two & a half gamers
By Lancaric.me
🎯 The DEFINITIVE Guide to D2C in 2026: Real Numbers from 8 Studios
Direct-to-consumer is finally out of the shadows. Eight public studios just revealed how much revenue they drive through D2C — and the numbers make the case better than any pitch could. But there's a window closing, and the studios moving now are the ones who'll win.
We are joined by Chip Thurston (FastSpring) for a D2C deep-dive built around the Pocket Gamer report aggregating publicly disclosed D2C revenue. They break down the three cohorts (social casino, mid-core, casual) and what each tells us, the standout data points (Playtika at 39% of revenue, Fishing Clash at 33%, Double Down at 44%), the difference between direct-checkout links and web stores and why you need both, Google's new External Content Links policy, the still-unapproved Epic v. Google settlement and its 20% linked-payment fee, where Apple's appeals stand after the Supreme Court declined to hear them, and the single most actionable takeaway: maximize US D2C traffic today, while you can still steer without fees.
⏱️ TIMESTAMPS
00:00 Cold open — maximize US D2C traffic today
01:35 The Pocket Gamer D2C report and why it matters
05:35 The three cohorts — social casino, mid-core, casual
11:50 Direct checkout vs web store — the frictionless path
16:00 Google's External Content Links policy explained
21:20 The Epic v. Google settlement and the 20% fee
30:10 Where Apple stands after the Supreme Court
36:20 Casual works too — Playtika and the playbook
📌 KEY TAKEAWAYS
— D2C is out of the shadows. A Pocket Gamer report (by Craig Chappell) aggregates publicly disclosed D2C revenue from eight studios — Playtika, MTG, Stillfront, SciPlay, PlayStudios, Tensquare, Huuuge, G5, Take-Two. For the first time, studios are openly reporting D2C as a positive earnings story rather than treating it as a cloak-and-dagger tactic.
— Three cohorts, all winning. Social casino (SciPlay, PlayStudios, Huuuge, Double Down at 44%) leads because revenue is VIP-concentrated — shift a few whales and you shift a big share of revenue. Mid-core (MTG, Stillfront, Tensquare) ranges up to 44%.
— Direct checkout vs web store is the key strategic choice. Direct-checkout links (skip the store, go straight to a hosted checkout page, bounce back to the game) are the most frictionless path available today and can push you over 50% D2C. But every direct-checkout link is a "linked payment" that would incur the 20% fee under the coming settlement — so the durable play is habituating players to your web store as a destination they'll return to regardless.
— Google's External Content Links policy is the first salvo. In effect since January 28, 2026 (US only for now), it requires enrolling via an API to link to external content — or your app updates get disapproved. No fees yet (they legally can't), but it lays the groundwork for the 20% linked-payment fee with a 24-hour attribution window once the settlement is approved.
— The Epic v. Google settlement is still unapproved and the dates are slipping. Google intended its new fee structure to take effect June 30, 2026 (US and Europe), but the court is skeptical and hasn't approved it. The structure decouples the old 30% into a 5% Google Play billing fee plus a 20-25% platform fee (varying by install date), with carve-outs for first $1M (10%) and subscriptions (10% + 5%). The cosmetic-vs-power-item distinction was dropped entirely.
— The actionable playbook: maximize US D2C today with a mix of direct-checkout and web-store links (to habituate players for the fee future). Learn from the disclosed studios (Raid Shadow Legends' web-store points flywheel is a great model). And treat Japan — which already allows steering with fees under its Mobile Software Competition Act — as a soft launch for the fee-based future of D2C.
🎙️ HOSTS
Matej Lančarič — User Acquisition consultant
Jakub Remiar — Game Design consultant
Felix Braberg — Ad Monetization consultant
🎤 GUEST
Chip Thurston — FastSpring
🚨📢 BREAKING NEWS: The Surprise World Cup Winner, Block Blast's $120K/Day Bleed, Supercell's US news
It's day two of the World Cup, and the biggest download winner isn't any of the football games anyone predicted — it's a Coca-Cola-sponsored sticker-album app. That's just one of three stories this week that matter for mobile.
Felix Braberg flies solo for the Friday news segment. The FIFA Panini Collection is pulling roughly half a million downloads a day across Brazil, Mexico, and the US — 12.2 million downloads in 30 days and ~$1.5M revenue — built around Panini's physical collectible-card heritage and Coca-Cola bottle QR codes. Felix also crunched the numbers on Block Blast's 24-hour Google Play takedown (rumored IP infringement) and found it cost the game roughly $120K/day in lost ad revenue, with a 17% daily-active-user drop and a 14-month download low. And Supercell's US game development is winding down — one project killed, another in limbo after staff departures — feeding the bigger question of when (or whether) Supercell lands its next hit.
Three stories, one theme: distribution is fragile, and even the biggest names are exposed.
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⏱️ TIMESTAMPS
00:00 Cold open — Block Blast's lost daily active users
00:40 FIFA Panini wins the World Cup download race
03:00 The Coca-Cola + Panini sticker-album playbook
04:30 Block Blast's 24-hour outage — the real cost
06:30 The $120K/day loss and the Turkey/Indonesia drop
08:00 Supercell kills a US game, another in limbo
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📌 KEY TAKEAWAYS
— The surprise winner of the World Cup download race is the FIFA Panini Collection — a Coca-Cola-sponsored, Panini-built digital sticker-album game. It's pulling roughly 500K downloads a day (12.2M in 30 days, up 6.6M), ~$1.5M revenue (up over $1M), and close to 1.7M daily active users, concentrated in Brazil, Mexico, and the US. None of the football games people predicted are winning — this is.
— The FIFA Panini model is a convergence of trends the podcast has tracked: digital sticker-album collecting (increasingly common in casual games), trading mechanics, and a physical-to-digital bridge via Coca-Cola bottle QR codes. It's effectively a marketing front to sell more Coke, and a fascinating hybrid worth a dedicated episode.
— Block Blast's 24-hour Google Play takedown (rumored IP infringement) was far more costly than the short outage suggests. Downloads dropped to a near 14-month low, and the game lost about 17% of its Android daily active users — roughly 6.3M users, from 37.8M down to 31.5M between late May and June 8.
— The damage compounds because Block Blast relies on an organic download engine to supplement paid marketing. When you're taken down, the store algorithms penalize you and rankings get worse — so the hit outlasts the outage itself. The biggest geo drops were Turkey (down ~41%, from 4.3M to 2.5M) and Indonesia (down 23%, from 5.87M to 4.54M).
— Since Block Blast is ad-revenue driven, that DAU loss translates to roughly $120K/day in lost advertising revenue for Hungry Studios — a steep, ongoing price for a single day of downtime.
— Supercell's US game development is winding down. One project (in development ~3.5 years by ex-Riot staff) was killed and the team disbanded; another is in limbo after most staff departed in late 2025 / early 2026. It feeds the recurring question of when Supercell lands its next hit, given a string of titles launched via questionable, soft-launch-skipping methods that haven't panned out.
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🎙️ HOST
Felix Braberg — Ad Monetization consultant
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👍 Like the video if you learned something
🔔 Subscribe for next week's news segment
#mobilegaming #useracquisition #blockblast #supercell #worldcup #admonetization #f2p
🧠 Playrix just went All-In on AI Creatives: 100+ AI Ads Reviewed
AI creatives just hit a new level and the most surprising convert is Playrix. After years of holding back, they've gone all-in on AI across Township, Gardenscapes, and Homescapes. Matej, Jakub, Felix (and Freddie the robot) review 100+ AI creatives to figure out what's actually working right now.
The episode is a guided tour through the current AI creative landscape: AppQuantum's Golden Goblins running AI influencers from a creative team scaling toward 100 people, Playrix's full-AI pivot with the recurring "there are no ads in Township" concept (and Felix's repeated insistence that ads are coming anyway), the "getting slapped" husband concept that has spread across the entire 4X category in a single month, freezing-families intros rendered at near-Pixar quality, the pajama guy who quietly took over Last War / Dark War creatives, and the broader collapse of creative production timelines from a week to a single day. It's the clearest snapshot yet of how fast AI creative production is moving — and how quickly a single winning concept now propagates across an entire genre.
The throughline: this isn't about whether AI creatives work anymore. It's about who's iterating fastest.
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⏱️ TIMESTAMPS
00:00 Cold open — Freddie the robot judges the AI creatives
02:30 AppQuantum's Golden Goblins and the 100-person creative team
04:00 Century portfolio downscaling AI (and near-Pixar quality)
07:30 Playrix goes full AI across all three games
08:00 "There are no ads in Township" — the recurring concept
16:30 Freezing Families gets the full AI intro treatment
22:20 The "getting slapped" concept takes over all of Forex
33:30 Top Heroes, anime quality, and where this is heading
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PVX Partners offers non-dilutive funding for game developers.
Go to: https://pvxpartners.com/
They can help you access the most effective form of growth capital once you have the metrics to back it.
- Scale fast
- Keep your shares
- Drawdown only as needed
- Have PvX take downside risk alongside you
+ Work with a team entirely made up of ex-gaming operators and investors
---------------------------------------
For an ever-growing number of game developers, this means that now is the perfect time to invest in monetizing direct-to-consumer at scale.
Our sponsor FastSpring:
Has delivered D2C at scale for over 20 years
They power top mobile publishers around the world
Launch a new webstore, replace an existing D2C vendor, or add a redundant D2C vendor at fastspring.gg.
---------------------------------------
This is no BS gaming podcast 2.5 gamers session. Sharing actionable insights, dropping knowledge from our day-to-day User Acquisition, Game Design, and Ad monetization jobs. We are definitely not discussing the latest industry news, but having so much fun! Let’s not forget this is a 4 a.m. conference discussion vibe, so let's not take it too seriously.
Panelists: Jakub Remiar, Felix Braberg, Matej Lancaric
Join our slack channel here: https://join.slack.com/t/two-and-half-gamers/shared_invite/zt-3bckldvr8-8PXvzciMWdheOzED9hq0SA
---------------------------------------
Matej Lancaric
User Acquisition & Creatives Consultant
https://lancaric.me
Felix Braberg
Ad monetization consultant
https://www.felixbraberg.com
Jakub Remiar
Game design consultant
https://www.linkedin.com/in/jakubremiar
---------------------------------------
Please share the podcast with your industry friends, dogs & cats. Especially cats! They love it!
Hit the Subscribe button on YouTube, Spotify, and Apple!
Please share feedback and comments - matej@lancaric.me
---------------------------------------
If you are interested in getting UA tips every week on Monday, visit lancaric.substack.com & sign up for the Brutally Honest newsletter by Matej Lancaric
🎮 The 3 Rewarded UA Personas: Reward Hunter, Casual, Gambler. How TyrAds Segments for Profit
Not all rewarded users are the same — and treating them as one audience is exactly why so many rewarded UA campaigns underperform. Recorded live on Day 2 of MAU Vegas, this conversation breaks down how Tyr Ads segments rewarded traffic into three distinct personas and engineers profitability around the mix.
Matej Lančarič sits down with Zino, CEO of Tyr Ads (and the Try Rewards consumer product), to unpack the year's changes: a brand-new in-house platform built specifically for rewarded (because third-party tracking simply isn't built for it), AI-driven user labeling that sorts players into reward hunters, casual/social users, and gamblers, and an A/B testing and LiveOps system that targets each segment with different reward funnels. They get into why too many gamblers will actually lose you money, how the day-7-to-day-30 curve drives faster ROI and more aggressive bidding, the new Nordeus exclusive offerwall deal, why Tyr is betting on gaming supply over reward apps, and where rewarded UA is heading — segmentation, recommendation models, and a full shift to ROAS-based campaigns.
⏱️ TIMESTAMPS
00:00 Cold open — the day-7-to-day-30 curve and faster ROI
01:30 Tyr Ads intro and what changed this year
02:54 The new in-house platform and audience segmentation
03:30 The three personas — reward hunter, social, gambler
05:40 Why too many gamblers loses you money
09:25 How the recommendation models hit day-7 targets
15:55 A 50/50 IAP/ads game — where to start
21:08 The Nordeus exclusive deal and the gaming-supply bet
26:46 Where rewarded UA is heading — ROAS and 2027
📌 KEY TAKEAWAYS
— Rewarded users aren't one audience — they're three. Tyr Ads segments into reward hunters (maximize earnings, jump app to app), casual/social users (play for a long time, community-driven, less aggressive), and gamblers (chase the big jackpot reward, spend whatever it takes). Each behaves differently and needs a different reward structure.
— The mix is everything. Too many reward hunters or too many gamblers and you lose money — gamblers in particular are expensive because they chase the deep reward and cost a lot to satisfy. The profitable formula combines all three segments so it works for the advertiser, the platform, and the user — the "triangle."
— Tyr built its own platform in-house (launched ~1 month before recording) because third-party tracking isn't built for rewarded. Event-based CPA/CPE tracking can't give granular insight into which funnel works for which segment. The in-house system labels users automatically via machine learning and enables A/B testing reward funnels per segment.
— The day-7-to-day-30 curve is the priority. Reward hunters and gamblers deliver fast ROI (quick returns mean more UA spend sooner), while social users compound over 2-6 months. The goal is to spike returns early AND keep the LTV curve compounding past day 30 — because longer compounding lets you bid more aggressively.
— LiveOps is the secret weapon. Tyr's LiveOps layer triggers on specific events, purchases, or segment labels. Example: a user who hits level 100 in 3 days gets surprised with a harder "level 200 in 7 days" challenge; a user labeled a gambler gets pushed more aggressive reward structures. They can see exactly where users drop off and re-engage at those points.
— Tyr signed Nordeus (of Top Eleven / Pixel Federation orbit) as an exclusive offerwall partner. The strategic bet is on gaming supply over reward apps: reward apps are saturated with reward hunters, but gaming audiences skew casual + gambler (the healthier mix), and gaming whales already love spending. The long-term dream is connecting Tyr's LiveOps backend directly to publishers' LiveOps backends into one unified experience.
🎙️ HOST
Matej Lančarič — User Acquisition consultant
🎤 GUEST
Zino — CEO, TyrAds (Try Rewards)
💰 Block Out by Grand Games: $300K/Day on iOS Alone & It's About to Overtake Magic Sort
Block Out by Grand Games is scaling to $300K/day — and it doesn't even have an Android version yet. It's about to become Grand Games' biggest title, overtaking Magic Sword, and the whole thing is a masterclass in perfect execution over original innovation.
Matej Lančarič, Jakub Remiar, and Felix Braberg break down Block Out, the deterministic sort puzzler that's quietly become one of the most aggressive scalers in mobile. The conversation covers how Block Out's iteration is now out-earning the game it borrowed from (Color Block Jam), the level-design difference that makes it more casual and more approachable, the UA upgrade that Jakub estimates at 500%+ over Grand's earlier games, the iOS-only / US-only / single-AppLovin-campaign soft launch playbook (the same one Pixel Flow used), the blended-ROAS interstitial strategy driving 32-36% ad revenue, and the 1,000+ creatives and 260 playables now powering the scale. Plus the bigger Grand Games story: a $70M raise, $105M+ total funding, and a template machine that takes proven concepts and executes them better than anyone.
The thesis, straight from the episode: Grand Games doesn't do giant innovation. They do perfect execution.
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⏱️ TIMESTAMPS
00:00 the 500% UA upgrade
03:50 The numbers — $300K/day, 140K downloads/day, iOS only
06:40 The Grand Games template — perfect execution, not innovation
10:25 What a deterministic sort puzzler actually is
13:25 Block Out vs Color Block Jam — the level design difference
20:50 The soft launch playbook — one AppLovin campaign, US only
21:45 The ad question — blended ROAS and 32-36% ad revenue
26:30 The UA breakdown — Mintegral, 1,000 creatives, 260 playables--------------------------------------
PVX Partners offers non-dilutive funding for game developers.
Go to: https://pvxpartners.com/
They can help you access the most effective form of growth capital once you have the metrics to back it.
- Scale fast
- Keep your shares
- Drawdown only as needed
- Have PvX take downside risk alongside you
+ Work with a team entirely made up of ex-gaming operators and investors
---------------------------------------
For an ever-growing number of game developers, this means that now is the perfect time to invest in monetizing direct-to-consumer at scale.
Our sponsor FastSpring:
Has delivered D2C at scale for over 20 years
They power top mobile publishers around the world
Launch a new webstore, replace an existing D2C vendor, or add a redundant D2C vendor at fastspring.gg.
---------------------------------------
This is no BS gaming podcast 2.5 gamers session. Sharing actionable insights, dropping knowledge from our day-to-day User Acquisition, Game Design, and Ad monetization jobs. We are definitely not discussing the latest industry news, but having so much fun! Let’s not forget this is a 4 a.m. conference discussion vibe, so let's not take it too seriously.
Join our slack channel here: https://join.slack.com/t/two-and-half-gamers/shared_invite/zt-3bckldvr8-8PXvzciMWdheOzED9hq0SA
---------------------------------------
Matej Lancaric
User Acquisition & Creatives Consultant
https://lancaric.me
Felix Braberg
Ad monetization consultant
https://www.felixbraberg.com
Jakub Remiar
Game design consultant
https://www.linkedin.com/in/jakubremiar
---------------------------------------
Please share the podcast with your industry friends, dogs & cats. Especially cats! They love it!
Hit the Subscribe button on YouTube, Spotify, and Apple!
Please share feedback and comments - matej@lancaric.me
---------------------------------------
If you are interested in getting UA tips every week on Monday, visit lancaric.substack.com & sign up for the Brutally Honest newsletter by Matej Lancaric
Do you have UA questions nobody can answer? Ask Matej AI - the First UA AI in the gaming industry! https://lancaric.me/matej-ai
🚨📢 BREAKING NEWS: $3.83B Liftoff, 20% Minigames, $28M UA Financing and Supercell!
Liftoff finally went public this week — at a valuation that tells you exactly what the public market thinks mobile ad networks are worth. That's just one of four stories this week that genuinely matter if you run UA.
Matej Lančarič flies solo for the breaking news segment, ranked from biggest to most practical. Liftoff listed on Nasdaq as LFT after a second attempt, raising $437M at a $3.83B valuation — a 25% haircut from the $5B it wanted in January, and below the private valuation General Atlantic paid in 2025. A Niko Partners report buried a number most Western publishers still aren't modeling: minigames are now almost 20% of mobile game spending in China. Akin launched AMF Capital with Makers Fund, opening with a $28M UA financing facility for Birhack. And the throughline of the week — mobile has officially shifted from core-first to event-first, with Monopoly Go's Simpsons crossover, Rovio's own admission, and Supercell's MoCo reboot all pointing the same direction.
The bar keeps moving up. The industry is consolidating around scale, capital, and live-ops.
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⏱️ TIMESTAMPS
00:00 Supercell reboots MoCo's live-ops00:30 Liftoff goes public at $3.83B — the IPO breakdown03:00 China minigames are now 20% of mobile spend05:30 AMF Capital launches with a $28M UA financing deal07:00 Mobile shifts from core-first to event-first09:00 What event-first actually means for your UA
📌 KEY TAKEAWAYS
— Liftoff went public on Nasdaq (LFT) on its second attempt, raising $437M at a $3.83B valuation. That's a 25% haircut from the $5B it wanted in January, and below the private valuation General Atlantic paid in 2025. Even with 1.4B daily active users on the SDK and 40% growth in core advertising, the public market said no at the higher price. The money is going to pay down debt — this is balance-sheet cleanup, not a war-chest IPO.
— Why the IPO matters for everyone: mobile ad-tech now has a live public number to point at. Liftoff is doing roughly $740M in revenue with 40% core-advertising growth, valued at $3.83B. Run that multiple against AppLovin's premium, Moloco's valuation, or Digital Turbine and see how the math holds up.
— A Niko Partners report projects China and MENA games revenue passing $100B by 2030, but the buried number that matters is this: minigames are now almost 20% of mobile game spending in China. WeChat minigames, Douyin minigames — this is a real distribution channel with real ARPU and real LTV, not 2018-era HTML5 prototypes.
— The minigame opportunity is concrete: small companies in China can spend $20K/day and recoup it within roughly seven days. If you're advising a studio serious about China and the plan starts with TapTap, you may be knocking on the wrong door — minigames are the door.
— The lesson lands in the West in ~18 months. The Western playable-ad ecosystem is converging on the same mechanics: instant play, no install friction, opt-in attention. New companies (e.g. Jest) are moving in this direction. Pay attention now or pay more later.
— Akin launched AMF Capital with Makers Fund, opening with a $28M UA financing facility for Birhack. This is performance-tied UA capital — not equity, not VC, not a bank loan. You spend it on UA and pay it back from the revenue those users generate. PVX Partners, Pollen VC, and Bravo have been doing this for years; the category is now getting crowded, which is good for studios with strong UA economics blocked only by cash flow.
— Mobile has shifted from core-first to event-first. Three data points: Scopely launched a Simpsons crossover in Monopoly Go (June 3, Will Ferrell voicing Mr. Monopoly, Harry Shearer back as Mr. Burns — IP on top of IP), Rovio published a piece explicitly arguing the shift (a notable admission from the Angry Birds company), and Supercell rebooted MoCo by changing the live-ops layer (seasons, free gacha pools) rather than the game itself.
