Mobile reports and market data
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State of the Brutally Honest UA by Matej Lancaric
The 2025 user acquisition landscape is defined by a fundamental shift toward creative-led strategies, where the ability to produce high-volume, iterative content determines market success.
- Creative production is now the primary driver of UA performance, requiring teams to generate at least five new videos per week to combat rapid audience fatigue.
- 68% of industry professionals now utilize AI for tasks including scriptwriting, thumbnail optimization, and the generation of synthetic user-generated content.
- The UA manager role has fundamentally shifted from manual campaign administration to a hybrid function focused on creative prompt engineering and data analysis.
Did Coin Master Just Copy (back) Monopoly Go?
The mobile gaming industry is currently witnessing a high-stakes competitive cycle characterized by iterative cloning and aggressive user acquisition strategies.
- The 'coin looter' subgenre is currently defined by a competitive cycle of iterative cloning between industry giants Moon Active and Scopely, with Moon Active’s latest title mirroring the mechanics of Scopely’s Monopoly Go.
- Market success in this sector is increasingly driven by 'UA arbitrage,' where firms prioritize outspending competitors on user acquisition over product innovation or unique feature sets.
- The industry has evolved into a 'red ocean' where large, well-capitalized firms prioritize long-term market dominance and aggressive user acquisition over immediate profitability.
TikTok Advanced Dedicated Campaigns (ADC) for Mobile Apps
Advanced Dedicated Campaigns (ADC) represent a specialized, automated solution for mobile app advertisers on TikTok, specifically designed to navigate the complexities of iOS attribution and tracking.
- Advanced Dedicated Campaigns (ADC) utilize machine learning to optimize ad delivery via SKAdNetwork signals, effectively automating targeting to improve CPI and ROAS for iOS mobile app campaigns.
- The primary trade-off of ADC is a loss of granular audience and demographic data, as the platform prioritizes conversion scale over manual targeting control.
- Campaign performance is heavily dependent on high-volume, native-style creative assets, specifically requiring a consistent rotation of user-generated content (UGC).
Inside $500M/Year Bending Spoons: TikTok Trends, Viral videos, UA & Paywall Science
Bending Spoons functions as a hybrid between a technology firm and a private equity entity, managing a $2.5 billion portfolio of utility-focused applications including Remini, Splice, Evernote, and WeTransfer.
- Bending Spoons generates $500 million in annual revenue by acquiring apps, optimizing their design and subscription flows, and scaling them through aggressive user acquisition.
- The company’s portfolio includes high-performing apps like Remini, which achieves 300,000 daily installs, and Splice, which generates $120,000 in daily in-app purchase revenue.
- Bending Spoons utilizes 'Superwall-style' paywalls that limit functionality for free users, a strategy that has become a industry-standard template for maximizing conversion rates from install to subscription.
What Makes Merge 2 Games So Popular in 2025?
The Merge 2 mobile gaming genre remains a robust and high-performing category, defying broader market stagnation by doubling its in-app purchase revenue over the past twelve months.
- The Merge 2 genre has doubled its in-app purchase revenue over the past twelve months, making it the second-highest revenue-generating subgenre in the puzzle category as of 2025.
- Breakout title Gossip Harbor has generated $100 million in year-to-date revenue, illustrating the high earning potential of top-performing games in the sector.
- Market performance is highly divergent; while some titles thrive, pioneering games like Love and Pies have experienced a 30% decline in monthly revenue since the start of 2025.
Week in Mobile Games E61: Zynga's successes and failures, and Moon Active takes the fight to Scopely
The mobile gaming industry is currently defined by a strategic shift toward hybrid-casual models, the dominance of 4X strategy titles, and the ongoing evolution of direct-to-consumer monetization.
- Whiteout Survival has become a dominant 4X strategy title, generating over $3 billion in gross player spending in less than 30 months.
- Rolic successfully transitioned to a hybrid-casual model, with its top title Color Block Jam earning over $100 million by leveraging a challenging difficulty curve to drive retention.
- Publishers are increasingly shifting away from pure hyper-casual mechanics toward hybrid-casual models that prioritize long-term engagement and in-app purchases.
