approach that accounts for distinct legal, cultural, and regional differences, such as the specific nuances between cities like Berlin, Munich, and Cologne.
- Chinese publishers like Tencent and NetEase are demonstrating high levels of sophistication by conducting deep-dive research into specific European micro-markets, including identifying individual studios in cities with populations over 100,000.
- Entering the European market requires rigorous preparation and strategic planning rather than rushed execution, as historical data shows that many large companies have failed due to a lack of localized positioning and messaging.
Session: Winning Portfolio Strategies Of 2026 - Jakub Remiar, two & half gamers.
The current mobile gaming landscape is defined by a shift toward systematic, data-driven portfolio management rather than reliance on individual hit titles.
- Successful mobile game portfolios rely on 'template-ization,' where developers build a reusable engine for a specific genre, allowing them to salvage work from failed projects to accelerate the development of future titles.
- Companies like Gram Games operate like the 'Warren Buffett of puzzle games' by identifying high-traffic, ad-monetized genres and converting them into high-revenue IAP (in-app purchase) models through superior execution and polish.
- Radical innovation, such as the mechanics seen in 'Pixel Flow' or 'Screw Jam,' offers the highest potential for success but requires deep, long-term genre expertise to identify and implement meaningful improvements to existing core loops.
Frank Gibeau: The Zynga Turnaround That Went from $1.87 to $12.7 Billion
The transformation of Zynga from a struggling entity with a stock price of $1.87 to a $12.7 billion acquisition by Take-Two Interactive serves as a definitive case study in corporate restructuring and strategic scaling.
- Frank Gibeau led a turnaround of Zynga from a $200 million enterprise value with $17 million in annual profit to a $12.7 billion acquisition by Take-Two.
- The turnaround strategy focused on replacing 16 of 17 VPs to install mobile-fluent operators and re-anchoring the company culture around the principle that there are no bad soldiers, only bad officers.
- Zynga’s recovery was fueled by an aggressive M&A strategy that utilized proceeds from selling their headquarters to acquire a dozen studios, prioritizing cultural alignment and founder relationships over simply being the highest bidder.
S07, E24: Understanding rewarded user acquisition (with Tricia Han and Sampsa Jaatinen)
Rewarded user acquisition has transitioned from a niche Android-centric tactic into a sophisticated, primary growth engine for the global mobile gaming industry.
- Rewarded user acquisition has evolved from a niche strategy representing 1-2% of mobile gaming ad spend five years ago into a primary growth engine for the industry.
- The shift toward rewarded UA is driven by the ability to leverage rich, post-install behavioral data to optimize engagement and long-term retention, which is superior to the limited signals available in traditional ad networks.
- Machine learning and AI engines are now essential to manage rewarded ecosystems, specifically by determining the optimal timing and nature of rewards to ensure users are incentivized to discover new games without disrupting their current engagement.
🟥🟩🟨🟦Did Block Blast finally peaked? And why they added 7 more minigames??? 👀 by Jakub Remiar
Block Blast has reached a critical inflection point in its lifecycle, transitioning from a singular viral hit into a diversified games portal.
- Block Blast has reached a natural scale ceiling, with daily active users (DAU) stabilizing at approximately 50 million after peaking at 56 million.
- The developer has pivoted to a 'no-wifi' games portal model by integrating eight minigames, such as Fruit Merge and Sudoku, to maximize retention and leverage existing traffic.
- User acquisition has significantly downscaled, with active creatives dropping from 30,000 in December 2024 to 5,000, and daily downloads falling from 1.5 million to 600,000.
One Player Ran 10,000 Games on This Skillz App
Touch Mechanics, a two-person independent studio founded by brothers Carl and Grant Crossley, specializes in developing competitive mobile sports games for the Skillz platform.
- Touch Mechanics utilizes a rapid iteration loop for their Skillz-based sports games, often producing a functional prototype in 2 weeks while spending up to 10 months refining the final product.
- The studio prioritizes analog control schemes over digital inputs to ensure players feel direct agency, allowing for high-skill mastery that rewards players with a sense of personal achievement.
- To maintain long-term engagement, the developers implement realistic variables like 'blind oil' conditions in bowling, which force players to adapt their playstyle during a warm-up period just as they would in a real-world setting.
Is Netflix the future of video game story-telling?
Netflix is actively expanding its footprint in the video game industry by leveraging its massive subscriber base of approximately 700 million users.
- Netflix is leveraging its 700 million subscriber base to integrate interactive narrative experiences into its existing streaming ecosystem, targeting non-traditional gamers rather than competing with console manufacturers.
- The company categorizes its gaming strategy into four distinct verticals: kids, party and puzzle, mainstream, and narrative.
- Netflix’s internal Night School Studio launched 'Unhinged,' a 30-minute horror title that uses smartphones as controllers to test the viability of mobile-first, interactive storytelling.
My.Games' $50m a year benchmark for new forever franchises
My.Games maintains a robust portfolio of over 40 live titles by balancing the long-term management of established franchises like War Robots and Rush Royale with a rigorous, data-driven approach to new product development.
- My.Games sets a $50 million annual revenue benchmark as the minimum threshold for any new game development project.
- The company maintains a portfolio of over 40 live titles, including War Robots and Rush Royale, with War Robots recently achieving its best performance in nearly 20 years of operation.
- My.Games has transitioned to a centralized R&D process that utilizes small teams, rapid prototyping, and shared success criteria to validate market potential before committing to full-scale investment.
Xbox's big reset | Week in Mobile Games podcast
Xbox is currently executing a fundamental strategic pivot, moving away from an aggressive focus on scaling the Game Pass subscription service toward a broader objective of engaging one billion players.
- Microsoft is undergoing a major restructuring involving 3,200 staff layoffs and the divestment of five studios, including management buyouts for Compulsion Games and Double Fine and the sale of Ninja Theory and Undead Labs.
- Microsoft has set an ambitious goal to engage one billion daily active users, a target that industry analysts view as highly challenging given that current console markets are largely flat and the company's total monthly active user base across its gaming division was reported at 500 million in 2024.
- Pokémon Go has generated over $9 billion in lifetime revenue across the Google Play Store and Apple App Store during its 10-year history, with player spending peaking during the pandemic.
The Mobile vs Web User Acquisition: What Nobody's Talking About
The gaming industry is undergoing a fundamental shift toward a unified marketing infrastructure that bridges the historical divide between mobile, web, and console platforms.
- The gaming industry is shifting toward a unified marketing infrastructure that standardizes attribution metrics across mobile, web, and console platforms to eliminate fragmented, platform-specific tools.
- Developers are increasingly applying mobile-centric performance optimization strategies to web-based direct-to-consumer shops to diversify acquisition channels beyond mobile-only environments.
- AI-driven automation is transitioning from simple rule-based campaign management to handling complex, large-scale data synthesis and repetitive tasks like reporting and creative production.
🏨 My Perfect Hotel Meets Merge: Decoding Hotel Legacy by Century Games
The merge game genre maintains a position of significant stability and profitability within the global mobile market, anchored by high-performing titles like Gossip Harbor, which currently generates approximately $95 million in monthly revenue.
- The merge game genre remains highly lucrative, evidenced by titles like Gossip Harbor generating approximately $95 million in monthly revenue.
- Developers are scaling portfolios by deploying functionally identical merge titles, allowing players to rotate between similar games to maintain engagement once energy resources are exhausted.
- Hotel Legacy by Century Games utilizes a data-driven soft-launch strategy that prioritizes rapid testing of diverse mini-game concepts and creative assets over radical structural innovation.