🎙️ HOST
Matej Lančarič — User Acquisition consultant
🎮 Inside the Mistplay × MyChips Deal: The Rewarded UA consolidation has started! (MAU VEGAS 26)
Two rewarded UA platforms just became one — and the integration is already live, not "coming in six months." Recorded live at MAU Vegas, this is the inside story of Mistplay's acquisition of MyChips and the launch of the Mistplay Audience Network.
Matej Lančarič sits down with Massimo (founder of MAF / MyChips, now scaling the international business at Mistplay) and Mark Bearman (GM, Loyalty Play at Mistplay) for the third Mistplay MAU conversation. They unpack how the deal actually came together (it started with a Slack message asking "who is MAF?"), why MyChips wasn't even looking to sell, how a bootstrapped 70-person company with just 7 engineers moved fast enough to be operational on day one, the near-zero overlap between the two businesses (MyChips strong in APAC/EMEA supply, Mistplay strong in North America demand), and what consolidation in the rewarded space actually looks like now that the first major deal has closed.
The North Star, stated plainly: be the undisputed number-one rewarded UA platform by MAU 2027.
⏱️ TIMESTAMPS
00:00 The Mistplay Audience Network — already live
01:25 Meet Massimo (MAF) and Mark (Loyalty Play)
02:25 "Who is MAF?" — the Slack message that started it
03:17 Why Mistplay, why now — the billion-dollar question
05:24 The geo fit — APAC supply meets North America demand
08:03 How the demand and supply integration actually works
11:50 Scaling without losing quality — fraud, engagement, price
16:46 The consolidation question — and why only Mistplay has moved
19:45 MAU 2027 — the number-one rewarded platform North Star
📌 KEY TAKEAWAYS
— The Mistplay Audience Network is already operational, not a future promise. It brings together Connected Rewards (acquired from Mobivity) and MyChips/MAF into a single campaign system. Any advertiser buying on Mistplay can now have spend flow through to Loyalty Play, MyChips, and the full publisher network — with advertiser migration starting the week after MAU.
— APAC loyalty engagement is on another level. Japan and Korea users are culturally accustomed to point systems for everything (even vending machines), so play-to-earn-points feels natural. Day-1 retention of 80% is considered normal there — you don't have to win user trust over and over the way you do in the US or EMEA.
— Consolidation in rewarded UA is just beginning. Mistplay is the only one to have moved so far, partly because these platforms are expensive to acquire and only a handful of companies can afford the meaningful ones. Expect more deals — some strategic, some FOMO-driven. Potential acquirers floated: Adjoe (probably not buying now), Xmox, Free Cash, and others with cash.
🎙️ HOST
Matej Lančarič — User Acquisition consultant
🎤 GUESTS
Massimo — Founder, MAF / MyChips (now scaling international business at Mistplay)
Marc Bearman — General Manager, Loyalty Play at Mistplay
---------------------------------------
This is no BS gaming podcast 2.5 gamers session. Sharing actionable insights, dropping knowledge from our day-to-day User Acquisition, Game Design, and Ad monetization jobs. We are definitely not discussing the latest industry news, but having so much fun! Let’s not forget this is a 4 a.m. conference discussion vibe, so let's not take it too seriously.
Panelists: Jakub Remiar, Felix Braberg, Matej Lancaric
Podcast:
Join our slack channel here: https://join.slack.com/t/two-and-half-gamers/shared_invite/zt-3bckldvr8-8PXvzciMWdheOzED9hq0SA
Matej Lancaric
User Acquisition & Creatives Consultant
https://lancaric.me
---------------------------------------
Please share the podcast with your industry friends, dogs & cats. Especially cats! They love it!
Hit the Subscribe button on YouTube, Spotify, and Apple!
Please share feedback and comments - matej@lancaric.me
🎯 How to scale influencer marketing to 8 figures systems across 15 Studios by Marion Balinoff
Most teams treat influencer marketing as a series of one-off campaigns. The ones who actually scale treat it as a system — one continuous testing framework that runs from your first nano creator all the way to a Mr. Beast integration.
Marion Balinoff returns for episode two of the influencer marketing series, going one level deeper than the foundations. Drawing on 12 years building influencer programs across 15+ studios and eight-figure budgets, this episode lays out the complete testing framework: the three-phase path from knowledge-gathering to scaling, how to read the vertical assessment table, the CPM/conversion/LTV diagnostic for fixing what's broken, the gift-code and giveaway mechanics that move conversion without killing LTV, and the custom in-game integrations that lifted conversion 437% on average. If you watched episode one, this is where the foundations become a machine.
The single most important mindset shift: you're not buying reach, you're buying learnings. Volume isn't the goal - data density is.
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⏱️ TIMESTAMPS
00:00 Why influencer marketing is a system, not a campaign
01:30 The three-phase framework: gather, optimize, scale
02:40 Influencer size — why 8% of channels drive 63% of views
03:40 The vertical assessment table and the three thresholds
06:00 The CPM / conversion / LTV diagnostic
08:30 Gift codes that doubled ROI (and the starter pack that killed LTV)
13:00 Custom in-game integrations — 437% conversion lift
16:30 The five key takeaways and the 12-month timeline
📌 KEY TAKEAWAYS
— Influencer marketing is a system, not a campaign. The full framework runs across a 12-month timeline: Q1 knowledge-gathering with nano and micro creators testing as many verticals as possible, Q2 optimizing with a broader size range plus giveaways and contests, Q3 onward scaling proven verticals while continuously testing new ones.
— Size diversity is mandatory, not optional. 22% of YouTube channels are micro (under 50K views/video) but account for only 37% of views — the remaining 63% comes from just 8% of channels in the mid-to-mega tier. You need all sizes to scale and keep testing.
— Gift codes lift conversion but watch the LTV trap. A real example: adding a character + starter pack pushed conversion above target, but LTV dropped by half because the generous starter pack cannibalized early monetization. Dropping to a character-only gift brought LTV back up and doubled ROI. Always tell creators the gift's value in a currency they understand (USD/EUR).
— Custom in-game integrations are the highest-leverage scaling move. Bringing a creator into the game (a character, skin, reskinned item, or full funnel) lifted conversion rate by 437% and ROI by 279% on average across genres. Start small — reskinning or renaming an existing item is a low-effort entry point that still creates the personal connection.
This is no BS gaming podcast 2.5 gamers session. Sharing actionable insights, dropping knowledge from our day-to-day User Acquisition, Game Design, and Ad monetization jobs. We are definitely not discussing the latest industry news, but having so much fun! Let’s not forget this is a 4 a.m. conference discussion vibe, so let's not take it too seriously.
Host: Marion Balinoff
https://www.linkedin.com/in/marion-balinoff/
Join our slack channel here: https://join.slack.com/t/two-and-half-gamers/shared_invite/zt-3bckldvr8-8PXvzciMWdheOzED9hq0SA
Please share the podcast with your industry friends, dogs & cats. Especially cats! They love it!
Hit the Subscribe button on YouTube, Spotify, and Apple!
Please share feedback and comments - matej@lancaric.me
If you are interested in getting UA tips every week on Monday, visit lancaric.substack.com & sign up for the Brutally Honest newsletter by Matej Lancaric
Do you have UA questions nobody can answer? Ask Matej AI - the First UA AI in the gaming industry! https://lancaric.me/matej-ai
💰Marble Sort Review: SORT FTW! Voodoo is suddenly doing $1M/day in IAP revenue
Voodoo wasn't supposed to be making this kind of money. For years their entire portfolio sat at sub-$100K/day games — Mob Control, Cap Heroes, the usual hyper-casual treadmill. Then something switched in early 2026 and now they're suddenly running at $1M/day in IAP across the portfolio. The flag-bearer for the new era is Marble Sort.
We dig into Marble Sort by Voodoo — a sort-category puzzler that scaled from launch in February to $200K/day in IAP plus $52K/day in ad revenue by March. The conversation covers the sorter-category explosion (Pixel Flow's Scopely acquisition for close to $1B set the precedent), the 800-1,100 creatives running on AppLovin and what they tell us about Voodoo's creative production discipline, the level-design and APS-curve methodology that Tripledot-style studios actually use, why this game could be just a mini-game inside Royal Match (and why that matters), and the bigger story underneath: Voodoo just launched a mid-core PvP studio led by ex-Kameli Games French founders, signaling a serious IPO push in the next 1-2 years.
If you want to understand the Voodoo renaissance — or just figure out why Jakub keeps insisting "the sort category is the new hot shit" — this is the episode.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
⏱️ TIMESTAMPS
00:00 Cold open — Voodoo is suddenly doing $1M/day in IAP
02:24 The sorter category is the new hot shit (and why)
05:36 The Voodoo portfolio renaissance — Castle Clashers + Marble Sort
08:56 Walking the game — sorting mechanics, level curve, no live-ops yet
13:40 The level design metrics — APS curve, booster win ratio
17:38 32% ad revenue + $52K/day = roughly $250K/day total
19:59 800-1,100 creatives in 30 days — AI + gameplay + AppLovin altered videos
28:33 Voodoo's new mid-core PvP studio + the IPO setup
--------------------------------------
PVX Partners offers non-dilutive funding for game developers.
Go to: https://pvxpartners.com/
They can help you access the most effective form of growth capital once you have the metrics to back it.
- Scale fast
- Keep your shares
- Drawdown only as needed
- Have PvX take downside risk alongside you
+ Work with a team entirely made up of ex-gaming operators and investors
---------------------------------------
For an ever-growing number of game developers, this means that now is the perfect time to invest in monetizing direct-to-consumer at scale.
Our sponsor FastSpring:
Has delivered D2C at scale for over 20 years
They power top mobile publishers around the world
Launch a new webstore, replace an existing D2C vendor, or add a redundant D2C vendor at fastspring.gg.
---------------------------------------
This is no BS gaming podcast 2.5 gamers session. Sharing actionable insights, dropping knowledge from our day-to-day User Acquisition, Game Design, and Ad monetization jobs. We are definitely not discussing the latest industry news, but having so much fun! Let’s not forget this is a 4 a.m. conference discussion vibe, so let's not take it too seriously.
Panelists: Jakub Remiar, Felix Braberg, Matej Lancaric
Podcast:
Join our slack channel here: https://join.slack.com/t/two-and-half-gamers/shared_invite/zt-3bckldvr8-8PXvzciMWdheOzED9hq0SA
Chapters
---------------------------------------
Matej Lancaric
User Acquisition & Creatives Consultant
https://lancaric.me
Felix Braberg
Ad monetization consultant
https://www.felixbraberg.com
Jakub Remiar
Game design consultant
https://www.linkedin.com/in/jakubremiar
---------------------------------------
Please share the podcast with your industry friends, dogs & cats. Especially cats! They love it!
Hit the Subscribe button on YouTube, Spotify, and Apple!
Please share feedback and comments - matej@lancaric.me
🚨📢BREAKING NEWS: Block Blast blasted off the Android store, Steam deck price goes to the moon
A top-5 mobile game with 60-70 million daily active users just disappeared from Google Play for 24 hours and came back. Nobody from Hungry Studios is saying anything. That's the headline.
Jakub Remiar flies solo this week with nine stories from the May 23-29 news cycle. The Block Blast Android outage is the biggest shock — a game that big going dark on a major platform for an entire day with zero public explanation. The Monopoly Go licensing story is the most quietly important: Scopely paid Hasbro $41M last quarter alone, confirming the $168M/year run-rate that puts Monopoly Go in genuinely different stratosphere from everything else in social casino. And Valve raised the Steam Deck OLED 1TB from $649 to $949 — a 40% hike that prompted Tim Sweeney to publicly joke about Gabe Newell's $500M super-yacht.
Plus: Playtika layoffs as social casino keeps declining, Unreal Engine 6 teased via Rocket League, NetEase posts 7% YoY growth, CD Projekt Red announces a new Witcher 3 expansion called Songs of the Past, IO Interactive's James Bond game hits 1.5M copies in 24 hours, Fortnite returns to iOS to a 3.4M download spike, and the GDC 2026 trend report confirms generative AI is the only thing anyone in the industry is talking about.
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⏱️ TIMESTAMPS
00:00 Cold open — the Steam Deck mega-yacht joke00:30 Block Blast vanished from Google Play (and came back)02:00 Playtika layoffs + Monopoly Go's $41M Hasbro license fee03:30 Unreal Engine 6, NetEase Q1, Witcher 3 + James Bond05:24 Sponsor — Potensus06:32 GDC 2026 trend report — generative AI dominates07:30 Fortnite iOS return drives 3.4M downloads in 8 years08:30 Steam Deck +40% price hike + the mega-yacht punchline
📌 KEY TAKEAWAYS
— Block Blast (Hungry Studios) vanished from Google Play on Thursday May 28 with zero public explanation, then reappeared Friday. The game does 60-70M daily active users — roughly the fifth-biggest mobile game in the world by DAU. The iOS version stayed up the entire time. No statement from Hungry Studios as of recording.
— Scopely paid Hasbro $41M in Monopoly Go license fees in the last quarter alone, slightly down from $42M but extremely stable. Hasbro previously disclosed full-year 2025 Monopoly Go license revenue at $168M. Scopely's own claim is that Monopoly Go generates roughly $200M/month, and that doesn't include D2C revenue, which is invisible in Sensor Tower.
— Playtika confirmed another round of layoffs after a 7% YoY revenue drop. The original social casino market (Slotomania, Bingo Blitz, World Series of Poker) is being squeezed by coin-pusher / dice-game hybrids like Monopoly Go, Coin Master, and Dice Dreams. Casino is migrating; classic social slots are not benefiting from the migration.
— Epic Games teased Unreal Engine 6 via a Rocket League teaser. No release date, no details, just confirmation that UE6 exists. Same Epic that laid off 1,000 employees two months ago — the Apple/Google legal battles cost them mobile revenue, and Fortnite is the only thing keeping the lights on (engine business doesn't pay the bills).
— NetEase reported 7% YoY games revenue growth to $3.7B in Q1, driven primarily by Fantasy Westward Journey, Where Winds Meet, Identity V, Eggy Party, and Sword of Justice. Growth concentrated in China, Turkey, and Vietnam.
— CD Projekt Red announced "Songs of the Past," a new Witcher 3 expansion co-developed with Fool's Theory Studio, slated for 2027. Witcher 3 has now surpassed 65M lifetime sales since its 2015 release.
— Fortnite returned to iOS and pulled 3.4M downloads — an 8-year high, mostly because Fortnite hasn't been on iOS since 2020 due to the Apple/Epic lawsuit.
🎙️ HOST
Jakub Remiar — Game Design consultant
🙏 SPONSOR
This episode is brought to you by Potensus — the premium ad network with direct deals to Amazon, Apple, Coca-Cola, and Vodafone (no programmatic middlemen), partnered with Playable Maker for native gaming creative formats. Head to potensus.com to get started.
💰 Geometry Dash Has 97% Profit Margins: The $30M/Year One-Man show
One guy. Five helpers. $30 million a year in revenue. 97% profit margin. Zero UA. 700 million lifetime downloads. The most successful solo developer in mobile gaming history is Swedish and you've probably never heard of him.
Matej Lančarič, Jakub Remiar, and Felix Braberg return with another One Man Wonder episode — this time on Robert Topala (RobTop Games) and Geometry Dash. The game launched in 2013 as a premium $1.99 title, spawned a free-to-play Lite version, and has been compounding ever since. Active users just hit an all-time high of 10 million DAU — double where they were in October last year. Daily revenue is $75K, with 2025 trending toward $27M after a record $33M in 2024.
The most uncomfortable part isn't the revenue. It's that Topala has literally one UA creative running, his entire growth engine is organic, and his profit margin has stayed between 93% and 97% every single year since 2015. He's still in Sweden paying full Swedish tax because he can't be bothered to relocate. The lesson for everyone else? Either build something so good that creators on TikTok and YouTube market it for free for a decade — or accept that you'll never operate at this margin profile.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
⏱️ TIMESTAMPS
00:00 Cold open — $27.4M revenue, one employee
02:32 One Man Wonder #N — meet Robert Topala from Sweden
05:18 All-time-high 10M DAU and the growth curve doubling
14:32 Ad revenue breakdown: $75K/day total revenue
16:35 The Swedish financial filings — 93-97% profit margin since 2015
20:12 How AppLovin mediation 3x'd revenue from 2022 to 2024
22:41 Third biggest platformer by downloads — just one person
26:34 TikTok and YouTube as the real UA engine
--------------------------------------
PVX Partners offers non-dilutive funding for game developers.
Go to: https://pvxpartners.com/
They can help you access the most effective form of growth capital once you have the metrics to back it.
- Scale fast
- Keep your shares
- Drawdown only as needed
- Have PvX take downside risk alongside you
+ Work with a team entirely made up of ex-gaming operators and investors
---------------------------------------
For an ever-growing number of game developers, this means that now is the perfect time to invest in monetizing direct-to-consumer at scale.
Our sponsor FastSpring:
Has delivered D2C at scale for over 20 years
They power top mobile publishers around the world
Launch a new webstore, replace an existing D2C vendor, or add a redundant D2C vendor at fastspring.gg.
---------------------------------------
This is no BS gaming podcast 2.5 gamers session. Sharing actionable insights, dropping knowledge from our day-to-day User Acquisition, Game Design, and Ad monetization jobs. We are definitely not discussing the latest industry news, but having so much fun! Let’s not forget this is a 4 a.m. conference discussion vibe, so let's not take it too seriously.
Panelists: Jakub Remiar, Felix Braberg, Matej Lancaric
#mobilegaming #useracquisition #gamedesign #geometrydash #robtop #onemanwonder #f2p #geometrydashshowcase
Join our slack channel here: https://join.slack.com/t/two-and-half-gamers/shared_invite/zt-3bckldvr8-8PXvzciMWdheOzED9hq0SA
---------------------------------------
Matej Lancaric
User Acquisition & Creatives Consultant
https://lancaric.me
Felix Braberg
Ad monetization consultant
https://www.felixbraberg.com
Jakub Remiar
Game design consultant
https://www.linkedin.com/in/jakubremiar
---------------------------------------
Please share the podcast with your industry friends, dogs & cats. Especially cats! They love it!
Hit the Subscribe button on YouTube, Spotify, and Apple!
Please share feedback and comments - matej@lancaric.me
🎤 MAU Vegas 2026 Recap: Why is MAU a must attend conference?
MAU Vegas 2026 is over, the biggest booths in mobile gaming, and a single conversation dominating every panel and corridor: AI. Specifically, what happens when AI creatives cut your CPI in half.
Matej Lančarič and Jakub Remiar catch Felix Braberg up on what he missed while taking care of his baby. The 2.5 Gamers Gaming Summit kicked off Tuesday with ~100 attendees (roughly 10x the next-biggest competing summit), Christina Larionova from the Last War / Whiteout Survival team shared CPI and ROAS data showing AI creatives are literally half the cost of human-made ones, AppLovin had the biggest booth and announced Pixel Portal, UA financing went fully mainstream (per Jeff at PVX Partners), CTV is exploding, and retention is now openly being talked about as "the new UA" — partly thanks to Mistplay's Mychips acquisition.
If you couldn't make it to Vegas, this is the catch-up. And if you weren't already planning Bellagio 2027 (May 4-6), make yourself available.
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⏱️ TIMESTAMPS
00:00 Cold open — Bellagio 2027, why you have to be there
02:32 Felix missed MAU + the 2.5 Gamers Summit's 10x outperformance
04:31 "MAU is the new GDC" — Jeff from PVX nailed the framing
06:23 The standout talks: Nebo, Christina, Marion, Katja
08:55 AI is everywhere — 70% of creatives are now AI-generated
13:24 AppLovin's biggest booth + Pixel Portal announcement
15:38 CTV explosion: TV Scientific, Vibe, Roku, Pinterest
20:01 Bellagio 2027 + closing thoughts on what's coming
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
📌 KEY TAKEAWAYS
— MAU has become the new GDC for mobile gaming. The vibe is right, the people are right, the venue is walking-distance, and unlike San Francisco there's no feces on the street. Pocket Gamer Connects and other industry events still matter, but MAU is now the must-attend.
— The 2.5 Gamers Gaming Summit on Tuesday's kickoff day pulled roughly 100 attendees — about 10x what competing summits brought in. The format (multiple practitioner-led sessions in a focused half-day) is now a proven model.
— UA financing went fully mainstream. Jeff from PVX Partners had to explain what UA financing even was 12 months ago; this year he was being approached by founders saying "I saw your post, we need this." The conversation has moved from "what is it" to "how do we deploy it."
— CTV is the fastest-growing channel almost nobody is talking about correctly.
— Retention is now openly being framed as "the new UA." Mistplay's Mychips acquisition reframed the rewarded ad category, and the broader argument is that retention engineering produces more LTV per dollar than UA acquisition once your funnel is saturated.
— MAU 2027 moves from MGM Grand to the Bellagio, May 4-6. Write it down.
---------------------------------------
This is no BS gaming podcast 2.5 gamers session. Sharing actionable insights, dropping knowledge from our day-to-day User Acquisition, Game Design, and Ad monetization jobs. We are definitely not discussing the latest industry news, but having so much fun! Let’s not forget this is a 4 a.m. conference discussion vibe, so let's not take it too seriously.
