Deconstructor of Fun

This isn't your typical "we raised $50M and exited" story. This is what happens when you have no choice but to figure it out yourselves. When the tripod refuses to fall. When you run out of everything except ideas. This is the story of Heroic Labs.
About Heroic Labs: Core infrastructure for game studios. If you've played games from Zynga, Gram Games, or dozens of other studios, you've used their tech without knowing it. That's by design.
📱 Follow for more founder stories that break the mold: www.deconstructoroffun.com/blog
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"The road you're in is a graveyard, full of skulls of previous dead companies." - Bing Gordon, Kleiner Perkins
Timestamps:
00:00 Heroic Safari Adventures
01:24 Switching to Open Source
04:14 Journey to Y Combinator
09:44 Life at Y Combinator
26:01 Demo Day and Investor Meetings
33:03 Heroic Bootstrapping
37:40 Remote Work and Team Dynamics
43:01  Founder Dynamics
50:19  Advice for Founders
01:03:55 Team Pride & Retention
01:13:04 Rapid Fire Questions

Call of Duty tanks so hard that even Battlefield feels bad for it. Valve unveils a cube that may or may not be the future of PC gaming, depending on which half of the internet you ask.Sexy cozy games are quietly eating the West, which sounds ridiculous until the revenue charts come out. Now everyone’s worried… And the triumphant return of a special guest.

00:51 Episode Overview

04:43 Amazon Game Studios Layoffs

06:11 Call of Duty Black Ops 7 Analysis

22:39 Valve's New Steam Machine

32:56 Xbox's Struggles and Market Position

34:38 Valve's Strategy in China

37:34 Ubisoft's Uncertain Future

39:17 EA's Strategic Moves

45:28 Zelda Live Action Adaptation

46:32 Eastern Games' Success in the West

56:45 The Rise of Cozy Games

01:02:02 Conclusion and Final Thoughts

What if your company stopped chasing quarterly goals and spent an entire month training every employee on AI? That's exactly what AppsFlyer did, and it completely transformed how they approach innovation.

In this episode, AppsFlyer down with Barak Witkovsky, Chief Product Officer of AppsFlyer, to discuss one of the boldest AI transformation experiments I've ever heard of.

For four weeks, they paused regular business objectives and put all 1,300 employees through an AI builder course. Not on top of their work. AS their work.

What We Cover:

1. Why AppsFlyer stopped chasing OKRs to invest in AI education across the entire company

2. How AppsFlyer's CEO and CPO learn about AI from their own employees (including marketers who know more than developers at other companies)

3. How AppsFlyer evolved from a measurement platform into a modern marketing cloud with autonomous AI agents

4. How do you get marketers to trust AI when they're deploying tens of millions in ad spend?

5. Why AppsFlyer is betting on an open AI ecosystem with MCP and Agent Hub

6. Are marketers becoming obsolete or are they about to become "bosses of agents"?

7. Why executives are bullish on AI while directors and managers feel anxious (and what to do about it)

Timestamps:

00:00 AI Integration at AppsFlyer

04:15 The ROI of AI Investments

05:14 Evolution to a Modern Marketing Cloud

16:30 Challenges of Omnichannel Measurement

22:26 AI Agents in Marketing

27:01 Becoming an AI-First Company

31:29 The Role of AppsFlyer in the AI Ecosystem

44:38 The Ultimate Growth Machine Vision

47:18 Final Thoughts

Most retention problems come from mismatched expectations, not flawed features. This episode teaches how to align creatives with gameplay, diagnose early vs. late churn, and use personalization to keep players engaged. Short, sharp retention truths every team should hear.

Monetization isn’t a layer, it’s the outcome of understanding player motivation. This episode covers segmentation, pricing, LTV curves, and early warning signs of monetization failure. A concise breakdown of how sustainable revenue systems are built.

CPI is only one signal. In this episode, we show how top studios test appeal in prototypes, validate value in soft launch, and scale with confidence. A fast, practical guide to reading market signals at every stage of development.

This episode breaks down the real foundation of successful game development: clean data, aligned teams, and fast decision loops. Learn why most studios collect too much data, how to build a shared truth, and how AI changes the analyst’s role. Perfect for teams that want clarity, not more dashboards.

Epic vs Google stays stuck in limbo as the judge rejects the settlement, Duolingo’s stock finally breaks its streak, and Square Enix joins the wave of Eastern publishers restructuring their way into a new identity. Royal Match’s reported $200M ad spend shows just how hard you have to swing to own casual in 2025, while Chinese publishers quietly (and efficiently) conquer the entire merge genre with speed and scale Western studios can’t match.

Meanwhile, Arc Raiders is heating up—and so is the controversy around its AI-generated voice work. Welcome to the modern games industry: court battles, collapsing multiples, mega-spend user acquisition, genre takeovers, and existential AI debates, all happening at once. Buckle up.

00:43 Epic vs Google Case Discussion
13:50 Duolingo's Struggles and Gamification
20:49 Square Enix Restructuring and Industry Trends
30:43 Analyzing Sensor Tower's Report on Digital Ad Spend
32:01 Royal Kingdom vs. Royal Match: A Deep Dive
34:37 The Innovator's Dilemma in Mobile Gaming
35:26 The Rise of New Puzzle Sub-Genres
39:05 The Cost of Marketing Campaigns
49:58 Arc Raiders: A New Success Story
57:04 AI in Gaming: Controversies and Opinions
01:01:09 Conclusion

Welcome to the debut episode of Shooter Monthly, the podcast that’s never out of projectiles. Host Phillip Black (DICE) is joined by shooter Avengers, Christopher Anjos (EA, Timi, ATVI), Chris Sides (Bungie, Capital Games), and Feras Musmar (DICE, TTK Games) for a wide-ranging discussion on the current shooter landscape.We talk:Arena Breakout: Infinite’s Surprising Launch – Tarkov-style hit from China that’s quietly carving out a Western following. The crew debates whether free-to-play extraction shooters are the new normal or just a niche.Arc Raiders – Embark’s long-awaited extraction-adventure hybrid surges past 100K concurrent players. Can a PvE-leaning world and “welcoming danger” finally broaden the genre’s audience?Battlefield 6’s comeback – Record launch numbers, smoother tech, and a revived franchise, yet old wounds around XP pacing, reward structures, and live-service execution remain.The premium vs. free-to-play fault line dividing East and West, why extraction shooter is a terrible genre name, and whether holding back “Season 1" content at launch is smart or cynical.The crew asks the big question: Can Battlefield finally dethrone Call of Duty - or is this just another flash of Swedish steel before the next reset?

Epic takes another swing at Google and wins, Unity cozies up with Epic in a surprising move, and Roblox continues to puzzle investors after a tough earnings call. We also dive into Arcadia Gaming Partners’ growing influence, and why Supercell pulled the plug on Squad Busters.

0:00 Welcome

01:26 Updates, Announcements, and Shills

07:06 Epic and Google Settlement Details

18:11 Unity and Epic Collaboration

22:22 Roblox Earnings and Market Performance

27:01 Roblox's Recent Performance and Employee Shakeups

31:41 Monetization Challenges and Regional Differences

33:26 Future Prospects and Advertising Potential

37:58 Arcadia Gaming Partners' Investments

42:17 Supercell's Squad Busters Cancellation