This episode is brought to you in partnership with GameAnalytics. PocketGamer.biz Podcast hosts Peggy Anne Salz and Brian Baglow sit down with Falko Boecker, Head of BD & Customer Success at GameAnalytics, to explore a hard truth about the industry:

Studios are not short on data.

They are short on clarity.

Across rising UA costs, privacy shifts, AI disruption and tighter margins, one thing has become non-negotiable: teams must make better decisions, faster.

But collecting data is not the same as using it well.

Falko brings a rare perspective, having worked across journalism, publishing and business development before moving into analytics. His mission has always been to connect creative thinkers with the business side of games, and data is now the bridge.

In this conversation, we unpack:

• Why “data maturity” is not the same as “data sophistication”
• Where studios get stuck when trying to think full funnel
• Why infrastructure matters less than mindset
• How segmentation moves teams beyond surface-level metrics
• What actually changes between pre-launch and live ops
• Why Roblox and fast-moving ecosystems are redefining how teams react to player behaviour

One of the most important takeaways:

Data does not replace creativity. It sharpens it.

As Falko explains, analytics should not be a black box owned by specialists. It should be accessible across design, product and marketing so teams can align around shared goals instead of siloed assumptions.

We also explore how AI is beginning to shift analytics from reactive dashboards to proactive insight, and where humans still need to drive the decisions.

If you are building a game in 2026, this episode is a reminder that success is not about having more dashboards.

It is about asking better questions.

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PocketGamer.biz head of content Craig Chapple, deputy editor Paige Cook and news editor Aaron Astle talk through the latest games industry news on the 87th episode of the Week in Mobile Games Podcast.

On this week’s show we discuss:

• The Epic layoffs and how that reframes its Google settlement and years of court battles to reduce mobile platform fees and remove anti-steering policies.
• Savvy Games Group's CEO Brian Ward's thoughts on M&A, China and rising Eastern influence.
• Duolingo's experiments with a tool to lock other apps until daily lessons are complete.
• Our big interview about the development of Wuthering Waves.
• Roblox's decision to take a slice of in-game brand deals with creators under new advertising rules.
• Savvy's acquisition of Mobile Legends developer Moonton from ByteDance.

** Let's Connect **👉🏻 Twitter -   / pgbiz  👉🏻 LinkedIn Group -   / pocketgamer-biz  👉🏻 Facebook -   / pgbiz  👉🏻 Website - https://www.pocketgamer.biz 👉🏻 Pocket Gamer Connects - https://www.pgconnects.com👉🏻Pocket Gamer Connects Speaker Submission form - https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FA...👉🏻 The Top 50 Mobile Game Makers 2025 - https://www.pocketgamer.biz/the-top-5...👉🏻 Download the PocketGamer.biz Mobile Games Developer Trends Survey Winter 2024/25 report - https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FA...👉🏻 Join the AI Gamechangers newsletter - https://aigamechangers.substack.com

PocketGamer.biz head of content Craig Chapple, deputy editor Paige Cook and news editor Aaron Astle talk through the latest games industry news on the 86th episode of the Week in Mobile Games Podcast.On this week’s show we discuss:- Final thoughts on GDC week and the future of the show.- The recent Google and Epic deal, plus what Epic Games Store GM Steve Allison had to tell us about it.- A visit to King's London studio and comments on its former midcore ambitions.- The BAFTAs continues to sideline mobile games. Are publishers to blame?- PEGI's decision expands age ratings to cover loot boxes and in-game spending.- Fortnite returns to Google Play.** Let's Connect **👉🏻 Twitter - https://twitter.com/pgbiz👉🏻 LinkedIn Group - https://www.linkedin.com/company/pocketgamer-biz/👉🏻 Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/PGbiz👉🏻 Website - https://www.pocketgamer.biz 👉🏻 Pocket Gamer Connects - https://www.pgconnects.com👉🏻Pocket Gamer Connects Speaker Submission form - https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSdoS5n-vdHu6aU-2d_rR7x1FAgewG51y3nlU1aB8RdetiKaGw/viewform👉🏻 The Top 50 Mobile Game Makers 2025 - https://www.pocketgamer.biz/the-top-50-mobile-game-makers-of-2025/👉🏻 Download the PocketGamer.biz Mobile Games Developer Trends Survey Winter 2024/25 report - https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSf3tbjUxVkG17CuHHljMblfmUC3DZ6gNAzV8qiz8bAALUXSvQ/viewform👉🏻 Join the AI Gamechangers newsletter - https://aigamechangers.substack.com

Recorded on location at Pocket Gamer Connects London, host Peggy Anne Salz sits down with Berkley Egenes, CMO at Xsolla, to examine a structural shift in the industry.