Panelists: Jakub Remiar, Felix Braberg, Matej Lancaric
Podcast:
Join our slack channel here: https://join.slack.com/t/two-and-half-gamers/shared_invite/zt-3bckldvr8-8PXvzciMWdheOzED9hq0SA
Matej Lancaric
User Acquisition & Creatives Consultant
https://lancaric.me
Felix Braberg
Ad monetization consultant
https://www.felixbraberg.com
Jakub Remiar
Game design consultant
https://www.linkedin.com/in/jakubremiar
---------------------------------------
Please share the podcast with your industry friends, dogs & cats. Especially cats! They love it!
Hit the Subscribe button on YouTube, Spotify, and Apple!
Please share feedback and comments - matej@lancaric.me
🎯 Creative Trends April 2026: Volume + 80/20 Creative Strategy FTW!
AppQuantum's Golden Goblins is five years old and still dropping new creatives nobody else is matching. Magic Sword is running 5,000+ new playables per month. Match Villains just flipped the "save the king" formula and is converting harder than ever. And AI creatives are now indistinguishable from human ones in roughly half of the libraries we looked at.
Matej Lančarič is joined by Felix Braberg and John Wright (Playable Maker, sitting in for Jakub) to walk through Sensor Tower's April creative trends and figure out what's actually winning right now. The conversation covers the Golden Goblins production machine and why they're still using gates (yes, gates), Match Villains flipping the king-rescue formula into peasant-rescue, the AI invasion of creative libraries, why near-death experience hooks are showing up everywhere, the $40 vs $10 CPI gap between 4X and idle arcade creatives, the brutal volume race (Magic Sword 5K, Royal Match only 300), and the 80/20 iteration rule that separates winners from everyone else.
If you ship creatives every week and want to know what's actually working in April 2026, this is the episode.
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⏱️ TIMESTAMPS
00:00 Cold open — "what signals do you look for anymore?"
02:14 Golden Goblins is still dropping new stuff (and using gates)
09:13 The 5,000 creatives per month volume race
13:55 The 80/20 rule — iteration beats new concepts
21:00 "Save the Peasants" — Match Villains flips the king formula
30:40 The Royal Match Apple billion-dollar problem
35:30 AI creatives are now 50% of some libraries
39:13 The $40 vs $10 CPI gap and the Tasty Travels playbook
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Get our MERCH NOW: 25gamers.com/shop
--------------------------------------
PVX Partners offers non-dilutive funding for game developers.
Go to: https://pvxpartners.com/
They can help you access the most effective form of growth capital once you have the metrics to back it.
- Scale fast
- Keep your shares
- Drawdown only as needed
- Have PvX take downside risk alongside you
+ Work with a team entirely made up of ex-gaming operators and investors
---------------------------------------
For an ever-growing number of game developers, this means that now is the perfect time to invest in monetizing direct-to-consumer at scale.
Our sponsor FastSpring:
Has delivered D2C at scale for over 20 years
They power top mobile publishers around the world
Launch a new webstore, replace an existing D2C vendor, or add a redundant D2C vendor at fastspring.gg.
---------------------------------------
This is no BS gaming podcast 2.5 gamers session. Sharing actionable insights, dropping knowledge from our day-to-day User Acquisition, Game Design, and Ad monetization jobs. We are definitely not discussing the latest industry news, but having so much fun! Let’s not forget this is a 4 a.m. conference discussion vibe, so let's not take it too seriously.
Panelists: Felix Braberg, Matej Lancaric
Special guest: John Wright
Join our slack channel here: https://join.slack.com/t/two-and-half-gamers/shared_invite/zt-3bckldvr8-8PXvzciMWdheOzED9hq0SA
---------------------------------------
Matej Lancaric
User Acquisition & Creatives Consultant
https://lancaric.me
Felix Braberg
Ad monetization consultant
https://www.felixbraberg.com
Jakub Remiar
Game design consultant
https://www.linkedin.com/in/jakubremiar
---------------------------------------
Please share the podcast with your industry friends, dogs & cats. Especially cats! They love it!
Hit the Subscribe button on YouTube, Spotify, and Apple!
Please share feedback and comments - matej@lancaric.me
---------------------------------------
If you are interested in getting UA tips every week on Monday, visit lancaric.substack.com & sign up for the Brutally Honest newsletter by Matej Lancaric
🚨📢BREAKING NEWS: AppLovin Fingerprinting Exposed, Sensor Tower's M&A, Embracer's $192M Write-Down
Has AppLovin been fingerprinting iOS users all along? A white-hat hacker says yes — and they cracked the mediation cipher to prove it.
Felix Braberg breaks down the three biggest mobile gaming stories from the week ending May 22, 2026. Sensor Tower acquired App Magic to build out their SMB offering and consolidate market intelligence even further. A white-hat hacker published a detailed breakdown of AppLovin's mediation cipher, claiming 50+ device parameters get extracted per ad call across 12+ downstream networks — effectively recreating deterministic IDFA-level tracking even when users deny ATT. And Embracer wrote down their mobile business by $192M after divesting Easybrain to MiniClip for $1.2B last year, with the market now pricing in another major acquisition.
The cipher story is the spicy one. If confirmed, it explains why iOS performance has been so strong post-ATT — and it sets up a potential antitrust collision course because Apple's own ad business would be exempt from any policing they did against everyone else.
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⏱️ TIMESTAMPS
00:00 Cold open — the cipher and what gets extracted
00:30 Sensor Tower acquires App Magic for SMB market
03:00 White hat hacker cracks AppLovin's mediation cipher
05:30 What 50 device parameters means for ATT
07:00 The Apple antitrust collision course
08:00 Embracer writes down mobile arm by $192M
09:30 Why the market expects another Embracer acquisition
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
📌 KEY TAKEAWAYS
— Sensor Tower acquired App Magic, positioning it as their SMB market-intelligence offering. The play is funnel-building — Sensor Tower is expensive at the top end, so App Magic becomes the entry point that captures small studios and indie developers before they grow into enterprise customers.
— The 50 parameters include OS version, screen size, language, font, volume, mute switch, IDFV, and dozens more — together creating a fingerprint that's effectively as good as an IDFA for tracking purposes.
— The Apple problem: if Apple polices fingerprinting, it would have to act against every major ad network simultaneously. And Apple Search Ads would be in the crosshairs of any antitrust response, since Apple's own ad business benefits from the same tracking infrastructure. Felix's read: Apple won't act because they'd lose downloads and IAP revenue.
— Embracer wrote down their mobile business by $192M in their Q1 full-year results, following last year's $1.2B Easybrain sale to MiniClip. Top mobile earners (Crazy Labs, Thinking Ape, Deca, Subway Surfers, Glow, Lamar, Flophouse, Party in My Dorm) generated $72-73M in net sales — down 28% YoY due to the Easybrain divestiture.
---------------------------------------
This is no BS gaming podcast 2.5 gamers session. Sharing actionable insights, dropping knowledge from our day-to-day User Acquisition, Game Design, and Ad monetization jobs. We are definitely not discussing the latest industry news, but having so much fun! Let’s not forget this is a 4 a.m. conference discussion vibe, so let's not take it too seriously.
Panelists: Jakub Remiar, Felix Braberg, Matej Lancaric
Join our slack channel here: https://join.slack.com/t/two-and-half-gamers/shared_invite/zt-3bckldvr8-8PXvzciMWdheOzED9hq0SA
--------------------------------------
Matej Lancaric
User Acquisition & Creatives Consultant
https://lancaric.me
Felix Braberg
Ad monetization consultant
https://www.felixbraberg.com
Jakub Remiar
Game design consultant
https://www.linkedin.com/in/jakubremiar
---------------------------------------
Please share the podcast with your industry friends, dogs & cats. Especially cats! They love it!
Hit the Subscribe button on YouTube, Spotify, and Apple!
Please share feedback and comments - matej@lancaric.me
🌸 The Pikmin Bloom Anomaly: How a 5-Year-Old game just hit 5x downloads without UA
A 5-year-old location-based game just 5x'd its downloads. There were no new creatives. No new geos. No marketing push. Just one regional event that changed how the game actually works in Taiwan.
We break down Pikmin Bloom by Niantic — the quiet survivor of the post-Pokemon-Go location-based wave that everyone forgot about, but which has been quietly making $30-50M/month for years and just spiked dramatically in early 2026. The conversation covers the Pikmin IP history, the game's walking-based resource-conversion mechanics, why 58% of revenue comes from Japan, the brutal scale comparison to Pokemon Go ($85M in 5 years vs $75M in 30 days), and the most interesting product story of the episode: Niantic's regional experiment in Taiwan where they moved mushroom locations weekly from November to February, driving a 5x download spike that's still scaling.
The takeaway isn't about Pikmin specifically. It's about what product-driven UA looks like when creative-led UA stops moving the needle.
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⏱️ TIMESTAMPS
00:00 Cold open — Pikmin Bloom is scaling, why?
03:16 Pikmin history lesson — Nintendo IP, RTS origins
06:16 The actual game: walking, flowers, Pikmin work for you
13:01 The 5x download spike and Taiwan's surprise dominance
14:53 The brutal comparison — Pikmin Bloom vs Pokemon Go
17:01 The Japan IP rule: everything Nintendo touches is sacred
24:12 The Niantic Taiwan experiment that changed everything
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
📌 KEY TAKEAWAYS
— Pikmin Bloom is doing $30-50M/month consistently across five years, with 58% of revenue coming from Japan. The game just 5x'd downloads and crossed into Taiwan as its second-biggest revenue country — and almost none of it is driven by UA.
— Niantic ran a quiet regional product experiment in Taiwan from November 12 to February 15: mushroom locations changed weekly (normally fixed), which created persistent engagement and surprise discovery. Result: 5x downloads and revenue acceleration that's still running.
PVX Partners offers non-dilutive funding for game developers.
Go to: https://pvxpartners.com/
They can help you access the most effective form of growth capital once you have the metrics to back it.
- Scale fast
- Keep your shares
- Drawdown only as needed
- Have PvX take downside risk alongside you
+ Work with a team entirely made up of ex-gaming operators and investors
---------------------------------------
For an ever-growing number of game developers, this means that now is the perfect time to invest in monetizing direct-to-consumer at scale.
Our sponsor FastSpring:
Has delivered D2C at scale for over 20 years
They power top mobile publishers around the world
Launch a new webstore, replace an existing D2C vendor, or add a redundant D2C vendor at fastspring.gg.
This is no BS gaming podcast 2.5 gamers session. Sharing actionable insights, dropping knowledge from our day-to-day User Acquisition, Game Design, and Ad monetization jobs. We are definitely not discussing the latest industry news, but having so much fun! Let’s not forget this is a 4 a.m. conference discussion vibe, so let's not take it too seriously.
Panelists: Jakub Remiar, Felix Braberg, Matej Lancaric
Podcast:
Join our slack channel here: https://join.slack.com/t/two-and-half-gamers/shared_invite/zt-3bckldvr8-8PXvzciMWdheOzED9hq0SA
---------------------------------------
Matej Lancaric
User Acquisition & Creatives Consultant
https://lancaric.me
Felix Braberg
Ad monetization consultant
https://www.felixbraberg.com
Jakub Remiar
Game design consultant
https://www.linkedin.com/in/jakubremiar
---------------------------------------
Please share the podcast with your industry friends, dogs & cats. Especially cats! They love it!
Hit the Subscribe button on YouTube, Spotify, and Apple!
Please share feedback and comments - matej@lancaric.me
🎮 Playable Trends April 2026: Puzzle Format, Long Sessions, Recognizable Mechanics
Long-form playables aren't just back — they're crushing it. The top playable in April hit 75% impression share. Whiteout Survival is doing it with 3 new playables a month. And the format that's winning everywhere is the one your mum would recognize.
Matej Lančarič is joined by Ondrej Monsberger and John Wright for another Playable Trends deep-dive. The crew goes through Sensor Tower's top playable creatives for April, focusing exclusively on long-form playables and what's actually driving impression share right now. The conversation covers the production trick of building one playable script and shipping 20 variations, why the "mum test" puzzle format is dominating, the BitLife "find the shoes" frustration mechanic, Royal Match's redirect-then-return experiment, and the awkward truth that Whiteout Survival made only three new playables in April but still has 99% impression share on puzzle creatives.
If you make playables — or you're trying to understand why CPI keeps climbing despite shipping more creatives — this is the episode to bookmark.
⏱️ TIMESTAMPS
00:00 the "mum test" and recognizable formats
02:24 Welcome — the never-ending playables debate revisited
06:15 Sensor Tower setup and April's top long-form playables
09:27 One script, 20 variations — the production playbook
13:50 The completion-rate vs engagement-clicks tradeoff
21:00 The 75% impression share playable of April
25:48 Royal Match's redirect-then-return experiment
30:05 Whiteout Survival: 99% impression share, 3 new playables
38:24 Predictions for next month — and the arrows trend
📌 KEY TAKEAWAYS
— One playable script can become 20+ variations without rebuilding anything: vary the length, vary the CTA timing, vary the color scheme, vary the redirect point. Stop asking "can I make a new playable" — ask "have I drained the variations from the playable I have."
— Long-form is not a problem if players are engaged. John spent 9 minutes finishing a Cell Survivor playable. Ondrej spent 5 minutes on Magic Sword. Both downloaded. The frustration isn't the length — it's getting cut off before finishing.
— Royal Match is experimenting with letting users redirect to the store and then return to finish the playable.
— Prediction for next month: long-form continues, puzzle format keeps dominating, arrows-themed mini-levels start appearing inside casual game playables (already showing up in Royal Kingdom), and AI playables become indistinguishable from human-made for the simpler concepts.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
🎙️ HOSTS
Matej Lančarič — User Acquisition consultant
Ondrej Mosbergert — Game Design + UA consultant
John Wright — Playable Maker
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
This episode is brought to you by Potensus — the premium ad network with direct deals to Amazon, Apple, Coca-Cola, and Vodafone (no programmatic middlemen), partnered with Playable Maker for native gaming creative formats. Head to potensus.com to get started.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
#mobilegaming #useracquisition #playables #creativestrategy #liveops #f2p
--------------------------------------
PVX Partners offers non-dilutive funding for game developers.
Go to: https://pvxpartners.com/
They can help you access the most effective form of growth capital once you have the metrics to back it.
- Scale fast
- Keep your shares
- Drawdown only as needed
- Have PvX take downside risk alongside you
+ Work with a team entirely made up of ex-gaming operators and investors
---------------------------------------
For an ever-growing number of game developers, this means that now is the perfect time to invest in monetizing direct-to-consumer at scale.
Our sponsor FastSpring:
Has delivered D2C at scale for over 20 years
They power top mobile publishers around the world
Launch a new webstore, replace an existing D2C vendor, or add a redundant D2C vendor at fastspring.gg.
---------------------------------------
Matej Lancaric
User Acquisition & Creatives Consultant
https://lancaric.me
🧠 CloudX just hit 10-20% Revenue Lifts in 90 Days: The First AI-Native Ad stack for publishers
The first AI-native programmatic stack for mobile publishers is real, and the early numbers are absurd. 10-20% revenue lifts across every publisher they've launched.
Felix Braberg sits down with Dan Sack — Co-founder of CloudX, formerly MoPub, Twitter, Max, and AppLovin — for round two of their conversation, three months after CloudX went GA in February. The company now works with dozens of publishers, has five bidders fully live, a dozen more integrating, and a 35-person team. The pitch is "monetization as code" — a publisher platform where every setup lives in code and can be operated by humans OR AI agents.
What's actually working today is the infrastructure
layer: transparent fees, no competing ad network,
verified auctions, and integration options that include
first look, parallel, and standalone. The agentic
capabilities are coming in Q3 — and that's the part
that could reshape how publishers operate.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
⏱️ TIMESTAMPS
00:00 Cold open — dating app publisher up 14% revenue
01:19 Round two intros + Dan's torn ACL update
03:30 What CloudX has shipped since February GA
04:39 Monetization as code: human + AI agent operated
07:28 Felix's example: "kill DT for IAP whale cohorts"
08:43 First look vs parallel vs standalone explained
14:27 The real reason CloudX delivers 10-20% lifts
24:14 Felix's pickle: 3 weeks of manual tuning, no AI yet
32:19 The Q3 automation + intelligence layer roadmap
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
📌 KEY TAKEAWAYS
— CloudX is delivering consistent 10-20% revenue lifts
across every publisher launched, regardless of
integration type (parallel, first look, banners, full
screen). Dan admits even he didn't expect lifts of
this magnitude this quickly.
— "Monetization as code" means your entire setup lives
in code and can be operated by humans OR AI agents.
Think Claude Code or Cowork but for ad operations —
agents that monitor, recommend, and execute on your
behalf.
— Three integration types: first look (CloudX gets the
call first with a floor, clears or passes), parallel
(both platforms auction simultaneously in silos,
winners compared), and standalone (CloudX called only
for specific apps/inventory). Standalone is launching
in the next few weeks.
— Banners are NOT dead. CloudX is seeing real lifts
there too — partly via dynamic price flooring (which
many SDK networks underprioritize) and partly by
bringing massive web/CTV banner demand into in-app
through partnerships with buyers who historically
ignored the channel.
— Demand stack today: Meta, Liftoff fully live. Next
wave (weeks away): Moloco, Pangle, Digital Turbine,
MobileFuse, Verve. Big omni-channel buyers set for
Q3. Twenty-plus bidders integrating.
— Multi-round auctioning is the killer feature. Bidding
+ dynamic flooring + waterfall optimization in a
single auction system, no hacks needed. Sophisticated
publishers have been hacking this for years; CloudX
productized it.
— The AI agentic vision: dashboard becomes a Claude-Code-style
conversation — "what's happening, what should I know,
what's the recommendation, do it." Automation in Q3,
intelligence layer following. The platform you log
into shouldn't be a dashboard you operate, it should
be an agent you direct.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
🎙️ HOST
Felix Braberg — Ad Monetization consultant
🎤 GUEST
Dan Sack — Co-founder, CloudX (formerly MoPub, Twitter, Max,
AppLovin)
https://www.linkedin.com/in/dansack/
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💬 Reach out to Dan: dan@cloudx.io
💬 Comment below: would you try a programmatic stack that runs on AI agents?
👍 Like the video if you learned something
🔔 Subscribe for more deep-dive analysis
#mobilegaming #admonetization #cloudx #mediation
#programmaticads #aiads #f2p
🚨📢 BREAKING NEWS: Royal Kingdom Adds Ads, Playtika Exits Social Casino, Mistplay Buys Mychips
Dream Games swore they would never add ads to Royal Match
or Royal Kingdom. In February 2026, they quietly did it.
Here's the proof — and what it means for the rest of the
industry.
Felix Braberg flies solo this week to break down the three
biggest stories in mobile gaming: Playtika officially
walking away from social casino to chase Disney Solitaire
(with D2C revenue now at 62% of their IAP), Mistplay's
acquisition of Mychips as the rewarded UA M&A wave begins,
and the most interesting story of the week — Dream Games
caught adding ads to Royal Kingdom via Wayback Machine
forensics, generating an estimated $170-190K/day in
interstitial and rewarded revenue while 6x'ing downloads
in markets like Brazil.
If Dream Games breaks, Playrix is next.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
⏱️ TIMESTAMPS
00:00 Cold open — Royal Kingdom's $190K/day ad revenue
01:25 Playtika exits social casino, casual is now 76% of business
03:10 The D2C dark pool — Playtika now at 62% off-platform
04:45 Mistplay acquires Mychips — the rewarded UA M&A wave
07:00 Royal Kingdom's secret ads — Wayback Machine forensics
08:30 The Brazil test — 25K to 150K downloads/day, IAP also up
09:30 Top charts wrap — Magic Sword, Grand Games, Monopoly Go
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
📌 KEY TAKEAWAYS
— Playtika is officially out of social casino. Casual games
are now 76% of business per CEO Robert Antokol; Slotomania,
Bingo Blitz, and World Series of Poker are in "managed
decline." The legacy social casino CPIs are too high for
the return profile to justify the spend anymore.
— D2C is the real story underneath. Playtika's D2C revenue
is now 62% of IAP, up from 42% the last quarter they
reported. They're one of the few public companies in
mobile that discloses this, and the trend is the litmus
test for how much IAP revenue is now invisible in Sensor
Tower's "official" charts.
— Mistplay just acquired Mychips (a Math subsidiary).
Rewarded UA is consolidating fast — Felix estimates 14-25
players have meaningful revenue right now, and this is
the first of many acquisitions coming. Watch Agio, Mistplay,
and similar platforms make moves.
— Dream Games quietly added ads to Royal Kingdom in February
2026. Detected via Wayback Machine showing their app-ads.txt
file expanded, plus user reviews complaining about
unskippable ads. This contradicts years of public brand
positioning around "premium IAP, no ads."
— The numbers explain why they broke: Royal Kingdom went
from 100-300K daily downloads to 600K. Brazil went from
25K to 150K downloads/day. Brazil IAP also went from
$12K/day to $17K/day — IAP revenue grew alongside ads,
not in spite of them. Estimated incremental ad revenue:
20% lift, or $170-190K/day.
— The mechanism is AppLovin blended ROAS campaigns —
targeting users for both IAP purchases AND ad watches in
a single campaign. This is the new playbook, and it
works because ads done right widen the funnel without
cannibalizing IAP.