These Games Are Winning Big In 2025!
The mobile and platform-based gaming landscape in 2025 is defined by a dichotomy between long-term sustainable titles and aggressive, hit-driven monetization models.
- The Merge 2 puzzle subgenre has experienced significant growth, with in-app purchase revenue doubling over the past 12 months.
- Financial viability in 2025 is driven by a hybrid model that pairs mass-market, accessible gameplay with deep, complex monetization systems designed to maximize revenue from high-spending users.
- Chinese development studios are currently setting the industry standard by successfully integrating casual mechanics with aggressive, hardcore monetization designs.
2.5 gamers x Live Game Review - Hole People by Rollic Games
Hole People, published by Rollic Games, exemplifies the current evolution of the hyper-casual market, where deterministic puzzle mechanics are leveraged primarily as vehicles for low-cost user acquisition.
- Rollic Games has shifted its business model from producing many small games to focusing on high-revenue 'hit' titles, with a single successful game like Color Block Jam potentially outperforming the combined revenue of ten smaller projects.
- The game 'Hole People' utilizes a modular development approach where core mechanics—such as the bench system, boosters, and level design—are inserted into established templates, allowing for rapid production with minimal new feature development.
- The 'Hole' theme in 'Hole People' is primarily a strategic choice for User Acquisition (UA) to achieve low CPIs, rather than a core gameplay necessity, as the game mechanics are essentially a variation of existing puzzle-genre templates.
TWIG #340 Scopely Goes to War, Roblox Gambles on IP and Turkey Rises
The mobile gaming industry is currently defined by an aggressive arms race in user acquisition, particularly within the coin-battler genre.
- The mobile coin-battler genre has become a 'red ocean' where market dominance is driven by industrial-scale user acquisition spending by giants like Scopely and Moon Active, creating high barriers to entry for smaller developers.
- Corporate friction is intensifying over performance-based earn-outs, exemplified by a dispute between Krafton and Unknown Worlds involving a $250 million earn-out and allegations of strategic project delays.
- Major publishers are increasingly integrating AI-driven development tools to streamline production, leading to staff reductions in design roles at companies like King.
The Great Mobile Reversal: Why Buyers Pay Billions for What VCs Abandoned
The analysis examines the evolution of mobile gaming investment and M&A activity from 2020 through the first half of 2025.
- Mobile gaming accounted for 61% of total gaming deal value (excluding ATVI) between 2020 and H1 2025, with strategic buyers and private equity firms driving nearly all deal volume in the first half of 2025.
- Strategic consolidation has replaced VC-led growth, highlighted by $7 billion in mobile M&A activity across six major deals, including Af’s $12.7 billion acquisition of 2yga and Scopely’s $4.9 billion purchase of GamesGroup.
- Venture capital interest has shifted heavily toward casual gaming, which now captures 65% of all deals due to its broader audience reach and faster iteration cycles.
🐎 Uma Musume Pretty Derby: Best Progression System in Mobile & Why should everybody play Umamusume
Uma Musume Pretty Derby represents a significant evolution in mobile game design, successfully transitioning from a niche Japanese title to a global phenomenon with consistent daily engagement.
- Uma Musume Pretty Derby maintains long-term player retention by prioritizing deep, emergent complexity over the industry-standard model of frequent content updates.
- The core progression loop utilizes a roguelite-inspired, multi-generational breeding system where veteran characters pass stats, affinities, and skills to new trainees.
- Character optimization is driven by a three-tiered elemental system covering surface, distance, and running style, which creates a near-infinite array of strategic paths.
Top Differences Between Mobile and AAA Live Service Games (Scott Hartsman Interview)
The gaming industry is effectively bifurcated into two distinct sectors: the core PC and console market and the mobile and casual live service market.
- The gaming industry is effectively split into two distinct sectors: core PC/console games and mobile/casual live service games, each requiring fundamentally different business models.
- Mobile and casual live service games operate as a math-driven business focused on minimizing user acquisition costs while maximizing the lifetime value of each player.
- Top-performing mobile titles often utilize 'gacha' or pulse mechanics, requiring players to spend currency for random chances at items or heroes, which must then be collected in multiples to reach full power.