What if you built a puzzle game in the most crowded genre on earth…

…and scaled it to 5M downloads per month?

In this episode, we sit down with Vlad from Malpa Games and Ritzki from PVX Partners to unpack:

Why Malpa focused on production before ideas

90%+ ad revenue strategy

Why is ad tolerance in puzzles insanely high

How Cardscapes grew 200% month over month

Why AppLovin ROAS campaigns are the scaling engine

How UA cohort financing unlocked aggressive growth

The truth about incentivized traffic in ad-heavy games

Why retention beats everything in ad monetized scaling

This is not a flashy hybrid casual story.

This is disciplined production, AB testing, and pure operational excellence.

🔥 Key Takeaways

Production is more than a “Brilliant Idea”

1% retention lift = huge win

Scale increases ad margins

Incent traffic works if you tune your game

Cohort financing removes cashflow ceiling

AppLovin ROAS = main growth engine

Evergreen puzzles can still explode

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

---------------------------------------

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

Special guests: Uladzimir Tsimashkou & Ridzki Syahputera

https://www.linkedin.com/in/ridzkisyahputera/

[Malpa Games Website] https://malpagames.com/

[Uladzimir Tsimashkou] https://www.linkedin.com/in/tsimox/

[Malpa Games LD] https://www.linkedin.com/company/malpagames/

Join our slack channel here: https://join.slack.com/t/two-and-half-gamers/shared_invite/zt-2um8eguhf-c~H9idcxM271mnPzdWbipg

Chapters

00:00 – Why Cardscapes Is Exploding

02:00 – Malpa’s 10-Year Production Philosophy

06:00 – 90%+ Ad Monetization Strategy

10:00 – Why Puzzle Ad Tolerance Is So High

14:00 – Scaling with AppLovin ROAS

18:00 – Why Facebook Doesn’t Work Here

21:00 – Incentivized Traffic & Ad Tuning

26:00 – Cohort Financing with PVX Partners

30:00 – Why Scale Increases Ad Margins

34:00 – Retention vs Monetization Tradeoffs

38:00 – Final Lessons for Founders

---------------------------------------

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 - [email protected]

---------------------------------------

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