— Playrix is next. Dream Games breaking the "no ads"
posture is the canary in the coal mine. The big
IAP-only studios that have publicly resisted ads will
start looking at Dream's numbers and folding.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
🎙️ HOST
Felix Braberg — Ad Monetization consultant
🙏 SPONSOR
This episode is brought to you by FastSpring — the no-drama
D2C partner scaling with mobile publishers for 20+ years.
Visit fastspring.gg to set up your web store today.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
💬 Comment below: which "no ads" studio breaks next?
👍 Like the video if you learned something
🔔 Subscribe for the next weekly news drop
#mobilegaming #useracquisition #admonetization #royalmatch
#dreamgames #playtika #mistplay #f2p
The Mistplay Audience Network: Smartest UA Expansion of 2026! 3X reach, same quality
Rewarded UA used to be a test bed. In 2026, it's a third of your UA spend. Mistplay just made it easier to scale.
We sit down with the full Mistplay leadership team — Tricia (CEO), Aaron (CCO), and Mark "Bear" Bearman (GM, B2B) — to unpack the launch of the
Mistplay Audience Network. The conversation covers the state of rewarded UA in 2026, validating rewarded as a core channel, why the category is consolidating, what the MyAppFree acquisition actually unlocks for advertisers, and how the audience network expands Mistplay reach to MyAppFree and Connected Rewards inventory with a single check-box.
If you've been treating rewarded UA as a tactical add-on rather than a core part of your stack, this episode is the wake-up call.
⏱️ TIMESTAMPS
00:00 Cold open — what the audience network means for UA
01:33 Welcome + guest intros (Tricia, Aaron, Bear)
02:55 The state of rewarded UA in 2026
06:23 Survey data: rewarded UA at 20-30% of budgets
07:29 The scale-vs-performance tension and the "patient path"
13:17 What the audience network actually is, in plain English
17:51 Brand budgets and the value-exchange opportunity
23:00 The "tick a box" advertiser experience explained
30:31 Where rewarded UA goes next — discovery + retention
📌 KEY TAKEAWAYS
— AppsFlyer's 2025 Performance Index validates what UA
managers already see in their dashboards: roughly one
third of the top UA sources are now rewarded. Three to
four years ago, rewarded was 1-3% of spend; today it's
6-10% average and climbing.
— Matej's own UA survey: rewarded UA is now 20-30% of
budget for most respondents, and 80% are planning to
increase it further next year. That makes it core, not
tactical.
— The Mistplay Audience Network = one campaign, three
inventory sources. The same Mistplay buying engine now
extends to MyAppFree and Connected Rewards (Mobvista)
inventory with a literal check-box. Tricia's framing:
"same key, more doors."
— Why MyAppFree matters specifically: brand advertisers
finally want value-exchange placements (not just gamers),
which means a third inventory stream that wasn't
monetizable through gaming alone. This is genuinely new.
— The performance-quality bar isn't being lowered to add
scale. Mark Bearman: a high-quality DAU/MAU ratio and
engagement filter still applies; the audience network
expands reach without compromising the cohort signal.
— Rewarded UA consolidation is real and rapid. Three to
five years ago, every studio was launching a rewarded
platform; now the market is consolidating around the
platforms with sustainable foundations. Tricia's
intentional framing: "platforms our partners can count
on for trusted ROAS delivery."
— Future direction: Mistplay is shifting from a closed
loyalty platform to a UA layer that handles discovery,
acquisition, AND retention as a continuous loop. The
audience network is the first piece of that vision.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
🎙️ HOSTS
Matej Lančarič — User Acquisition consultant
Felix Braberg — Ad Monetization consultant
🎤 GUESTS
Tricia — CEO, Mistplay
https://www.linkedin.com/in/tricia-han-920649/
Aaron — Chief Commercial Officer, Mistplay
https://www.linkedin.com/in/aaronthandi/
Mark "Bear" Bearman — GM, B2B Solutions, Mistplay
https://www.linkedin.com/in/mwbearman13/
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
#mobilegaming #useracquisition #rewarded #mistplay
#liveops #f2p
---------------------------------------
This is no BS gaming podcast 2.5 gamers session. Sharing actionable insights, dropping knowledge from our day-to-day User Acquisition, Game Design, and Ad monetization jobs. We are definitely not discussing the latest industry news, but having so much fun! Let’s not forget this is a 4 a.m. conference discussion vibe, so let's not take it too seriously.
Panelists: Felix Braberg, Matej Lancaric
🧠 MVP UA template AXON: How to set up your Applovin for Success by Matej Lancaric
The AppLovin setup playbook. No micromanaging, no manual optimization, no bullshit. UA template for you! Applovin UA explained!
Solo for episode three of the MVP UA Template series (after Facebook and Google), this time breaking down AppLovin / Axon end-to-end. Tracking setup, campaign structure, bidding, ROAS targets, the new CPM-vs-CPI billing change, creative strategy, the real Axon dashboard with real numbers from his own game, and the patience required to actually scale.
The headline lesson: AppLovin is a beast, but it really matters what you feed it. Garbage MMP signals = garbage results. Playables aren't optional. And the geo-bucket strategy that works on Facebook and Google does NOT work here — worldwide campaign with geo targets is the only sensible setup.
If you've been avoiding AppLovin because it feels like a black box, this is the episode that demystifies it.
⏱️ TIMESTAMPS
00:00 Axon dashboard preview
02:20 Why AppLovin and what this episode covers
04:14 Budget, MMP signals, and the "garbage in, garbage out" rule
07:42 Worldwide campaign + geo targets (NOT geo buckets)
10:58 D7 vs D28 ROAS — which attribution window to pick
12:57 CPM vs CPI billing — the new setting most teams miss
14:40 Creative strategy: 80% playables, 60 new per month
17:59 Push budgets hard when something works (30-50%)
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
📌 KEY TAKEAWAYS
— AppLovin is not Facebook and not Google. The geo-bucket
structure (US / Tier-1 / RoW) that works on those
channels does NOT work here. Run ONE worldwide campaign,
split by attribution window and platform only, and use
geo-level ROAS targets to steer traffic — never geo-level
budgets (they don't work the way you think).
— Garbage MMP signals = garbage results. AppLovin doesn't
know if you're sending the right event. If you're sending
free trial signals labeled as subscriptions, AppLovin will
optimize for free trials and your ROAS will look great in
Singular while your real revenue dies.
— Skip the CPI / D7 warm-up phase. AppLovin no longer
requires it. Go straight to D7 or D28 ROAS, ideally D28
for higher quality and longer-cohort optimization. Pick
D7 only if your payback period is short and cash flow
matters more than cohort quality.
— New CPM vs CPI billing setting: start with CPM (spends
evenly across the day), then switch to CPI only after
you have winning creatives identified and want to scale
aggressively. CPM billing eliminates the old "budget
capped in 2 hours" problem.
— Playables are non-negotiable. 80-90% of spend should go
to playables. Top-grossing games ship 60+ new playables
per month — that's the bar. Video length: 30-60 seconds,
best results in the 45-59 second window. No hook needed
on AppLovin (user must watch 30+ seconds anyway).
This episode is brought to you by Potensus — the premium
ad network with direct deals to Amazon, Apple, Coca-Cola,
and Vodafone (no programmatic middlemen), partnered with
PlayableMaker for native gaming creative formats.
Head to potensus.com to get started.
📌 MVP UA TEMPLATE SERIES
1. Facebook setup
2. Google setup
3. AppLovin setup - you are here
Full AppLovin setup guide linked in show notes.
#mobilegaming #useracquisition #applovin #axon #mvpua
#liveops #f2p
Join our slack channel here: https://join.slack.com/t/two-and-half-gamers/shared_invite/zt-3bckldvr8-8PXvzciMWdheOzED9hq0SA
Matej Lancaric
User Acquisition & Creatives Consultant
https://lancaric.me
---------------------------------------
Please share the podcast with your industry friends, dogs & cats. Especially cats! They love it!
Hit the Subscribe button on YouTube, Spotify, and Apple!
Please share feedback and comments - matej@lancaric.me
🌺Cozy Florist Deep Dive: 4,000 AI-Generated creatives in 30 Days
A Chinese-developed Farmville replacement just shipped 4,000 AI-generated creatives in 30 days. And it's only making $30K/day. What's actually going on?
We dig into Cozy Florist by Rift Sky Games — the Western counterpart to
"My Garden Tale," which is already doing $10M/month in China. The game is a remarkably polished Farmville without the annoying resource puzzle, with stacked cores including flower-merging mechanics, Solitaire-association customer orders, gacha-style flower rarities, social raids, and
TikTok Live integration baked into the metagame.
But the puzzle is the creative volume. 4,000 ads in 30 days
is Forex-scale UA output. The game is testing primarily in
Philippines despite being released globally in December.
And the revenue isn't moving in proportion. The hosts spend
half the episode trying to figure out what's happening —
and the conclusion they land on is uncomfortable for Western
UA: this is what "second generation" Chinese UA looks like,
and the West isn't ready.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
⏱️ TIMESTAMPS
00:00 What's going on
02:55 Cozy Florist walkthrough — Chinese fonts, sad-story onboarding
05:21 Stacked cores — flower merging, Solitaire customers, gacha
13:00 TikTok Live integration baked into the metagame
16:44 Revenue reality — 90% China, 2% US, $30K/day
21:31 4,000 AI creatives in 30 days — Forex-scale output
25:21 Why this game isn't soft-launching like a Western game
27:55 The "second generation UA" gap Chinese studios are opening
Get our MERCH NOW: 25gamers.com/shop
--------------------------------------
PVX Partners offers non-dilutive funding for game developers.
Go to: https://pvxpartners.com/
They can help you access the most effective form of growth capital once you have the metrics to back it.
- Scale fast
- Keep your shares
- Drawdown only as needed
- Have PvX take downside risk alongside you
+ Work with a team entirely made up of ex-gaming operators and investors
---------------------------------------
For an ever-growing number of game developers, this means that now is the perfect time to invest in monetizing direct-to-consumer at scale.
Our sponsor FastSpring:
Has delivered D2C at scale for over 20 years
They power top mobile publishers around the world
Launch a new webstore, replace an existing D2C vendor, or add a redundant D2C vendor at fastspring.gg.
---------------------------------------
This is no BS gaming podcast 2.5 gamers session. Sharing actionable insights, dropping knowledge from our day-to-day User Acquisition, Game Design, and Ad monetization jobs. We are definitely not discussing the latest industry news, but having so much fun! Let’s not forget this is a 4 a.m. conference discussion vibe, so let's not take it too seriously.
Panelists: Jakub Remiar, Felix Braberg, Matej Lancaric
Join our slack channel here: https://join.slack.com/t/two-and-half-gamers/shared_invite/zt-3bckldvr8-8PXvzciMWdheOzED9hq0SA
---------------------------------------
Matej Lancaric
User Acquisition & Creatives Consultant
https://lancaric.me
Felix Braberg
Ad monetization consultant
https://www.felixbraberg.com
Jakub Remiar
Game design consultant
https://www.linkedin.com/in/jakubremiar
---------------------------------------
Please share the podcast with your industry friends, dogs & cats. Especially cats! They love it!
Hit the Subscribe button on YouTube, Spotify, and Apple!
Please share feedback and comments - matej@lancaric.me
---------------------------------------
If you are interested in getting UA tips every week on Monday, visit lancaric.substack.com & sign up for the Brutally Honest newsletter by Matej Lancaric
Do you have UA questions nobody can answer? Ask Matej AI - the First UA AI in the gaming industry! https://lancaric.me/matej-ai
The Attention Budget Rule: why tutorials should teach maximum 3 things at a time
We sit down with Katie Madding (CEO, emhanceAI, ex-Adjust CPO) and John
Hobson (founded user research at Bungie and Blizzard, 20+
years on Halo, Destiny, WoW). The conversation walks through
two real case studies — a Skullgirls Mobile playtest and a
creative comparison — using emhance AI's facial-emotion
analysis (0.89 ROC AUC, basically "lie detector" precision).
The findings are uncomfortable. Skullgirls' tutorial pauses
combat to teach mechanics players don't need yet. Every
level ends with 5 passive screens stacked back-to-back. And
the creatives with "near-death experience" hooks within the
first 4 seconds genuinely outperform — not because Chinese
UA teams said so, but because the emotion data shows it.
If you build games or ads for mobile, this is required
viewing.
The link to the report is here: https://eu1.hubs.ly/H0v1sLM0
Peaksel case study: https://www.emhance.ai/success-stories/peaksel-emhance-case-study
⏱️ TIMESTAMPS
00:00 Cold open — designing the engagement curve
01:30 Welcome + Katie and John intros
03:48 How AI facial-emotion playtesting actually works
07:57 Skullgirls case study: the first 15 minutes broken
11:25 The attention budget — what it is, why it caps at 3
17:14 High vs low engagement moments in Skullgirls
24:13 Creative case study: Cat Match Two vs Sheep Swipe One
29:52 Why "near-death experience" creatives win — confirmed
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
📌 KEY TAKEAWAYS
— emhance AI uses facial-emotion analysis (0.89 ROC AUC, "lie
detector" precision) to identify exact moments of high
and low engagement during playtest sessions. Engagement
= emotion + attention combined.
— Skullgirls Mobile tutorial findings: pausing combat to
teach optional mechanics players don't need creates
frustration. Players come away thinking the game is
shallow because the tutorial fights are too easy and the
text walls killed momentum.
— John's "attention budget" rule: teach maximum 3 things
at a time, then give players space to digest. From his
Halo days: pop up a tooltip → if used, snooze 5 minutes
→ if not, repeat. Snooze 15 minutes after second use.
— The "5-stack of boring screens" problem is universal.
Win → victory animation → reward screen → loading
screen → cut scene → talking head → finally back to
gameplay. Nobody designed this stack on purpose. Real
playtesting reveals it.
— Why 6 out of 7 AI ads still suck: the concept is right
("save the character") but the small execution details
matter enormously. Emotion data lets you identify which
4 of 15 things in a creative actually worked rather than
throwing out the whole concept.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
🎙️ HOSTS
Matej Lančarič — User Acquisition consultant
Jakub Remiar — Game Design consultant
Felix Braberg — Ad Monetization consultant
🎤 GUESTS
Katie Madding — CEO, emhance AI (ex-CPO, Adjust)
John Hobson — Game user researcher, ex-Bungie/Blizzard,
20+ years on Halo, Destiny, WoW
This is no BS gaming podcast 2.5 gamers session. Sharing actionable insights, dropping knowledge from our day-to-day User Acquisition, Game Design, and Ad monetization jobs. We are definitely not discussing the latest industry news, but having so much fun! Let’s not forget this is a 4 a.m. conference discussion vibe, so let's not take it too seriously.
Panelists: Jakub Remiar, Felix Braberg, Matej Lancaric
Join our slack channel here: https://join.slack.com/t/two-and-half-gamers/shared_invite/zt-3bckldvr8-8PXvzciMWdheOzED9hq0SA
---------------------------------------
Matej Lancaric
User Acquisition & Creatives Consultant
https://lancaric.me
Felix Braberg
Ad monetization consultant
https://www.felixbraberg.com
Jakub Remiar
Game design consultant
https://www.linkedin.com/in/jakubremiar
Soft Launch Sonar: 15 New Games, 14 Are Iterations, 1 Is Probably Doomed?!
Every new mobile game is now a copy of a copy. And that's
not a complaint — it's the strategy.
We dig through the soft launch charts to surface 15+ new games released in the last three months. Voodoo's Block Pals (which is literally just Block Jam 3D again). Moon Active's two new merge games are chasing Gossip Harbor. Spike's Hexa Out, Quick Send, and Solitaire Sort. Grand Games hiding its new Aerogem on the Zimbabwe App Store to dodge takedowns. SuperSend's template-driven creative-first approach with FROZIA and
Daily Farm Harvest Empire. Plus the bigger structural question: is Overwatch Rush actually going to make it?
The pattern is clear - 80% works, 20% iteration. Every serious studio is following the same playbook. The question is who executes it best.
⏱️ TIMESTAMPS
00:00 Cold open — merge is the new match-3
04:04 Field Day by Bitod — ex-Supercell startup goes GTA
06:15 Overwatch Rush — Blizzard's mobile play (high CPI face)
09:53 Moon Active's merge wave — Reality Bay + Family Bay
12:43 Voodoo's Block Pals + Century's DakiMage Color Puzzle
15:35 Turkish section — Rolik, Spike, Grand Games dominance
25:16 Aerogem hidden on the Zimbabwe App Store
27:00 Arrows hits 6.5M DAU — the new template everyone copies
28:38 SuperSend's creative-first templates: FROZIA, Daily Farm
— "80% works, 20% iteration" is now the default soft launch
strategy. Every game in this episode is an iteration on a
proven winner — Block Jam, Gossip Harbor, Pixel Flow,
Lesmore's Arrows, Township, Last War Creative.
— Merge is officially being treated as the new match-3. Moon
Active alone has two new merge games in soft launch.
Caveat: merge is much harder to balance and live-ops than
match-3, so most of these will fail.
— Grand Games is hiding its new game Aerogem on the Zimbabwe
App Store specifically because legal teams from incumbents
(likely MiniClip / Lesmore) don't operate there. This is
apparently a real soft launch tactic now.
— Spike has abandoned its main App Store account and is
publishing everything from a new "testing" account,
releasing Hexa Out, Quick Send, and Solitaire Sort in
rapid succession with the same template strategy.
--------------------------------------
PVX Partners offers non-dilutive funding for game developers.
Go to: https://pvxpartners.com/
They can help you access the most effective form of growth capital once you have the metrics to back it.
- Scale fast
- Keep your shares
- Drawdown only as needed
- Have PvX take downside risk alongside you
+ Work with a team entirely made up of ex-gaming operators and investors
---------------------------------------
For an ever-growing number of game developers, this means that now is the perfect time to invest in monetizing direct-to-consumer at scale.
Our sponsor FastSpring:
Has delivered D2C at scale for over 20 years
They power top mobile publishers around the world
Launch a new webstore, replace an existing D2C vendor, or add a redundant D2C vendor at fastspring.gg.
This is no BS gaming podcast 2.5 gamers session. Sharing actionable insights, dropping knowledge from our day-to-day User Acquisition, Game Design, and Ad monetization jobs. We are definitely not discussing the latest industry news, but having so much fun! Let’s not forget this is a 4 a.m. conference discussion vibe, so let's not take it too seriously.
Panelists: Jakub Remiar, Felix Braberg, Matej Lancaric
Matej Lancaric
User Acquisition & Creatives Consultant
https://lancaric.me
Felix Braberg
Ad monetization consultant
https://www.felixbraberg.com
Jakub Remiar
Game design consultant
https://www.linkedin.com/in/jakubremiar
Please share the podcast with your industry friends, dogs & cats. Especially cats! They love it!
Hit the Subscribe button on YouTube, Spotify, and Apple!
Please share feedback and comments - matej@lancaric.me
🎲 Will Coin Master Board Adventure eat Monopoly Go? (Our year-end predictions)
MoonActive just launched the obvious counter-punch to Monopoly Go — and it's already pulling 2.2M monthly downloads against Monopoly Go's 1.8M, with 10x fewer creatives.
We break down Coin Master Board Adventure end-to-end: the stacked core
loops (board + merge + Klondike + bombs + idle tree pets), the static-vs-seasonal album split, the 5-pop-up energy trap, the UA creative library, the launch trajectory, and why social casino monetization is still a money printer that the rest of the industry can't crack.
Plus the question that opens the episode and pretty much defines the genre: what is the D365 retention of users spending $5,000+ a month? (Spoiler: basically 100%.)
If you work on UA, live-ops, or social casino product, this one's required viewing.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
⏱️ TIMESTAMPS
00:00 Cold open — D365 retention of $5K/month whales
02:55 The setup: MoonActive's counter-launch to Monopoly Go
04:13 Coin Master is a $70M/month plow horse — for years
08:50 Walking the actual game: pop-ups, energy, board core
13:12 Five stacked cores: merge, Klondike, bombs, idle tree
20:00 Launch trajectory — $300K/day, 80K downloads/day
21:27 UA creatives: 1.5K running, why CPIs stay at $90+
31:21 Year-end predictions and the Las Vegas granny
--------------------------------------
PVX Partners offers non-dilutive funding for game developers.
Go to: https://pvxpartners.com/
They can help you access the most effective form of growth capital once you have the metrics to back it.
- Scale fast
- Keep your shares
- Drawdown only as needed
- Have PvX take downside risk alongside you
+ Work with a team entirely made up of ex-gaming operators and investors
---------------------------------------
For an ever-growing number of game developers, this means that now is the perfect time to invest in monetizing direct-to-consumer at scale.
Our sponsor FastSpring:
Has delivered D2C at scale for over 20 years
They power top mobile publishers around the world
Launch a new webstore, replace an existing D2C vendor, or add a redundant D2C vendor at fastspring.gg.
---------------------------------------
This is no BS gaming podcast 2.5 gamers session. Sharing actionable insights, dropping knowledge from our day-to-day User Acquisition, Game Design, and Ad monetization jobs. We are definitely not discussing the latest industry news, but having so much fun! Let’s not forget this is a 4 a.m. conference discussion vibe, so let's not take it too seriously.