Gaming is no longer just entertainment. It is becoming the commerce layer connecting developers, brands, platforms and players.

Xsolla’s recent rebrand reflects that evolution — moving beyond payments to enable publishing, distribution, promotions and marketplace infrastructure designed to help developers launch, grow and win.

In this conversation, Peggy and Berkley break down:

• Why D2C is now a strategic pillar, not a workaround
• How casual games are outperforming expectations in web shop adoption
• Why Southeast Asia is accelerating faster than many Western markets
• How brands, telecoms and super apps are converging around gaming
• What happens when commerce, loyalty and gameplay start to merge

As Berkley puts it, the stereotype of the “gamer” is gone. Everyone is a gamer. That makes gaming the most powerful engagement layer in digital culture.

When attention lives in games, commerce follows.

This episode explores why the next phase of growth may depend less on transactions inside the app — and more on orchestrating an ecosystem around it.

Chapters

00:00 The Evolving Identity of the Gamer

00:40 Xsolla’s Mission in Video Game Commerce

02:53 Exploring Growth in Southeast Asia

05:07 Unique Ad Experiences and Monetization

07:07 Integrating Non-Endemic Brands into Gaming

09:23 Insights from the Xsolla Report

14:41 The Future of the Gaming Industry

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Check out more world-class speakers sharing their insights and expertise at one of our events. You can find details of our next event here - https://www.pgconnects.com/next-event

In Part 2 of this two-part PocketGamer.biz special, host Peggy Anne Salz continues her conversation with Jon Radoff — CEO of Beamable and one of the early architects of online game infrastructure, long before LiveOps became a discipline and games-as-a-service became the norm.

If Part 1 examined why backend now determines competitive advantage, Part 2 tackles the macro reality reshaping every studio’s growth strategy.

Installs have plateaued. Time spent has stabilised. Revenue growth is no longer coming from incremental user acquisition, but from deeper monetisation of existing players. Sensor Tower calls this the “monetisation-first” era, and the message is clear: scale alone is no longer enough.

As Jon puts it: “Games is a services business now. You don’t ship a product and walk away. You run it.”

In this episode, Peggy and Jon unpack what that actually means in practice:

• Why value per player now matters more than volume

• How retention, loyalty and operational excellence have become the real growth levers

• Where monetisation systems, competition frameworks and identity infrastructure reinforce each other

• Why partnership can become a strategic advantage rather than a loss of control

• Where AI lowers operational barriers — and where trusted infrastructure remains essential

This conversation makes one thing explicit: in a monetisation-first environment, infrastructure is not plumbing. It is strategy.

Together, these two episodes explain not just what the Skillz–Beamable integration represents, but why developers who adapt to this new growth model will be structurally better positioned over the next cycle.

Chapters

00:00 - Content That Would Never See the Light of Day

00:42 - Democratize Game Development

01:26 - Wild West Experience

02:49 - Understand Roblox

03:07 - Lesson for the Broader Game Industry

04:28 - Co-creation with Your Player Population

06:58 - Skillz and Beamable

09:08 - Building Your Own 3D Engine

10:44 - Exclusively Creative Industry

13:40 - English Language Programming

17:48 - Unique Technical Architecture of Games

22:57 - The "1 + 1 Equals 3" Merger

Let's Connect

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Check out more world-class speakers sharing their insights and expertise at one of our events. You can find details of our next event here - https://www.pgconnects.com/next-event

In this PocketGamer.biz episode, hosts Peggy Anne Salz and Craig Chapple sit down with Francesca ReDavid, VP of Product Growth at Mistplay, and Aaron Thandi, Chief Commercial Officer, to examine how rewarded is evolving in what many are calling the monetisation-first era.

For years, rewarded functioned primarily as a UA lever, driving installs and early engagement at scale. But growth dynamics have shifted. Installs have plateaued. Revenue is concentrating deeper in the player journey. Studios are now under pressure to increase lifetime value, not just acquisition volume.

That shift forces a rethink.

Mistplay is preparing to launch a new feature called Playtime Events, designed to combine time-based rewards with contextual in-game milestones. The goal is structural: align rewarded mechanics more closely with how games actually drive engagement and monetisation.

Rather than rewarding time alone, this approach ties incentives to meaningful progression points inside the game experience.

The testing that led to this shift is significant.

In this episode, you’ll hear:

• Why rewarded can no longer operate as a simple traffic channel
• How hybrid playtime-plus-task testing drove a 30% lift in playtime and a 20% increase in D30 ROAS
• Why RPG and strategy titles exposed the limits of generic reward structures
• How contextual milestones can reinforce progression loops rather than distract from them
• What UA, AdMon and Product teams must rethink as monetisation becomes the growth engine

As Francesca explains, rewarded increasingly needs to function as a companion to gameplay — embedded in progression, not layered on top of it.