Panelists: Jakub Remiar, Felix Braberg, Matej Lancaric
Podcast:
Join our slack channel here: https://join.slack.com/t/two-and-half-gamers/shared_invite/zt-3bckldvr8-8PXvzciMWdheOzED9hq0SA
---------------------------------------
Matej Lancaric
User Acquisition & Creatives Consultant
https://lancaric.me
Felix Braberg
Ad monetization consultant
https://www.felixbraberg.com
Jakub Remiar
Game design consultant
https://www.linkedin.com/in/jakubremiar
---------------------------------------
Please share the podcast with your industry friends, dogs & cats. Especially cats! They love it!
Hit the Subscribe button on YouTube, Spotify, and Apple!
Please share feedback and comments - matej@lancaric.me
---------------------------------------
If you are interested in getting UA tips every week on Monday, visit lancaric.substack.com & sign up for the Brutally Honest newsletter by Matej Lancaric
Do you have UA questions nobody can answer? Ask Matej AI - the First UA AI in the gaming industry! https://lancaric.me/matej-ai
🚨📢 BREAKING NEWS: Record Revenue, Record Layoffs, Why Only 2 Genres Are Actually Winning in 2026
The mobile gaming industry just posted record revenue
($195.6B) while simultaneously firing 44,000 developers.
Here's what's actually going on.
Matej Lančarič flies solo this week to break down the five
stories that matter most: NTE's massive global launch,
IronSource's official shutdown after one of the worst
acquisitions in mobile gaming history, the State of Mobile
Gaming 2026 report and what its genre data really tells us,
Adam Foroughi's spicy 20VC interview, and Google's ad tech
antitrust ruling that's about to reshape programmatic
advertising.
Five stories, one signal: the market growth is real but
extremely concentrated. If you're not in the right two
genres or one of the live-service giants, you're competing
for table scraps.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
⏱️ TIMESTAMPS
00:00 Record revenue, record layoffs paradox
00:50 NTE / Neverness to Everness global launch
02:30 IronSource is officially dead — RIP $4.4B acquisition
03:45 $195.6B revenue + 44K layoffs — the concentration story
05:15 Adam Foroughi on 20VC — $83M payday, AI, layoffs
05:45 Google ad tech antitrust ruling — what comes next
06:30 Closing — the week ahead
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
📌 KEY TAKEAWAYS
— Global gaming hit $195.6B in revenue in 2025, the highest
annual total on record. Meanwhile 44,000+ dev jobs have
been cut since 2022, with another 2-3K already gone in
2026. One in three US developers laid off, 48% still
jobless.
— IronSource is dead. The $4.4B Unity acquisition is one
of the most controversial deals in mobile gaming history
— Supersonic is being sold off, and three and a half
years later there's almost nothing left of IronSource
inside Unity. Unity Vector grew 48% YoY though, so the
ad business itself isn't dying.
— NTE (Neverness to Everness) launched globally April 29
on PC, Android, iOS, PS5, and Mac with cross-platform
progression. Same team behind Tower of Fantasy. Massive
IP, production values, and gacha — benchmark is Genshin
and Zenless Zone Zero.
— Adam Foroughi's 20VC interview is required listening.
$83M CEO payday after a 92% stock drop, AI vs layoffs,
AppLovin's run as one of the best-performing tech
businesses right now.
---------------------------------------
This is no BS gaming podcast 2.5 gamers session. Sharing actionable insights, dropping knowledge from our day-to-day User Acquisition, Game Design, and Ad monetization jobs. We are definitely not discussing the latest industry news, but having so much fun! Let’s not forget this is a 4 a.m. conference discussion vibe, so let's not take it too seriously.
Panelists: Jakub Remiar, Felix Braberg, Matej Lancaric
Podcast:
Join our slack channel here: https://join.slack.com/t/two-and-half-gamers/shared_invite/zt-3bckldvr8-8PXvzciMWdheOzED9hq0SA
---------------------------------------
Matej Lancaric
User Acquisition & Creatives Consultant
https://lancaric.me
Felix Braberg
Ad monetization consultant
https://www.felixbraberg.com
Jakub Remiar
Game design consultant
https://www.linkedin.com/in/jakubremiar
---------------------------------------
Please share the podcast with your industry friends, dogs & cats. Especially cats! They love it!
Hit the Subscribe button on YouTube, Spotify, and Apple!
Please share feedback and comments - matej@lancaric.me
---------------------------------------
If you are interested in getting UA tips every week on Monday, visit lancaric.substack.com & sign up for the Brutally Honest newsletter by Matej Lancaric
Do you have UA questions nobody can answer? Ask Matej AI - the First UA AI in the gaming industry! https://lancaric.me/matej-ai
💀 Review Radar #11: 80% of the games we covered are already dead!
Welcome to Review Radar #11 — the "broken dreams and hopes" edition. We revisit every game they reviewed between September and December last year to see which ones survived, which ones got killed, and which ones genuinely broke through.
The verdict is brutal. AceCraft dropped from 800K downloads a day to 4K. Galaxy Defense never scaled. The Squad Busters of the world joined Supercell's graveyard. But there were real winners: The Tower, Level Devil, Sunday City (the "Casino GTA"), and Heads Down all proved that smart design beats hype every time.
If you want to understand what actually predicts mobile game survival, this is the episode.
#mobilegaming #gamedesign #useracquisition #liveops #f2p
Get our MERCH NOW: 25gamers.com/shop
--------------------------------------
PVX Partners offers non-dilutive funding for game developers.
Go to: https://pvxpartners.com/
They can help you access the most effective form of growth capital once you have the metrics to back it.
- Scale fast
- Keep your shares
- Drawdown only as needed
- Have PvX take downside risk alongside you
+ Work with a team entirely made up of ex-gaming operators and investors
---------------------------------------
For an ever-growing number of game developers, this means that now is the perfect time to invest in monetizing direct-to-consumer at scale.
Our sponsor FastSpring:
Has delivered D2C at scale for over 20 years
They power top mobile publishers around the world
Launch a new webstore, replace an existing D2C vendor, or add a redundant D2C vendor at fastspring.gg.
---------------------------------------
This is no BS gaming podcast 2.5 gamers session. Sharing actionable insights, dropping knowledge from our day-to-day User Acquisition, Game Design, and Ad monetization jobs. We are definitely not discussing the latest industry news, but having so much fun! Let’s not forget this is a 4 a.m. conference discussion vibe, so let's not take it too seriously.
Panelists: Jakub Remiar, Felix Braberg, Matej Lancaric
Join our slack channel here: https://join.slack.com/t/two-and-half-gamers/shared_invite/zt-3bckldvr8-8PXvzciMWdheOzED9hq0SA
⏱️ TIMESTAMPS
00:00 Cold open — "broken dreams" radar incoming
01:51 AceCraft, Galaxy Defense and the September graveyard
07:54 The Tower — one of the best games we've reviewed
12:01 Sudoku Master and the puzzle category check-in
20:11 The Supercell post-2018 graveyard + MoCo's slow death
28:38 Sunday City — the "Casino GTA" winning at $100K/day
34:00 Final verdict — who survived and who didn't
---------------------------------------
Matej Lancaric
User Acquisition & Creatives Consultant
https://lancaric.me
Felix Braberg
Ad monetization consultant
https://www.felixbraberg.com
Jakub Remiar
Game design consultant
https://www.linkedin.com/in/jakubremiar
---------------------------------------
Please share the podcast with your industry friends, dogs & cats. Especially cats! They love it!
Hit the Subscribe button on YouTube, Spotify, and Apple!
Please share feedback and comments - matej@lancaric.me
---------------------------------------
If you are interested in getting UA tips every week on Monday, visit lancaric.substack.com & sign up for the Brutally Honest newsletter by Matej Lancaric
Do you have UA questions nobody can answer? Ask Matej AI - the First UA AI in the gaming industry! https://lancaric.me/matej-ai
💡 How to create new mobile games 101, 2026 edition 😎
How do you pick the right core for your next puzzle hit?
Jakub Remiar breaks down the methodology behind some of
the most successful puzzle launches of the last two years
— Domino Dreams, Magic Sword, Block Out, Hexa Out, Arrow
Gem — and explains the pattern that connects all of them.
The short version: stop trying to invent new cores. Find a
puzzle sub-genre that already has massive download volume
but is monetized almost entirely through ads. Take that
core, wrap it in level-based design, blockers, and live-ops
polish, and convert the ad-revenue audience into IAP
players. Domino Dreams did it with Domino. Magic Sword did
it with Water Sort. Block Out did it with Color Block Jam.
Same playbook every time.
This is the video to send to anyone who asks "what genre
should I build in next."
Potensus is a premium ad network built by people who've actually been on both sides of this industry - game publishers, agencies, and successful exits. They get it.
Here's the thing - Potensus has direct deals with Amazon, Apple, Coca-Cola, Vodafone. Not programmatic. Direct. Those budgets land in your game at premium CPMs, no middleman tax.
And they handle everything with their in-house team. PLUS they're partnered with PlayableMaker WINK WINK - so they'll take a brand's YouTube video or a static banner and actually turn it into a playable ad or rewarded video. Proper interactive format, built for gaming inventory. Brands getting a gaming-native creative, publishers getting higher CPMs. Everyone wins.
Head to potensus.com to get started or check their creative portfolio here
https://vimeo.com/showcase/12093300?fl=so&fe=fs
⏱️ TIMESTAMPS
00:00 Intro — how to pick a core for a new puzzle game
02:21 Domino Dreams: capturing the Domino category
05:20 Magic Sword: turning Water Sort into IAP gold
07:50 Spyke Games / Combo Games portfolio strategy
10:50 Hexa Out — when iteration becomes innovation
13:00 Grand Games portfolio: the templatization machine
15:55 Arrow Gem: the obvious next move after Lesmore's Arrows
17:30 Why this is a lottery — and consistency wins it
18:30 Closing methodology: pick your strengths, know your shot
📌 KEY TAKEAWAYS
— The opportunity isn't in inventing new puzzle cores.
It's in finding ad-driven puzzle categories with high
download volume and converting them to IAP via level
design, blockers, and live-ops.
— Domino Dreams isn't a Domino game. Magic Sword isn't
a Water Sort game. They're level-based puzzlers with
a familiar core wrapped around them — that's the trick.
— Category ceiling matters: Domino Dreams will likely
cap around $7–8M/month because the niche is finite.
That's still a profitable, sustainable hit.
— Studios like Grand Games and Spyke have built a
consistent template: 80% finished metagame engine +
swap in the new trending core + 20% iteration.
— Lesmore's Arrows is the current source code —
everyone is iterating on it (Hexa Out, Arrow Gem,
countless clones).
#mobilegaming #gamedesign #puzzlegames #liveops #f2p
This is no BS gaming podcast 2.5 gamers session. Sharing actionable insights, dropping knowledge from our day-to-day User Acquisition, Game Design, and Ad monetization jobs. We are definitely not discussing the latest industry news, but having so much fun! Let’s not forget this is a 4 a.m. conference discussion vibe, so let's not take it too seriously.
Panelists: Jakub Remiar
Join our slack channel here: https://join.slack.com/t/two-and-half-gamers/shared_invite/zt-3bckldvr8-8PXvzciMWdheOzED9hq0SA
Jakub Remiar
Game design consultant
https://www.linkedin.com/in/jakubremiar
Please share the podcast with your industry friends, dogs & cats. Especially cats! They love it!
Hit the Subscribe button on YouTube, Spotify, and Apple!
Please share feedback and comments - matej@lancaric.me
💰🚜 How Playrix turned a 17-Year-Old Tycoon into a $45M/Month UA & Match-3 engine
Township just hit $45M/month - at 17 years old. How?
We sit down with Erno Kiiski (Game Refinery, a Liftoff company) to dissect what is arguably the most underrated transformation in mobile gaming: how Playrix quietly turned an evergreen farming tycoon into a stealth match-3 game with the tycoon repurposed as a UA funnel.
We trace 17 years of Township across five eras — from Facebook Canvas farming sim to hyper-casual mini-game platform to its current form, where match-3 is the main engine and the tycoon is essentially the onboarding. Plus a year-by-year archaeology dig through Township's UA creatives from 2019 to 2026: Pull the Pin, Golden Goblins, Idle Lumber, King Shot iterations,
and AI-generated ads.
If you work in mobile games, product, or UA — this episode will change how you think about evergreen titles, portfolio strategy, and the CPI/LTV equation.
Get our MERCH NOW: 25gamers.com/shop
--------------------------------------
PVX Partners offers non-dilutive funding for game developers.
Go to: https://pvxpartners.com/
They can help you access the most effective form of growth capital once you have the metrics to back it.
- Scale fast
- Keep your shares
- Drawdown only as needed
- Have PvX take downside risk alongside you
+ Work with a team entirely made up of ex-gaming operators and investors
---------------------------------------
For an ever-growing number of game developers, this means that now is the perfect time to invest in monetizing direct-to-consumer at scale.
Our sponsor FastSpring:
Has delivered D2C at scale for over 20 years
They power top mobile publishers around the world
Launch a new webstore, replace an existing D2C vendor, or add a redundant D2C vendor at fastspring.gg.
---------------------------------------
This is no BS gaming podcast 2.5 gamers session. Sharing actionable insights, dropping knowledge from our day-to-day User Acquisition, Game Design, and Ad monetization jobs. We are definitely not discussing the latest industry news, but having so much fun! Let’s not forget this is a 4 a.m. conference discussion vibe, so let's not take it too seriously.
Panelists: Jakub Remiar, Matej Lancaric
Special Guest: Erno Kiiski
https://www.linkedin.com/in/erno-kiiski/
Join our slack channel here: https://join.slack.com/t/two-and-half-gamers/shared_invite/zt-3bckldvr8-8PXvzciMWdheOzED9hq0SA
Chapters
00:00 - Epic intro
01:23 - Welcome + Game Refinery intro with Erno Kiiski
03:36 — Why Township now ($45M/month)
07:29 — The five eras of Township
20:37 — Pull the Pin and the Playrix portfolio play
23:00 — 2021: when the puzzle became the core
38:24 — Disco Ball and sense-of-urgency design
57:47 — The January 2026 currency inflation play
1:18:21 — Township is a UA funnel, not a tycoon
1:19:32 — The Reverse 4X concept
1:23:08 — UA creatives archaeology: 2019 → 2026
1:47:38 — Is Playrix now bigger than Dream Games?
---------------------------------------
Matej Lancaric
User Acquisition & Creatives Consultant
https://lancaric.me
Felix Braberg
Ad monetization consultant
https://www.felixbraberg.com
Jakub Remiar
Game design consultant
https://www.linkedin.com/in/jakubremiar
---------------------------------------
Please share the podcast with your industry friends, dogs & cats. Especially cats! They love it!
Hit the Subscribe button on YouTube, Spotify, and Apple!
Please share feedback and comments - matej@lancaric.me
---------------------------------------
If you are interested in getting UA tips every week on Monday, visit lancaric.substack.com & sign up for the Brutally Honest newsletter by Matej Lancaric
Do you have UA questions nobody can answer? Ask Matej AI - the First UA AI in the gaming industry! https://lancaric.me/matej-ai
💬 Comment below: do YOU remember Facebook Canvas?
🔔 Subscribe to stay two and a half steps ahead
🎲 Dicero: Habby’s biggest bet (And biggest risk?)
Habby goes ALL-IN on midcore… and removes ads
Today, we break down Dicero, the latest game from Habby — and honestly, it’s one of the most surprising strategy shifts we’ve seen in a while.
👉 No rewarded ads
👉 Deep midcore progression
👉 Heavy gacha monetization
👉 Roguelite dice gameplay inspired by Balatro
This is NOT the Habby we knew.
We cover:
🎲 Core gameplay (dice poker + roguelite systems)
💰 New monetization (subscriptions, gacha, no ads)
📉 Why removing rewarded ads might hurt scale
📊 Habby’s declining trends vs Survivor.io peak
🎯 UA challenges and creative direction
👉 This is a bold move. But is it the right one?
Get our MERCH NOW: 25gamers.com/shop
--------------------------------------
PVX Partners offers non-dilutive funding for game developers.
Go to: https://pvxpartners.com/
They can help you access the most effective form of growth capital once you have the metrics to back it.
- Scale fast
- Keep your shares
- Drawdown only as needed
- Have PvX take downside risk alongside you
+ Work with a team entirely made up of ex-gaming operators and investors
---------------------------------------
For an ever-growing number of game developers, this means that now is the perfect time to invest in monetizing direct-to-consumer at scale.
Our sponsor FastSpring:
Has delivered D2C at scale for over 20 years
They power top mobile publishers around the world
Launch a new webstore, replace an existing D2C vendor, or add a redundant D2C vendor at fastspring.gg.
---------------------------------------
This is no BS gaming podcast 2.5 gamers session. Sharing actionable insights, dropping knowledge from our day-to-day User Acquisition, Game Design, and Ad monetization jobs. We are definitely not discussing the latest industry news, but having so much fun! Let’s not forget this is a 4 a.m. conference discussion vibe, so let's not take it too seriously.
Panelists: Jakub Remiar, Felix Braberg, Matej Lancaric
Podcast:
Join our slack channel here: https://join.slack.com/t/two-and-half-gamers/shared_invite/zt-3bckldvr8-8PXvzciMWdheOzED9hq0SA
Chapters
00:00 Intro — Habby changed strategy
01:30 Dicero first impressions
03:00 Dice poker gameplay explained
06:00 Balatro comparison
09:00 Why it feels more hardcore
12:00 Monetization shift (NO ADS)
15:00 New gacha + progression system
18:00 Energy economy (and why it’s weird)
21:00 Co-op mode and social systems
24:00 Event and live ops breakdown
27:00 Webshop strategy
29:00 UA creatives analysis
33:00 AI creatives vs weak UGC
36:00 CPI challenges
38:00 Final verdict — risky bet
---------------------------------------
Matej Lancaric
User Acquisition & Creatives Consultant
https://lancaric.me
Felix Braberg
Ad monetization consultant
https://www.felixbraberg.com
Jakub Remiar
Game design consultant
https://www.linkedin.com/in/jakubremiar
---------------------------------------
Please share the podcast with your industry friends, dogs & cats. Especially cats! They love it!
Hit the Subscribe button on YouTube, Spotify, and Apple!
Please share feedback and comments - matej@lancaric.me
---------------------------------------
If you are interested in getting UA tips every week on Monday, visit lancaric.substack.com & sign up for the Brutally Honest newsletter by Matej Lancaric
Do you have UA questions nobody can answer? Ask Matej AI - the First UA AI in the gaming industry! https://lancaric.me/matej-ai
🕹️ Playable ads are the most underused growth lever right now
Today, we finally break down one of the most overlooked parts of UA strategy - playable ads.
https://lancaric.substack.com/p/playable-ads-trends-in-mobile-games-b16?r=7qqaf
And the truth is…
👉 most teams are doing them wrong
👉 most teams are not doing enough of them
👉 and most teams don’t understand why they work
We cover:
🎮 Why longer playables create higher-quality players
⚙️ Simple vs complex playable strategies
📱 Playables for apps (not just games!)
🎯 Why volume often beats perfection
🧠 How fake gameplay still wins
This episode is brought to you by Potensus. If you're a mobile game publisher tired of leaving money on the table - listen up.
Potensus is a premium ad network built by people who've actually been on both sides of this industry - game publishers, agencies, and successful exits. They get it.
Here's the thing - Potensus has direct deals with Amazon, Apple, Coca-Cola, Vodafone. Not programmatic. Direct. Those budgets land in your game at premium CPMs, no middleman tax.
And they handle everything with their in-house team. PLUS they're partnered with PlayableMaker WINK WINK - so they'll take a brand's YouTube video or a static banner and actually turn it into a playable ad or rewarded video. Proper interactive format, built for gaming inventory. Brands getting a gaming-native creative, publishers getting higher CPMs. Everyone wins.
Head to potensus.com to get started or check their creative portfolio here
https://vimeo.com/showcase/12093300?fl=so&fe=fs
---------------------------------------
This is no BS gaming podcast 2.5 gamers session. Sharing actionable insights, dropping knowledge from our day-to-day User Acquisition, Game Design, and Ad monetization jobs. We are definitely not discussing the latest industry news, but having so much fun! Let’s not forget this is a 4 a.m. conference discussion vibe, so let's not take it too seriously.
Panelists: Ondrej Monsberger, John Wright, Matej Lancaric
Join our slack channel here: https://join.slack.com/t/two-and-half-gamers/shared_invite/zt-3bckldvr8-8PXvzciMWdheOzED9hq0SA
Chapters
00:00 Why playables matter now
01:30 Sponsor: Potensus (premium ad network)
03:00 What’s changing in playables
05:00 Apps vs games playable trends
08:00 Simple playables (end cards, interactions)
11:00 Onboarding-style playables explained
14:00 Why playables convert better
17:00 Creative volume vs quality debate
20:00 AI + playable production
23:00 Copying vs innovating mechanics
26:00 Fake gameplay in playables
29:00 Long vs short playables
32:00 Playables + video combo strategy
35:00 Final thoughts
---------------------------------------
Matej Lancaric
User Acquisition & Creatives Consultant
https://lancaric.me
Ondrej Monsberger
Co-Founder @playablemaker
https://www.playablemaker.com
John Wright
CEO @ Turborilla
https://www.turborilla.com
---------------------------------------
Please share the podcast with your industry friends, dogs & cats. Especially cats! They love it!
Hit the Subscribe button on YouTube, Spotify, and Apple!
Please share feedback and comments - matej@lancaric.me
---------------------------------------
If you are interested in getting UA tips every week on Monday, visit lancaric.substack.com & sign up for the Brutally Honest newsletter by Matej Lancaric
Do you have UA questions nobody can answer? Ask Matej AI - the First UA AI in the gaming industry! https://lancaric.me/matej-ai
🤖 AI creatives are evolving faster than anyone expected (March 2026 trends)
In this episode of Two and a Half Gamers, we break down over 120 AI-powered creatives and uncover what’s actually working in 2026.
From Golden Goblins physics hooks to Last Asylum’s 70% AI-assisted pipeline, the scale is insane — with some games launching thousands of creatives and iterating faster than ever.
We dive into:
🎬 AI hooks vs real gameplay
⚙️ Heavy post-production on top of AI
🎭 Consistent characters across hundreds of creatives
🎮 Fake gameplay evolving into near-real systems
📈 Why creative velocity is everything
👉 This is not about “AI slop”. This is about real systems that scale performance.
Get our MERCH NOW: 25gamers.com/shop
--------------------------------------
PVX Partners offers non-dilutive funding for game developers.
Go to: https://pvxpartners.com/
They can help you access the most effective form of growth capital once you have the metrics to back it.
- Scale fast
- Keep your shares
- Drawdown only as needed
- Have PvX take downside risk alongside you
+ Work with a team entirely made up of ex-gaming operators and investors
---------------------------------------
For an ever-growing number of game developers, this means that now is the perfect time to invest in monetizing direct-to-consumer at scale.
Our sponsor FastSpring:
Has delivered D2C at scale for over 20 years
They power top mobile publishers around the world
Launch a new webstore, replace an existing D2C vendor, or add a redundant D2C vendor at fastspring.gg.
---------------------------------------
This is no BS gaming podcast 2.5 gamers session. Sharing actionable insights, dropping knowledge from our day-to-day User Acquisition, Game Design, and Ad monetization jobs. We are definitely not discussing the latest industry news, but having so much fun! Let’s not forget this is a 4 a.m. conference discussion vibe, so let's not take it too seriously.
Panelists: Jakub Remiar, Felix Braberg, Matej Lancaric
Podcast:
Join our slack channel here: https://join.slack.com/t/two-and-half-gamers/shared_invite/zt-3bckldvr8-8PXvzciMWdheOzED9hq0SA
Chapters
00:00 Intro — AI is everywhere
01:30 120 creatives overview
03:00 Golden Goblins AI hooks
06:00 AI influencers vs reality
09:00 Physics breaking (and nobody cares)
12:00 Cooking, POVs, and weird hooks
15:00 Fake gameplay evolution
18:00 Character consistency across ads
22:00 Post-production as the real unlock
26:00 Dark War and anime-style creatives
30:00 Multiple art styles testing
34:00 “Fake but believable” gameplay systems
38:00 Why volume matters more than quality
42:00 Final thoughts — speed wins
---------------------------------------
Matej Lancaric
User Acquisition & Creatives Consultant
https://lancaric.me
Felix Braberg
Ad monetization consultant
https://www.felixbraberg.com
Jakub Remiar
Game design consultant
https://www.linkedin.com/in/jakubremiar
---------------------------------------
Please share the podcast with your industry friends, dogs & cats. Especially cats! They love it!
Hit the Subscribe button on YouTube, Spotify, and Apple!
Please share feedback and comments - matej@lancaric.me
---------------------------------------
If you are interested in getting UA tips every week on Monday, visit lancaric.substack.com & sign up for the Brutally Honest newsletter by Matej Lancaric
Do you have UA questions nobody can answer? Ask Matej AI - the First UA AI in the gaming industry! https://lancaric.me/matej-ai
🚨📢 BREAKING NEWS: Chinese domination, M&A boom, Freecash controversy
Major shifts in mobile gaming, UA, and investments
This week’s Two and a Half Gamers Breaking News covers three massive trends shaping the industry right now:
📊 Chinese games dominating global top-grossing charts
💰 $7.7B in gaming M&A activity in Q1 2026
⚖️ Freecash controversy and removal from app stores
From Gossip Harbor climbing into the top revenue charts to massive acquisitions fueling new investments, the industry is showing clear signs of consolidation and power shifts.
At the same time, the rewarded UA ecosystem is under pressure, as Freecash faces scrutiny and potential platform restrictions — something that could impact UA budgets across the entire industry.
---------------------------------------
This is no BS gaming podcast 2.5 gamers session. Sharing actionable insights, dropping knowledge from our day-to-day User Acquisition, Game Design, and Ad monetization jobs. We are definitely not discussing the latest industry news, but having so much fun! Let’s not forget this is a 4 a.m. conference discussion vibe, so let's not take it too seriously.
Panelists: Jakub Remiar, Felix Braberg, Matej Lancaric
Podcast:
Join our slack channel here: https://join.slack.com/t/two-and-half-gamers/shared_invite/zt-3bckldvr8-8PXvzciMWdheOzED9hq0SA
Chapters
00:00 Intro + why this week matters
00:40 US top charts breakdown
01:40 Global revenue leaders (Last War, Royal Match, etc.)
02:40 Gossip Harbor growth explained
03:30 Chinese dominance in top charts
04:30 M&A boom ($7.7B in Q1)
05:40 Why acquisitions drive new funding
06:30 Freecash controversy explained
07:30 What this means for UA
---------------------------------------
Matej Lancaric
User Acquisition & Creatives Consultant
https://lancaric.me
Felix Braberg
Ad monetization consultant
https://www.felixbraberg.com
Jakub Remiar
Game design consultant
https://www.linkedin.com/in/jakubremiar
---------------------------------------
Please share the podcast with your industry friends, dogs & cats. Especially cats! They love it!
Hit the Subscribe button on YouTube, Spotify, and Apple!
Please share feedback and comments - matej@lancaric.me
---------------------------------------
If you are interested in getting UA tips every week on Monday, visit lancaric.substack.com & sign up for the Brutally Honest newsletter by Matej Lancaric
Do you have UA questions nobody can answer? Ask Matej AI - the First UA AI in the gaming industry! https://lancaric.me/matej-ai
👾 Creative Trends March 2026: AI hooks, fake ads, and the infinite iteration machine
We break down the latest creative trends shaping mobile game marketing in 2026.
And honestly… things are getting weird.
We cover:
🎬 AI-generated hooks (K-pop, interviews, weird realism)
🔁 Infinite iteration loops across games (copy → remix → scale)
🎮 How games like Golden Goblins keep winning with creatives
🧠 Why “failure mechanics” dominate ad performance
📈 How small tweaks create entirely new winning concepts
👉 This episode is a masterclass in how creative strategy actually works today.
Get our MERCH NOW: 25gamers.com/shop
--------------------------------------
PVX Partners offers non-dilutive funding for game developers.
Go to: https://pvxpartners.com/
They can help you access the most effective form of growth capital once you have the metrics to back it.
- Scale fast
- Keep your shares
- Drawdown only as needed
- Have PvX take downside risk alongside you
+ Work with a team entirely made up of ex-gaming operators and investors
---------------------------------------
For an ever-growing number of game developers, this means that now is the perfect time to invest in monetizing direct-to-consumer at scale.
Our sponsor FastSpring:
Has delivered D2C at scale for over 20 years
They power top mobile publishers around the world
Launch a new webstore, replace an existing D2C vendor, or add a redundant D2C vendor at fastspring.gg.
---------------------------------------
This is no BS gaming podcast 2.5 gamers session. Sharing actionable insights, dropping knowledge from our day-to-day User Acquisition, Game Design, and Ad monetization jobs. We are definitely not discussing the latest industry news, but having so much fun! Let’s not forget this is a 4 a.m. conference discussion vibe, so let's not take it too seriously.
Panelists: Jakub Remiar, Felix Braberg, Matej Lancaric
Podcast:
Join our slack channel here: https://join.slack.com/t/two-and-half-gamers/shared_invite/zt-3bckldvr8-8PXvzciMWdheOzED9hq0SA
Chapters
00:00 Intro — AI is everywhere
01:30 Golden Goblins creative dominance
04:00 AI hooks vs real creatives
07:00 Why iteration keeps games alive
10:00 Idle + resource + cleaning trends
13:00 Township / Whiteout Survival influence
16:00 Failure mechanics explained
20:00 Fake ads vs real gameplay
23:00 Pixel Flow creative evolution
26:00 Interview + ASMR + hybrid creatives
29:00 Royal Kingdom and slow motion trend
32:00 KingShot and 4X iteration loop
35:00 Copying creatives (and why nobody cares)
38:00 Final thoughts — infinite creative loop
---------------------------------------
Matej Lancaric
User Acquisition & Creatives Consultant
https://lancaric.me
Felix Braberg
Ad monetization consultant
https://www.felixbraberg.com
Jakub Remiar
Game design consultant
https://www.linkedin.com/in/jakubremiar
---------------------------------------
Please share the podcast with your industry friends, dogs & cats. Especially cats! They love it!
Hit the Subscribe button on YouTube, Spotify, and Apple!
Please share feedback and comments - matej@lancaric.me
---------------------------------------
If you are interested in getting UA tips every week on Monday, visit lancaric.substack.com & sign up for the Brutally Honest newsletter by Matej Lancaric
Do you have UA questions nobody can answer? Ask Matej AI - the First UA AI in the gaming industry! https://lancaric.me/matej-ai
How to maximize ad revenue in Tier 4 geos (+Japan bonus) by Felix Braberg
In this solo episode of Two and a Half Gamers, Felix breaks down one of the most underrated growth levers in mobile gaming — your mediation setup.
The reality is that ad monetization performance varies massively by geo — especially in Tier 4 markets like India and Indonesia. Low-end devices, low LTV, and poor fill rates create a completely different optimization problem compared to Tier 1 markets.
The biggest unlock is not adding more networks. It’s designing your mediation stack around constraints. Device filtering, delayed ad loading, language segmentation, and local demand sources can significantly increase revenue without increasing DAU.
The takeaway is simple.
If your mediation setup is the same globally…
you are leaving money on the table.
This episode is brought to you by Potensus. If you're a mobile game publisher tired of leaving money on the table - listen up.
Potensus is a premium ad network built by people who've actually been on both sides of this industry - game publishers, agencies, and successful exits. They get it.
Here's the thing - Potensus has direct deals with Amazon, Apple, Coca-Cola, Vodafone. Not programmatic. Direct. Those budgets land in your game at premium CPMs, no middleman tax.
And they handle everything with their in-house team. PLUS they're partnered with PlayableMaker WINK WINK - so they'll take a brand's YouTube video or a static banner and actually turn it into a playable ad or rewarded video. Proper interactive format, built for gaming inventory. Brands getting a gaming-native creative, publishers getting higher CPMs. Everyone wins.
Head to potensus.com to get started or check their creative portfolio here
https://vimeo.com/showcase/12093300?fl=so&fe=fs
---------------------------------------
This is no BS gaming podcast 2.5 gamers session. Sharing actionable insights, dropping knowledge from our day-to-day User Acquisition, Game Design, and Ad monetization jobs. We are definitely not discussing the latest industry news, but having so much fun! Let’s not forget this is a 4 a.m. conference discussion vibe, so let's not take it too seriously.
Panelists: Jakub Remiar, Felix Braberg, Matej Lancaric
Podcast:
Join our slack channel here: https://join.slack.com/t/two-and-half-gamers/shared_invite/zt-3bckldvr8-8PXvzciMWdheOzED9hq0SA
Chapters
00:00 Intro + why mediation matters
01:20 What are Tier 4 geos
02:30 Ad loading strategy (critical!)
05:30 Avoiding ANRs on low-end devices
08:00 Mediation setup for India
11:30 Fill rate problems and solutions
13:30 Indonesia best practices
15:30 Banner optimization tricks
16:50 Japan bonus strategy
18:00 Final thoughts
---------------------------------------
Matej Lancaric
User Acquisition & Creatives Consultant
https://lancaric.me
Felix Braberg
Ad monetization consultant
https://www.felixbraberg.com
Jakub Remiar
Game design consultant
https://www.linkedin.com/in/jakubremiar
---------------------------------------
Please share the podcast with your industry friends, dogs & cats. Especially cats! They love it!
Hit the Subscribe button on YouTube, Spotify, and Apple!
Please share feedback and comments - matej@lancaric.me
---------------------------------------
If you are interested in getting UA tips every week on Monday, visit lancaric.substack.com & sign up for the Brutally Honest newsletter by Matej Lancaric
Do you have UA questions nobody can answer? Ask Matej AI - the First UA AI in the gaming industry! https://lancaric.me/matej-ai
📰 NYT Games Wordle & Crossword: The most PREMIUM audience in gaming
We break down one of the biggest and most misunderstood “games” in the world - NYT Games Wordle & crossword.
With over 8.5 million DAU, this app sits among the largest mobile games globally.
But here’s the twist:
👉 It barely monetizes like a game
👉 It relies mostly on subscriptions
👉 It avoids aggressive ad strategies completely
We dive into:
• Why NYT Games is a retention machine, not a game
• How Wordle, Connections, and Crosswords drive daily habits
• The massive ad revenue they are leaving on the table
• Why they will probably NEVER monetize like mobile games
NYT Games is not optimizing for revenue per user. It’s optimizing for lifetime value of the ecosystem.
Get our MERCH NOW: 25gamers.com/shop
--------------------------------------
PVX Partners offers non-dilutive funding for game developers.
Go to: https://pvxpartners.com/
They can help you access the most effective form of growth capital once you have the metrics to back it.
- Scale fast
- Keep your shares
- Drawdown only as needed
- Have PvX take downside risk alongside you
+ Work with a team entirely made up of ex-gaming operators and investors
---------------------------------------
For an ever-growing number of game developers, this means that now is the perfect time to invest in monetizing direct-to-consumer at scale.
Our sponsor FastSpring:
Has delivered D2C at scale for over 20 years
They power top mobile publishers around the world
Launch a new webstore, replace an existing D2C vendor, or add a redundant D2C vendor at fastspring.gg.
---------------------------------------
This is no BS gaming podcast 2.5 gamers session. Sharing actionable insights, dropping knowledge from our day-to-day User Acquisition, Game Design, and Ad monetization jobs. We are definitely not discussing the latest industry news, but having so much fun! Let’s not forget this is a 4 a.m. conference discussion vibe, so let's not take it too seriously.
Panelists: Jakub Remiar, Felix Braberg, Matej Lancaric
Podcast:
Join our slack channel here: https://join.slack.com/t/two-and-half-gamers/shared_invite/zt-3bckldvr8-8PXvzciMWdheOzED9hq0SA
Chapters
00:00 Why this is not really a “game”
01:30 8.5M DAU explained
03:00 Subscription model breakdown
05:30 Wordle acquisition story
08:00 Portfolio of games (Connections, Spelling Bee, etc.)
11:00 Daily ritual design and retention
13:30 Monetization: subscriptions vs ads
16:00 The “lost” ad revenue opportunity
18:30 Why NYT won’t monetize like games
21:00 UA strategy (or lack of it)
23:00 Premium audience discussion
25:00 Final verdict — strategy vs money
---------------------------------------
Matej Lancaric
User Acquisition & Creatives Consultant
https://lancaric.me
Felix Braberg
Ad monetization consultant
https://www.felixbraberg.com
Jakub Remiar
Game design consultant
https://www.linkedin.com/in/jakubremiar
---------------------------------------
Please share the podcast with your industry friends, dogs & cats. Especially cats! They love it!
Hit the Subscribe button on YouTube, Spotify, and Apple!
Please share feedback and comments - matej@lancaric.me
---------------------------------------
If you are interested in getting UA tips every week on Monday, visit lancaric.substack.com & sign up for the Brutally Honest newsletter by Matej Lancaric
Do you have UA questions nobody can answer? Ask Matej AI - the First UA AI in the gaming industry! https://lancaric.me/matej-ai
🚨📢 BREAKING NEWS: Unity kills ironSource, Meta lawsuits, AppLovin moves
This week’s Breaking News covers one of the most important shifts happening right now across mobile gaming and ad tech.
Here’s what’s happening:
📉 Mobile gaming is stabilizing but growth is slowing
💰 Investment is dropping, consolidation is rising
📊 AppLovin is reshuffling leadership while expanding beyond gaming
🧹 Unity is officially killing IronSource and doubling down on its new ad stack
🤖 Meta is pushing toward fully automated AI-driven ads
⚖️ Meta and Google are hit with major legal verdicts around platform design
The industry is not shrinking. It’s evolving into a more efficient, more competitive system.
KEY TAKEAWAY
The easy growth phase is over. Now it’s about efficiency, automation, and execution.
---------------------------------------
This is no BS gaming podcast 2.5 gamers session. Sharing actionable insights, dropping knowledge from our day-to-day User Acquisition, Game Design, and Ad monetization jobs. We are definitely not discussing the latest industry news, but having so much fun! Let’s not forget this is a 4 a.m. conference discussion vibe, so let's not take it too seriously.
Panelists: Jakub Remiar, Felix Braberg, Matej Lancaric
Podcast:
Join our slack channel here: https://join.slack.com/t/two-and-half-gamers/shared_invite/zt-3bckldvr8-8PXvzciMWdheOzED9hq0SA
Chapters
00:00 Intro: why this week matters
00:40 Mobile gaming Q1 reality check
02:00 AppLovin leadership changes
03:30 AppLovin expansion beyond gaming
04:40 Unity kills IronSource
06:00 Unity Vector strategy explained
07:10 Meta AI ad automation push
08:20 CPI spikes and algorithm update
09:00 Meta lawsuits and verdicts
09:50 Final takeaway
---------------------------------------
Matej Lancaric
User Acquisition & Creatives Consultant
https://lancaric.me
Felix Braberg
Ad monetization consultant
https://www.felixbraberg.com
Jakub Remiar
Game design consultant
https://www.linkedin.com/in/jakubremiar
---------------------------------------
Please share the podcast with your industry friends, dogs & cats. Especially cats! They love it!
Hit the Subscribe button on YouTube, Spotify, and Apple!
Please share feedback and comments - matej@lancaric.me
---------------------------------------
If you are interested in getting UA tips every week on Monday, visit lancaric.substack.com & sign up for the Brutally Honest newsletter by Matej Lancaric
Do you have UA questions nobody can answer? Ask Matej AI - the First UA AI in the gaming industry! https://lancaric.me/matej-ai
Butcher Hero Review: The Next Alien Invasion? Not quite yet!
In this episode of Two and a Half Gamers, we break down Butcher Hero / Hook RPG, a new game from Multicast that’s currently pulling 20–30K downloads per day , but struggling to reach the scale of its predecessor, Alien Invasion.
At first glance, the concept is strong:
• Warcraft-inspired hook mechanics
• Idle-RPG progression
• Weapon-based scaling and map farming
But after hours of gameplay, the cracks start to show.
We dive into:
• Why the game feels like a grinding simulator
• Missing meta systems and progression loops
• Why ad monetization doesn’t scale with player progress
• How strong UA creatives are masking gameplay issues
Get our MERCH NOW: 25gamers.com/shop
--------------------------------------
PVX Partners offers non-dilutive funding for game developers.
Go to: https://pvxpartners.com/
They can help you access the most effective form of growth capital once you have the metrics to back it.
- Scale fast
- Keep your shares
- Drawdown only as needed
- Have PvX take downside risk alongside you
+ Work with a team entirely made up of ex-gaming operators and investors
---------------------------------------
For an ever-growing number of game developers, this means that now is the perfect time to invest in monetizing direct-to-consumer at scale.
Our sponsor FastSpring:
Has delivered D2C at scale for over 20 years
They power top mobile publishers around the world
Launch a new webstore, replace an existing D2C vendor, or add a redundant D2C vendor at fastspring.gg.
---------------------------------------
This is no BS gaming podcast 2.5 gamers session. Sharing actionable insights, dropping knowledge from our day-to-day User Acquisition, Game Design, and Ad monetization jobs. We are definitely not discussing the latest industry news, but having so much fun! Let’s not forget this is a 4 a.m. conference discussion vibe, so let's not take it too seriously.
Panelists: Jakub Remiar, Felix Braberg, Matej Lancaric
Podcast:
Join our slack channel here: https://join.slack.com/t/two-and-half-gamers/shared_invite/zt-3bckldvr8-8PXvzciMWdheOzED9hq0SA
Chapters
00:00 pure grind
02:00 What Butcher Hero actually is
04:30 Warcraft / Dota inspiration explained
07:00 Core loop: farming, timers, repetition
10:00 Weapon system and scaling issues
13:00 Why the map feels empty
16:00 Missing meta systems vs Alien Invasion
19:00 Event system and progression bottlenecks
22:00 Ad monetization problems (no scaling)
25:00 IAP pressure and VIP system
28:00 UA strategy and creative analysis
32:00 Why creatives are better than gameplay
35:00 Revenue, downloads and scaling potential
37:00 Final verdict : needs “magic” to grow
---------------------------------------
Matej Lancaric
User Acquisition & Creatives Consultant
https://lancaric.me
Felix Braberg
Ad monetization consultant
https://www.felixbraberg.com
Jakub Remiar
Game design consultant
https://www.linkedin.com/in/jakubremiar
---------------------------------------
Please share the podcast with your industry friends, dogs & cats. Especially cats! They love it!
Hit the Subscribe button on YouTube, Spotify, and Apple!
Please share feedback and comments - matej@lancaric.me
---------------------------------------
If you are interested in getting UA tips every week on Monday, visit lancaric.substack.com & sign up for the Brutally Honest newsletter by Matej Lancaric
Do you have UA questions nobody can answer? Ask Matej AI - the First UA AI in the gaming industry! https://lancaric.me/matej-ai
🤑 Top 5 Advanced Ad Placements by Jakub Remiar
In this solo episode of Two and a Half Gamers, Jakub breaks down 5 advanced ad placements that are actively driving revenue in top mobile games.
No theory. No fluff. Just practical systems you can implement today.
He covers:
🎯 Before-level boosters that increase win probability
⚙️ Idle stacking mechanics that multiply impressions
✈️ Dynamic “random drop” placements
🎰 Gacha-based ad conversion systems
📺 Rewarded interstitials that improve retention
Plus, a hidden system used by top games to scale ad revenue over time.
This episode is brought to you by Potensus. If you're a mobile game publisher tired of leaving money on the table - listen up.
Potensus is a premium ad network built by people who've actually been on both sides of this industry - game publishers, agencies, and successful exits. They get it.
Here's the thing - Potensus has direct deals with Amazon, Apple, Coca-Cola, Vodafone. Not programmatic. Direct. Those budgets land in your game at premium CPMs, no middleman tax.
And they handle everything with their in-house team. PLUS they're partnered with PlayableMaker WINK WINK - so they'll take a brand's YouTube video or a static banner and actually turn it into a playable ad or rewarded video. Proper interactive format, built for gaming inventory. Brands getting a gaming-native creative, publishers getting higher CPMs. Everyone wins.
Head to potensus.com to get started or check their creative portfolio here
https://vimeo.com/showcase/12093300?fl=so&fe=fs
---------------------------------------
This is no BS gaming podcast 2.5 gamers session. Sharing actionable insights, dropping knowledge from our day-to-day User Acquisition, Game Design, and Ad monetization jobs. We are definitely not discussing the latest industry news, but having so much fun! Let’s not forget this is a 4 a.m. conference discussion vibe, so let's not take it too seriously.
Panelists: Jakub Remiar, Felix Braberg, Matej Lancaric
Podcast:
Join our slack channel here: https://join.slack.com/t/two-and-half-gamers/shared_invite/zt-3bckldvr8-8PXvzciMWdheOzED9hq0SA
Chapters
00:00 Why most ad placements suck
01:00 Before-level boosters explained
03:20 Idle stacking mechanics (impression scaling)
06:10 Random moving placement (conversion machine)
09:10 Gacha ad placement (urgency + value)
11:40 Rewarded interstitial optimization
13:30 Hidden system: rewarded ads hub
---------------------------------------
Matej Lancaric
User Acquisition & Creatives Consultant
https://lancaric.me
Felix Braberg
Ad monetization consultant
https://www.felixbraberg.com
Jakub Remiar
Game design consultant
https://www.linkedin.com/in/jakubremiar
---------------------------------------
Please share the podcast with your industry friends, dogs & cats. Especially cats! They love it!
Hit the Subscribe button on YouTube, Spotify, and Apple!
Please share feedback and comments - matej@lancaric.me
---------------------------------------
If you are interested in getting UA tips every week on Monday, visit lancaric.substack.com & sign up for the Brutally Honest newsletter by Matej Lancaric
Do you have UA questions nobody can answer? Ask Matej AI - the First UA AI in the gaming industry! https://lancaric.me/matej-ai
💎 Brilliant Sort review: The next Hexa Sort?
This puzzle game feels like work… but it’s making money
In this episode of Two and a Half Gamers, we break down Brilliant Sort, a puzzle game by Belka Games that is scaling fast - despite gameplay that feels more like a chore than entertainment.
With around 50K DAU and strong monetization, the game proves once again that in mobile gaming, player psychology beats gameplay innovation.
We analyze:
• Why “cleaning mechanics” are so addictive
• How extreme friction drives monetization
• Why UA creatives are completely fake (and still work)
• How this fits into the broader “sort game boom”
Get our MERCH NOW: 25gamers.com/shop
--------------------------------------
PVX Partners offers non-dilutive funding for game developers.
Go to: https://pvxpartners.com/
They can help you access the most effective form of growth capital once you have the metrics to back it.
- Scale fast
- Keep your shares
- Drawdown only as needed
- Have PvX take downside risk alongside you
+ Work with a team entirely made up of ex-gaming operators and investors
---------------------------------------
For an ever-growing number of game developers, this means that now is the perfect time to invest in monetizing direct-to-consumer at scale.
Our sponsor FastSpring:
Has delivered D2C at scale for over 20 years
They power top mobile publishers around the world
Launch a new webstore, replace an existing D2C vendor, or add a redundant D2C vendor at fastspring.gg.
---------------------------------------
This is no BS gaming podcast 2.5 gamers session. Sharing actionable insights, dropping knowledge from our day-to-day User Acquisition, Game Design, and Ad monetization jobs. We are definitely not discussing the latest industry news, but having so much fun! Let’s not forget this is a 4 a.m. conference discussion vibe, so let's not take it too seriously.
Panelists: Jakub Remiar, Felix Braberg, Matej Lancaric
Join our slack channel here: https://join.slack.com/t/two-and-half-gamers/shared_invite/zt-3bckldvr8-8PXvzciMWdheOzED9hq0SA
Chapters
00:00 First reaction — this feels like work
01:30 What Brilliant Sort actually is
03:00 Why this screams UA play
05:00 Core gameplay (and why it’s painful)
08:00 The “cleaning / sorting” psychology
11:00 Monetization breakdown (coins, ads, friction)
14:00 Why difficulty is intentional
17:00 DAU vs revenue reality
19:00 UA strategy and fake creatives
22:00 AI creatives and concept diversity
25:00 Scale potential (60–100K/day ceiling?)
27:30 Final verdict
---------------------------------------
Matej Lancaric
User Acquisition & Creatives Consultant
https://lancaric.me
Felix Braberg
Ad monetization consultant
https://www.felixbraberg.com
Jakub Remiar
Game design consultant
https://www.linkedin.com/in/jakubremiar
---------------------------------------
Please share the podcast with your industry friends, dogs & cats. Especially cats! They love it!
Hit the Subscribe button on YouTube, Spotify, and Apple!
Please share feedback and comments - matej@lancaric.me
---------------------------------------
If you are interested in getting UA tips every week on Monday, visit lancaric.substack.com & sign up for the Brutally Honest newsletter by Matej Lancaric
Do you have UA questions nobody can answer? Ask Matej AI - the First UA AI in the gaming industry! https://lancaric.me/matej-ai
🚨📢 BREAKING NEWS: New Ubisoft Mobile Shooter + Layoffs, Layoffs and Closures
Layoffs, closures, and major strategy shifts across gaming
This week in Two and a Half Gamers Breaking News, we cover one of the toughest weeks for the gaming industry — with layoffs, shutdowns, and major strategic pivots across multiple companies.
Here’s what happened:
🎮 Ubisoft launches The Division Resurgence on mobile
📉 Multiple studios shut down or reduce teams
💸 A $100M+ project gets cancelled after 7+ years
🤖 Unity doubles down on AI and ad tech strategy
📊 Nazara raises $50M for acquisitions and AI expansion
🎮 VR platforms continue to struggle with monetization
👉 The industry is going through a major reset — and mobile, AI, and distribution are at the center of it.
Get our MERCH NOW: 25gamers.com/shop
--------------------------------------
PVX Partners offers non-dilutive funding for game developers.
Go to: https://pvxpartners.com/
They can help you access the most effective form of growth capital once you have the metrics to back it.
- Scale fast
- Keep your shares
- Drawdown only as needed
- Have PvX take downside risk alongside you
+ Work with a team entirely made up of ex-gaming operators and investors
---------------------------------------
For an ever-growing number of game developers, this means that now is the perfect time to invest in monetizing direct-to-consumer at scale.
Our sponsor FastSpring:
Has delivered D2C at scale for over 20 years
They power top mobile publishers around the world
Launch a new webstore, replace an existing D2C vendor, or add a redundant D2C vendor at fastspring.gg.
---------------------------------------
This is no BS gaming podcast 2.5 gamers session. Sharing actionable insights, dropping knowledge from our day-to-day User Acquisition, Game Design, and Ad monetization jobs. We are definitely not discussing the latest industry news, but having so much fun! Let’s not forget this is a 4 a.m. conference discussion vibe, so let's not take it too seriously.
Panelists: Jakub Remiar, Felix Braberg, Matej Lancaric
Podcast:
Join our slack channel here: https://join.slack.com/t/two-and-half-gamers/shared_invite/zt-3bckldvr8-8PXvzciMWdheOzED9hq0SA
Chapters
---------------------------------------
Matej Lancaric
User Acquisition & Creatives Consultant
https://lancaric.me
Felix Braberg
Ad monetization consultant
https://www.felixbraberg.com
Jakub Remiar
Game design consultant
https://www.linkedin.com/in/jakubremiar
---------------------------------------
Please share the podcast with your industry friends, dogs & cats. Especially cats! They love it!
Hit the Subscribe button on YouTube, Spotify, and Apple!
Please share feedback and comments - matej@lancaric.me
---------------------------------------
If you are interested in getting UA tips every week on Monday, visit lancaric.substack.com & sign up for the Brutally Honest newsletter by Matej Lancaric
Do you have UA questions nobody can answer? Ask Matej AI - the First UA AI in the gaming industry! https://lancaric.me/matej-ai
🚀 Castle Clashers!: Voodoo’s new HIT is scaling hard
Today, we break down Castle Clashers, a new game from Voodoo that’s generating $220K+ daily revenue and scaling aggressively with 100K downloads per day.
But this is not your typical Voodoo game.
It combines:
• Artillery shooter gameplay (Worms-style)
• Clash Royale-inspired gacha systems
• Heavy-rewarded ad monetization
• Aggressive UA scaling
We dive into why this hybrid approach works, where it breaks industry “rules”, and why this could be a blueprint for the next generation of midcore-lite games.
Get our MERCH NOW: 25gamers.com/shop
--------------------------------------
PVX Partners offers non-dilutive funding for game developers.
Go to: https://pvxpartners.com/
They can help you access the most effective form of growth capital once you have the metrics to back it.
- Scale fast
- Keep your shares
- Drawdown only as needed
- Have PvX take downside risk alongside you
+ Work with a team entirely made up of ex-gaming operators and investors
---------------------------------------
For an ever-growing number of game developers, this means that now is the perfect time to invest in monetizing direct-to-consumer at scale.
Our sponsor FastSpring:
Has delivered D2C at scale for over 20 years
They power top mobile publishers around the world
Launch a new webstore, replace an existing D2C vendor, or add a redundant D2C vendor at fastspring.gg.
---------------------------------------
This is no BS gaming podcast 2.5 gamers session. Sharing actionable insights, dropping knowledge from our day-to-day User Acquisition, Game Design, and Ad monetization jobs. We are definitely not discussing the latest industry news, but having so much fun! Let’s not forget this is a 4 a.m. conference discussion vibe, so let's not take it too seriously.
Panelists: Jakub Remiar, Felix Braberg, Matej Lancaric
Podcast:
Join our slack channel here: https://join.slack.com/t/two-and-half-gamers/shared_invite/zt-3bckldvr8-8PXvzciMWdheOzED9hq0SA
Chapters
00:00 intro
02:00 Gameplay breakdown (Worms-style combat)
05:00 Why the core loop works
09:00 Repetition problem vs retention
12:00 The “Voodoo gacha” explained
16:00 Why this breaks traditional gacha rules
20:00 Rewarded ads as progression engine
23:00 Ad monetization vs IAP balance
26:00 Category analysis (Artillery Shooter)
29:00 UA strategy and creative volume
32:00 Why creatives are weak (and still scale)
34:00 Missed creative opportunities
36:00 Final verdict
---------------------------------------
Matej Lancaric
User Acquisition & Creatives Consultant
https://lancaric.me
Felix Braberg
Ad monetization consultant
https://www.felixbraberg.com
Jakub Remiar
Game design consultant
https://www.linkedin.com/in/jakubremiar
---------------------------------------
Please share the podcast with your industry friends, dogs & cats. Especially cats! They love it!
Hit the Subscribe button on YouTube, Spotify, and Apple!
Please share feedback and comments - matej@lancaric.me
---------------------------------------
If you are interested in getting UA tips every week on Monday, visit lancaric.substack.com & sign up for the Brutally Honest newsletter by Matej Lancaric
Do you have UA questions nobody can answer? Ask Matej AI - the First UA AI in the gaming industry! https://lancaric.me/matej-ai
🚨Lily's garden & Loomit: How Top Games Make Money From Ads
In this special episode, we sit down with Tactile Games and Loomit to break down how ad monetization actually works at scale - using Lily’s Garden as a real-world example.
https://loomit.ai/
https://meetings.hubspot.com/iortizf/25gamers?uuid=c4c16368-14b8-4277-9ab2-ab55d5614c2d - to book a meeting
From segmentation and A/B testing to dynamic floors, multiple ad units, and user-level optimization — this episode goes deep into the systems behind modern ad revenue.
We also tackle the biggest challenges in ad monetization today:
• Cannibalization vs incremental revenue
• Ad quality vs revenue trade-offs
• Why most setups leave money on the table
• How AI and automation are changing AdMon
🎯 KEY TAKEAWAY
Ad monetization is no longer about placements.
It’s about user-level optimization, testing, and control over the auction.
https://loomit.ai/ - website
https://meetings.hubspot.com/iortizf/25gamers?uuid=c4c16368-14b8-4277-9ab2-ab55d5614c2d - to book a meeting
---------------------------------------
This is no BS gaming podcast 2.5 gamers session. Sharing actionable insights, dropping knowledge from our day-to-day User Acquisition, Game Design, and Ad monetization jobs. We are definitely not discussing the latest industry news, but having so much fun! Let’s not forget this is a 4 a.m. conference discussion vibe, so let's not take it too seriously.
Panelists: Jakub Remiar, Felix Braberg,
Special guests: Ignacio Ortiz Freuler
https://www.linkedin.com/in/iortizfreuler/
Éric Tournié
https://www.linkedin.com/in/erictournie/
Join our slack channel here: https://join.slack.com/t/two-and-half-gamers/shared_invite/zt-3bckldvr8-8PXvzciMWdheOzED9hq0SA
Chapters
00:00 Intro and guests (Tactile + Loomit)
01:40 What makes Lily’s Garden unique
04:00 Ads in IAP-heavy games — why it’s hard
07:00 Defining non-payers and segmentation
09:30 A/B testing ad placements
12:00 Rewarded placements that actually work
15:00 Cannibalization vs incremental revenue
18:00 Mediation platforms and testing strategy
21:00 What Loomit actually does
24:00 Smart buffering and ad loading
27:00 Ad quality vs revenue tradeoffs
30:00 Bid floors and multiple ad units explained
34:00 Why most setups are suboptimal
36:30 AI, automation and future of AdMon
---------------------------------------
Matej Lancaric
User Acquisition & Creatives Consultant
https://lancaric.me
Felix Braberg
Ad monetization consultant
https://www.felixbraberg.com
Jakub Remiar
Game design consultant
https://www.linkedin.com/in/jakubremiar
---------------------------------------
Please share the podcast with your industry friends, dogs & cats. Especially cats! They love it!
Hit the Subscribe button on YouTube, Spotify, and Apple!
Please share feedback and comments - matej@lancaric.me
---------------------------------------
If you are interested in getting UA tips every week on Monday, visit lancaric.substack.com & sign up for the Brutally Honest newsletter by Matej Lancaric
Do you have UA questions nobody can answer? Ask Matej AI - the First UA AI in the gaming industry! https://lancaric.me/matej-ai
🧶 Yarn Loop Review: Puzzle Gold Rush continues with Spyke Games!
In this episode of Two and a Half Gamers, we break down one of the strangest success stories in mobile gaming right now — Yarn Loop.
Despite having a relatively small player base, the game is already generating millions in revenue, driven by strong Tier 1 users, efficient monetization, and heavy AppLovin scaling strategies.
We explore how this “Pixel Flow-inspired” puzzle game evolved into a top performer, why iteration beats originality in today’s market, and how studios like Spyke are building scalable puzzle machines using templates, AI, and ruthless execution.
🧠 Key Takeaway
You don’t need millions of players to win. You need the right players, the right monetization, and the right UA strategy.
Get our MERCH NOW: 25gamers.com/shop
--------------------------------------
PVX Partners offers non-dilutive funding for game developers.
Go to: https://pvxpartners.com/
They can help you access the most effective form of growth capital once you have the metrics to back it.
- Scale fast
- Keep your shares
- Drawdown only as needed
- Have PvX take downside risk alongside you
+ Work with a team entirely made up of ex-gaming operators and investors
---------------------------------------
For an ever-growing number of game developers, this means that now is the perfect time to invest in monetizing direct-to-consumer at scale.
Our sponsor FastSpring:
Has delivered D2C at scale for over 20 years
They power top mobile publishers around the world
Launch a new webstore, replace an existing D2C vendor, or add a redundant D2C vendor at fastspring.gg.
---------------------------------------
This is no BS gaming podcast 2.5 gamers session. Sharing actionable insights, dropping knowledge from our day-to-day User Acquisition, Game Design, and Ad monetization jobs. We are definitely not discussing the latest industry news, but having so much fun! Let’s not forget this is a 4 a.m. conference discussion vibe, so let's not take it too seriously.
Panelists: Jakub Remiar, Felix Braberg, Matej Lancaric
Podcast:
Join our slack channel here: https://join.slack.com/t/two-and-half-gamers/shared_invite/zt-3bckldvr8-8PXvzciMWdheOzED9hq0SA
Chapters
00:00 Why this game makes no sense
01:30 Millions in revenue with low DAU
03:00 What Yarn Loop actually is
05:00 Pixel Flow vs Yarn Loop comparison
08:00 Why cute visuals matter for CPI
11:00 The “slinging” mechanic explained
14:00 Difficulty curve and retention design
17:00 Spike’s puzzle template strategy
20:30 LiveOps advantage vs competitors
23:00 Revenue breakdown and Tier 1 focus
27:00 Puzzle genre explosion in 2026
30:00 Competitors: Pixel Flow, Magic Sword
33:00 AppLovin scaling and ad revenue debate
37:00 Creative strategy breakdown
40:00 Legal risks and copycat strategy
42:30 Final verdict — how big can this get?
---------------------------------------
Matej Lancaric
User Acquisition & Creatives Consultant
https://lancaric.me
Felix Braberg
Ad monetization consultant
https://www.felixbraberg.com
Jakub Remiar
Game design consultant
https://www.linkedin.com/in/jakubremiar
---------------------------------------
Please share the podcast with your industry friends, dogs & cats. Especially cats! They love it!
Hit the Subscribe button on YouTube, Spotify, and Apple!
Please share feedback and comments - matej@lancaric.me
---------------------------------------
If you are interested in getting UA tips every week on Monday, visit lancaric.substack.com & sign up for the Brutally Honest newsletter by Matej Lancaric
Do you have UA questions nobody can answer? Ask Matej AI - the First UA AI in the gaming industry! https://lancaric.me/matej-ai
Subway Surfers City: Sybo built the Best Ad Placements in Mobile Gaming, then forgot to run UA
Subway Surfers City just hit 10 million downloads in 3 weeks — but is it actually a good business?
We tear apart Sybo's long-awaited follow-up to one of the most downloaded games in history. We break down the gameplay, the surprisingly advanced (and stingy) economy, Felix's obsession with the ad placements, and why the UA setup is basically a ghost town despite having MiniClip's full weight behind it.
After 5+ years of development in Denmark and a soft launch back in July 2024, Subway Surfers City finally went global — but the numbers are already declining. Is this a profitable sequel or a $20K/day money pit that'll never recoup its dev costs?
Topics covered:
Game breakdown: gacha system, hoverboards, shard economy, modes & daily trials
Ad monetization deep dive: 8 rewarded ads/day cap, ad boxes, interstitials done right
Why Felix wants to sell you a subscription to watch MORE ads
Revenue reality: ~$100K/day total, DAU at 730K and shrinking
UA analysis: 51 creatives, mostly Facebook, no AdROAS, no AppLovin — why?
The organic trap: can Subway Surfers City ever escape the shadow of the original?
Cross-promo mystery: 16M monthly downloads next door and zero funnel into City
Was this game worth building at all?
Get our MERCH NOW: 25gamers.com/shop
--------------------------------------
PVX Partners offers non-dilutive funding for game developers.
Go to: https://pvxpartners.com/
They can help you access the most effective form of growth capital once you have the metrics to back it.
- Scale fast
- Keep your shares
- Drawdown only as needed
- Have PvX take downside risk alongside you
+ Work with a team entirely made up of ex-gaming operators and investors
---------------------------------------
For an ever-growing number of game developers, this means that now is the perfect time to invest in monetizing direct-to-consumer at scale.
Our sponsor FastSpring:
Has delivered D2C at scale for over 20 years
They power top mobile publishers around the world
Launch a new webstore, replace an existing D2C vendor, or add a redundant D2C vendor at fastspring.gg.
---------------------------------------
This is no BS gaming podcast 2.5 gamers session. Sharing actionable insights, dropping knowledge from our day-to-day User Acquisition, Game Design, and Ad monetization jobs. We are definitely not discussing the latest industry news, but having so much fun! Let’s not forget this is a 4 a.m. conference discussion vibe, so let's not take it too seriously.
Panelists: Jakub Remiar, Felix Braberg, Matej Lancaric
Join our slack channel here: https://join.slack.com/t/two-and-half-gamers/shared_invite/zt-3bckldvr8-8PXvzciMWdheOzED9hq0SA
Chapters
00:00 intro
02:38 Game overview – What is Subway Surfers City?
04:13 Background – Sybo, MiniClip, and the original game
05:49 Monetization model – IAPs vs. the original's ad-only approach
06:26 Ad placements deep dive – Rewarded ads, revives, doubler
07:32 Economy breakdown – Shard gacha, currencies, and the 8-ad daily cap
21:13 Felix's wild idea – Pay to watch MORE ads
22:07 Interstitial placement & eCPM balance
23:37 Numbers – Downloads, DAU, revenue
26:14 Revenue reality – $20K/day IAP, ~$100K/day total
31:03 UA breakdown – 51 creatives, Facebook only, no AdROAS
33:05 Why is the UA so weak? MiniClip, earn-outs, LTV issues
36:06 Cross-promo – Why isn't Subway Surfers 1 pushing City?
39:10 Final verdict – Was this game worth making?
Matej Lancaric
User Acquisition & Creatives Consultant
https://lancaric.me
Felix Braberg
Ad monetization consultant
https://www.felixbraberg.com
Jakub Remiar
Game design consultant
https://www.linkedin.com/in/jakubremiar
Please share the podcast with your industry friends, dogs & cats. Especially cats! They love it!
Hit the Subscribe button on YouTube, Spotify, and Apple!
Please share feedback and comments - matej@lancaric.me
🤖 Building a UA reporting agent live, in 15 minutes by Matej Lancaric
I automated my weekly UA reporting using AppsFlyer MCP and it took less than 15 minutes to set up. https://bit.ly/4lMS8jM
Every week, I was doing the same painful thing: opening AppsFlyer for one client, then another, then another. 10 accounts, 10 dashboards, hours gone before the week even starts. Not anymore.
In this episode, I walk you through the exact setup I use - live, on screen - so you can copy it for your own accounts today.
What you'll learn:
→ What MCP (Model Context Protocol) actually is, in plain UA terms
→ How to connect AppsFlyer MCP to n8n (or Claude Desktop / ChatGPT)
→ How to build an automated weekly UA report in under 20 minutes
→ How to deliver reports to Slack, email, Notion, Google Sheets — wherever you work
→ How to scale to 10+ client accounts using a multi-agent setup
→ What's coming next: creative fatigue alerts, spend cap monitoring, and more
This works whether you're an internal UA manager with one app or a consultant running campaigns for multiple clients. No coding required.
— Links mentioned —
AppsFlyer MCP GitHub (open source): https://github.com/AppsFlyerKnowledge/appsflyer-ai-agents-examples
AppsFlyer MCP setup guide + templates: https://bit.ly/4lMS8jM
AppsFlyer workflow library (executive summary, caps alert, and more): https://bit.ly/4lMS8jM
n8n (free automation tool): https://n8n.io
My Companion article (step-by-step written guide):
My newsletter (Sub Stack):
https://lancaric.substack.com/p/i-tested-all-10-new-appsflyer-products
— Chapters —
00:00 Why I hate weekly UA reporting
01:45 What is MCP — the 2-minute version
03:30 Where to find AppsFlyer templates and the workflow library
05:00 Step 1: Get your AppsFlyer MCP token
06:30 Step 2: Connect to n8n and set up credentials
08:15 Step 3: Run your first automated report
10:30 Customising metrics — CPI, ROAS, creative performance
12:00 Delivering reports to Slack, email, Notion, Sheets
13:30 Scaling to multiple accounts: the multi-agent setup
— Who this is for —
UA managers, growth marketers, and mobile gaming consultants who run campaigns on AppsFlyer and want to automate the parts of their job that don't require human thinking.
#MobileUA #AppsFlyer #MCP #UAautomation #MobileGaming #UserAcquisition #n8n #AIautomation
---------------------------------------
This is no BS gaming podcast 2.5 gamers session. Sharing actionable insights, dropping knowledge from our day-to-day User Acquisition, Game Design, and Ad monetization jobs. We are definitely not discussing the latest industry news, but having so much fun! Let’s not forget this is a 4 a.m. conference discussion vibe, so let's not take it too seriously.
Panelists: Jakub Remiar, Felix Braberg, Matej Lancaric
Podcast:
Join our slack channel here: https://join.slack.com/t/two-and-half-gamers/shared_invite/zt-3bckldvr8-8PXvzciMWdheOzED9hq0SA
---------------------------------------
Matej Lancaric
User Acquisition & Creatives Consultant
https://lancaric.me
Felix Braberg
Ad monetization consultant
https://www.felixbraberg.com
Jakub Remiar
Game design consultant
https://www.linkedin.com/in/jakubremiar
---------------------------------------
Please share the podcast with your industry friends, dogs & cats. Especially cats! They love it!
Hit the Subscribe button on YouTube, Spotify, and Apple!
Please share feedback and comments - matej@lancaric.me
---------------------------------------
If you are interested in getting UA tips every week on Monday, visit lancaric.substack.com & sign up for the Brutally Honest newsletter by Matej Lancaric
Do you have UA questions nobody can answer? Ask Matej AI - the First UA AI in the gaming industry! https://lancaric.me/matej-ai
🚀 Last Asylum Review: Is this the next Kingshot moment in 4X gaming?
In this episode of Two and a Half Gamers, we break down the insane launch strategy behind Last Asylum: Plague by 37 Entertainment - a game that mixes onboarding mini-games, massive AI-driven creative production, and aggressive scaling tactics that could define the next phase of the 4X market.
From My Perfect Hotel-style onboarding loops to hundreds of AI-generated creatives flooding ad networks, this launch shows how Chinese publishers are building growth machines that are almost impossible to compete with.
Get our MERCH NOW: 25gamers.com/shop
--------------------------------------
PVX Partners offers non-dilutive funding for game developers.
Go to: https://pvxpartners.com/
They can help you access the most effective form of growth capital once you have the metrics to back it.
- Scale fast
- Keep your shares
- Drawdown only as needed
- Have PvX take downside risk alongside you
+ Work with a team entirely made up of ex-gaming operators and investors
---------------------------------------
For an ever-growing number of game developers, this means that now is the perfect time to invest in monetizing direct-to-consumer at scale.
Our sponsor FastSpring:
Has delivered D2C at scale for over 20 years
They power top mobile publishers around the world
Launch a new webstore, replace an existing D2C vendor, or add a redundant D2C vendor at fastspring.gg.
---------------------------------------
This is no BS gaming podcast 2.5 gamers session. Sharing actionable insights, dropping knowledge from our day-to-day User Acquisition, Game Design, and Ad monetization jobs. We are definitely not discussing the latest industry news, but having so much fun! Let’s not forget this is a 4 a.m. conference discussion vibe, so let's not take it too seriously.
Panelists: Jakub Remiar, Felix Braberg, Matej Lancaric
Podcast:
Join our slack channel here: https://join.slack.com/t/two-and-half-gamers/shared_invite/zt-3bckldvr8-8PXvzciMWdheOzED9hq0SA
Chapters
00:00 Why the Last Asylum launch is shocking
02:10 Fake-ad onboarding becomes real gameplay
05:10 My Perfect Hotel mechanics inside a 4X
08:40 Star gating progression and retention design
12:00 Building pressure systems and event timers
15:10 Alliance onboarding and server population tricks
18:00 Early performance data and Tier-1 scaling
22:00 Comparing launch trajectory vs King Shot
26:30 Chinese revenue reality vs Western dashboards
30:00 AI production pipeline and creative volume
34:00 Creative strategy breakdown and winning concepts
39:30 Playables gap and future scaling potential
42:30 Final prediction — biggest 4X of 2026?
---------------------------------------
Matej Lancaric
User Acquisition & Creatives Consultant
https://lancaric.me
Felix Braberg
Ad monetization consultant
https://www.felixbraberg.com
Jakub Remiar
Game design consultant
https://www.linkedin.com/in/jakubremiar
---------------------------------------
Please share the podcast with your industry friends, dogs & cats. Especially cats! They love it!
Hit the Subscribe button on YouTube, Spotify, and Apple!
Please share feedback and comments - matej@lancaric.me
---------------------------------------
If you are interested in getting UA tips every week on Monday, visit lancaric.substack.com & sign up for the Brutally Honest newsletter by Matej Lancaric
Do you have UA questions nobody can answer? Ask Matej AI - the First UA AI in the gaming industry! https://lancaric.me/matej-ai
🚨📢 Breaking News: Apple AI money, rewarded roll-up, mobile funding wave
Mobile Gaming & AI Industry Breaking News. This week’s biggest stories reveal major shifts in platform power, investment flows and UA channel consolidation.
In this Breaking News segment of Two and a Half Gamers, Felix explains:
• How Apple is making nearly $1B from generative AI apps despite lacking a clear AI product strategy
• Why new mobile gaming funding rounds signal renewed investor confidence
• The strategic acquisition of JustPlay by NCsoft for $200M
• Why rewarded UA companies are starting to consolidate globally
• How Nazara’s acquisition strategy shows the rise of owned-traffic ecosystems
The episode highlights a key trend:
Distribution and monetization infrastructure are becoming more valuable than individual game launches.
---------------------------------------
This is no BS gaming podcast 2.5 gamers session. Sharing actionable insights, dropping knowledge from our day-to-day User Acquisition, Game Design, and Ad monetization jobs. We are definitely not discussing the latest industry news, but having so much fun! Let’s not forget this is a 4 a.m. conference discussion vibe, so let's not take it too seriously.
Panelists: Jakub Remiar, Felix Braberg, Matej Lancaric
Podcast:
Join our slack channel here: https://join.slack.com/t/two-and-half-gamers/shared_invite/zt-3bckldvr8-8PXvzciMWdheOzED9hq0SA
Chapters
---------------------------------------
Matej Lancaric
User Acquisition & Creatives Consultant
https://lancaric.me
Felix Braberg
Ad monetization consultant
https://www.felixbraberg.com
Jakub Remiar
Game design consultant
https://www.linkedin.com/in/jakubremiar
---------------------------------------
Please share the podcast with your industry friends, dogs & cats. Especially cats! They love it!
Hit the Subscribe button on YouTube, Spotify, and Apple!
Please share feedback and comments - matej@lancaric.me
---------------------------------------
If you are interested in getting UA tips every week on Monday, visit lancaric.substack.com & sign up for the Brutally Honest newsletter by Matej Lancaric
Do you have UA questions nobody can answer? Ask Matej AI - the First UA AI in the gaming industry! https://lancaric.me/matej-ai
Why Slay the Spire 2 exploded: Review
Slay the Spire 2 just proved that game design still wins
In this episode of Two and a Half Gamers, we break down one of the biggest indie launches in recent years.
Slay the Spire 2 reportedly generated over $100M in revenue within two weeks of early access, driven by massive wishlist numbers, Twitch coverage and an already legendary community built over nearly a decade.
The hosts discuss why the game works despite minimal visual upgrades, how roguelite deck-building loops create extreme engagement, and why premium PC launches can still outperform heavily marketed mobile titles.
They also explore the marketing blueprint behind the launch: massive media coverage, creator distribution, and community-driven hype instead of traditional paid UA.
Get our MERCH NOW: 25gamers.com/shop
--------------------------------------
PVX Partners offers non-dilutive funding for game developers.
Go to: https://pvxpartners.com/
They can help you access the most effective form of growth capital once you have the metrics to back it.
- Scale fast
- Keep your shares
- Drawdown only as needed
- Have PvX take downside risk alongside you
+ Work with a team entirely made up of ex-gaming operators and investors
---------------------------------------
For an ever-growing number of game developers, this means that now is the perfect time to invest in monetizing direct-to-consumer at scale.
Our sponsor FastSpring:
Has delivered D2C at scale for over 20 years
They power top mobile publishers around the world
Launch a new webstore, replace an existing D2C vendor, or add a redundant D2C vendor at fastspring.gg.
---------------------------------------
This is no BS gaming podcast 2.5 gamers session. Sharing actionable insights, dropping knowledge from our day-to-day User Acquisition, Game Design, and Ad monetization jobs. We are definitely not discussing the latest industry news, but having so much fun! Let’s not forget this is a 4 a.m. conference discussion vibe, so let's not take it too seriously.
Panelists: Jakub Remiar, Felix Braberg, Matej Lancaric
Podcast:
Join our slack channel here: https://join.slack.com/t/two-and-half-gamers/shared_invite/zt-3bckldvr8-8PXvzciMWdheOzED9hq0SA
Chapters
00:00 $100M early access shock
02:10 Slay the Spire history and genre impact
04:30 Community scale and Steam metrics
06:40 Why small teams can win big
08:10 Deck-builder gameplay loop explained
12:00 Progression depth and content volume
16:30 Why engagement beats graphics
19:40 Premium pricing and revenue math
23:50 Community power and long-term hype
27:00 Marketing without UA spend
30:30 Mobile port opportunity discussion
33:40 Revenue predictions and future outlook
---------------------------------------
Matej Lancaric
User Acquisition & Creatives Consultant
https://lancaric.me
Felix Braberg
Ad monetization consultant
https://www.felixbraberg.com
Jakub Remiar
Game design consultant
https://www.linkedin.com/in/jakubremiar
---------------------------------------
Please share the podcast with your industry friends, dogs & cats. Especially cats! They love it!
Hit the Subscribe button on YouTube, Spotify, and Apple!
Please share feedback and comments - matej@lancaric.me
---------------------------------------
If you are interested in getting UA tips every week on Monday, visit lancaric.substack.com & sign up for the Brutally Honest newsletter by Matej Lancaric
Do you have UA questions nobody can answer? Ask Matej AI - the First UA AI in the gaming industry! https://lancaric.me/matej-ai
Influencer Marketing in mobile games actually explained by Marion Balinoff
Influencer marketing in mobile gaming is growing fast, but most campaigns still fail. Not because creators are bad or games are weak. The real problem is setup.
In this episode of Two and a Half Gamers, Marion breaks down the real execution framework behind profitable influencer campaigns. From defining goals and calculating budgets to choosing the right creators and measuring organic uplift, this episode is a practical guide built on real campaign experience.
You will learn why organic traffic matters more than tracked installs, how to calculate the minimum views needed to see impact, and why influencer vertical testing should follow strict profitability ratios.
If you are running influencer marketing or planning to test it as a UA channel, this episode gives you the playbook.
🧠 Key Takeaway
Influencer marketing is not only about creators. It is about math, timing, and execution discipline.
This episode is brought to you by Potensus. If you're a mobile game publisher tired of leaving money on the table - listen up.
Potensus is a premium ad network built by people who've actually been on both sides of this industry - game publishers, agencies, and successful exits. They get it.
Here's the thing - Potensus has direct deals with Amazon, Apple, Coca-Cola, Vodafone. Not programmatic. Direct. Those budgets land in your game at premium CPMs, no middleman tax.
And they handle everything with their in-house team. PLUS they're partnered with PlayableMaker WINK WINK - so they'll take a brand's YouTube video or a static banner and actually turn it into a playable ad or rewarded video. Proper interactive format, built for gaming inventory. Brands getting a gaming-native creative, publishers getting higher CPMs. Everyone wins.
Head to potensus.com to get started or check their creative portfolio here
https://vimeo.com/showcase/12093300?fl=so&fe=fs
---------------------------------------
This is no BS gaming podcast 2.5 gamers session. Sharing actionable insights, dropping knowledge from our day-to-day User Acquisition, Game Design, and Ad monetization jobs. We are definitely not discussing the latest industry news, but having so much fun! Let’s not forget this is a 4 a.m. conference discussion vibe, so let's not take it too seriously.
Podcast host: Marion Balinoff
https://www.linkedin.com/in/marion-balinoff/
Join our slack channel here: https://join.slack.com/t/two-and-half-gamers/shared_invite/zt-2um8eguhf-c~H9idcxM271mnPzdWbipg
Chapters
00:00 Influencer marketing reality check
04:10 Defining goals
06:40 Organic uplift as the real KPI
09:10 Budget math and required view volume
12:20 Why YouTube works best for UA
15:00 Choosing the right creator vertical
18:20 Finding influencers and outreach strategy
21:10 Pricing models and profitability logic
24:30 Measuring results and scaling campaigns
27:00 Final lessons for UA teams
---------------------------------------
Matej Lancaric
User Acquisition & Creatives Consultant
https://lancaric.me
Felix Braberg
Ad monetization consultant
https://www.felixbraberg.com
Jakub Remiar
Game design consultant
https://www.linkedin.com/in/jakubremiar
---------------------------------------
Please share the podcast with your industry friends, dogs & cats. Especially cats! They love it!
Hit the Subscribe button on YouTube, Spotify, and Apple!
Please share feedback and comments - matej@lancaric.me
---------------------------------------
If you are interested in getting UA tips every week on Monday, visit lancaric.substack.com & sign up for the Brutally Honest newsletter by Matej Lancaric
Do you have UA questions nobody can answer? Ask Matej AI - the First UA AI in the gaming industry! https://lancaric.me/matej-ai
🐻 SAVED $1.6 mil UA BUDGET! How Super Bear Adventure became a MASSIVE ad revenue game with 0 spent
How Super Bear Adventure Became a Massive Ad Revenue Machine
In this episode of Two and a Half Gamers, Matej, Jakub and Felix break down one of the most surprising mobile success stories right now.
Super Bear Adventure looks like a nostalgic low-budget console platformer.
But behind the simple visuals hides a huge scale business driven by ads, social features and organic traffic.
The game reached millions of daily active users, especially in Tier-2 and Tier-3 markets like Indonesia, Brazil and Russia.
Instead of relying on paid UA, growth seems to be fueled by YouTube content, multiplayer updates and strong exploration gameplay loops.
The hosts analyze the monetization design, rewarded revive mechanics, cosmetic economy and why this game could be earning tens of millions per year despite 0 marketing spend.
Get our MERCH NOW: 25gamers.com/shop
--------------------------------------
PVX Partners offers non-dilutive funding for game developers.
Go to: https://pvxpartners.com/
They can help you access the most effective form of growth capital once you have the metrics to back it.
- Scale fast
- Keep your shares
- Drawdown only as needed
- Have PvX take downside risk alongside you
+ Work with a team entirely made up of ex-gaming operators and investors
---------------------------------------
For an ever-growing number of game developers, this means that now is the perfect time to invest in monetizing direct-to-consumer at scale.
Our sponsor FastSpring:
Has delivered D2C at scale for over 20 years
They power top mobile publishers around the world
Launch a new webstore, replace an existing D2C vendor, or add a redundant D2C vendor at fastspring.gg.
---------------------------------------
This is no BS gaming podcast 2.5 gamers session. Sharing actionable insights, dropping knowledge from our day-to-day User Acquisition, Game Design, and Ad monetization jobs. We are definitely not discussing the latest industry news, but having so much fun! Let’s not forget this is a 4 a.m. conference discussion vibe, so let's not take it too seriously.
Panelists: Jakub Remiar, Felix Braberg, Matej Lancaric
Podcast:
Join our slack channel here: https://join.slack.com/t/two-and-half-gamers/shared_invite/zt-2um8eguhf-c~H9idcxM271mnPzdWbipg
Chapters
Some studios spend millions on UA, build Hollywood trailers, hire growth ninjas…
and still pray for scale.
Then this cozy little bear shows up.
Looks like it escaped from a 1999 console game.
Movement is clunky.
UI feels like it was built during a power cut.
And it’s casually pulling millions of players and huge ad revenue.
No massive marketing push.
No creative testing war room.
No Meta rep screaming about ROAS.
Just exploration.
Multiplayer vibes.
And rewarded revives printing money.
Meanwhile somewhere a product team is debating
whether the grass shader feels premium enough for soft launch.
The lesson?
Players don’t scale because your game is beautiful.
They scale because your game is fun, sticky and everywhere.
This bear didn’t need better graphics.
It needed session length.
And honestly…
that’s the most mobile gaming story ever.
---------------------------------------
Matej Lancaric
User Acquisition & Creatives Consultant
https://lancaric.me
Felix Braberg
Ad monetization consultant
https://www.felixbraberg.com
Jakub Remiar
Game design consultant
https://www.linkedin.com/in/jakubremiar
---------------------------------------
Please share the podcast with your industry friends, dogs & cats. Especially cats! They love it!
Hit the Subscribe button on YouTube, Spotify, and Apple!
Please share feedback and comments - matej@lancaric.me