For studios navigating deeper engagement cycles in 2026, this episode explores why the next phase of rewarded will be defined less by installs and more by alignment with monetisation mechanics.

Chapters

00:00 Driving High Performance and Quality Experience

01:34 The Monetization-First Era

04:01 Rewarding High-Quality Users

05:56 Defining Rewarded

07:50 The History of Mistplay in Rewarded

11:34 Rewarded No Longer a Source of Cheap Traffic

15:12 Time Spent as a Key Indicator

29:39 Playtime and In-Game Events

33:38 Playtime Plus Task Mechanics

48:02 Rewarded's Future: Personalization and ML

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Check out more world-class speakers sharing their insights and expertise at one of our events. You can find details of our next event here - https://www.pgconnects.com/next-event

In Part 1 of this two-part PocketGamer.biz special, hosts Peggy Anne Salz and Brian Baglow sit down with Jon Radoff, CEO of Beamable and an OG architect of online game infrastructure, building persistent systems long before “LiveOps” became a job title, to examine a shift many studios still underestimate.

The pressure is real: move faster, iterate based on real player behaviour and extend lifetime value without burning runway.

Studios know they need LiveOps. They know they need scale. What they often underestimate is where competitive advantage is now determined.

Drawing on decades of building and operating live online games, Jon explains why infrastructure decisions can quietly shape, or sabotage, everything that follows.

Peggy, Brian and Jon explore what Skillz’s acquisition of Beamable’s backend and LiveOps technology means for developers, and how bringing together competition systems, identity, payments and scalable backend services can reduce operational risk while freeing teams to focus on what actually differentiates their game.

The hard truth: “If you’re spending any of your effort building the tech instead of the fun, you’re accumulating debt that doesn’t do you any good.”

Jon makes the case for treating infrastructure as a strategic lever rather than a technical burden and for recognising that games are no longer products you ship, but businesses you operate.

In this episode, you’ll understand:

• Why velocity and behavioural signal now outweigh feature roadmaps
• How backend decisions directly impact runway, trust and long-term scalability
• What unified competition, identity and LiveOps systems unlock for 20-person studios
• Why socially connected mechanics are no longer reserved for massive teams
• How creator-driven ecosystems like Roblox are resetting player expectations

Part 1 closes on a pivotal idea: monetisation matters, but creativity at scale is the multiplier.

In Part 2, the focus shifts outward to the macro forces shaping the industry and why we have entered what Sensor Tower calls the “monetisation-first” era.

Chapters

0:00 Game of Thrones Content Delivery Challenges

3:17 Why Developers Shouldn't Build a Backend

3:36 Aiming High and Iterating Rapidly

4:23 Driving Engagement Through Content and Events

9:10 The Number One Challenge: Velocity

9:38 The Second Problem: Lack of Evidence

12:07 The Need for Both Speed and Evidence

16:15 Monetization as a Design Decision

19:33 Embracing the Social Fabric in Games

23:42 Creating a Regular Content Cadence and Events

Let's Connect

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Check out more world-class speakers sharing their insights and expertise at one of our events. You can find details of our next event here - https://www.pgconnects.com/next-event

PocketGamer.biz head of content Craig Chapple and news editor Aaron Astle talk through the latest games industry news on the 85th episode of the Week in Mobile Games Podcast.

On this week’s show we discuss:

- The Xbox leadership changes and what it means for Microsoft's games division.

- Pokémon's 30th anniversary.

- The UK ASA's decision to issue an enforcement notice on loot box transparency for mobile game ads and store listings.

- Blizzard's reveal of Overwatch Rush - Another MOBA?!

- Our big interview with the director of the Umamusume: Pretty Derby movie.

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👉🏻 The Top 50 Mobile Game Makers 2025 - https://www.pocketgamer.biz/the-top-50-mobile-game-makers-of-2025/

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PocketGamer.biz head of content Craig Chapple, deputy editor Paige Cook and news editor Aaron Astle talk through the latest games industry news on the 84th episode of the Week in Mobile Games Podcast.

On this week’s show we discuss:

• Scopely's big deal for Pixel Flow developer Loom Games.
• The January 2026 mobile game revenue and download charts.
• Matthew Ball's State of Video Gaming 2026 report.
• Pokémon Go's PvP revamp.
• The closure of Call of Duty Warzone: Mobile's servers set for April 2026.
• The fall of Unity's shares by 91% since November 2021.

** Let's Connect **

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👉🏻 The Top 50 Mobile Game Makers 2025 - https://www.pocketgamer.biz/the-top-50-mobile-game-makers-of-2025/

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At PocketGamer Connects London, host Peggy Anne Salz sits down with Cameron Simon, CFO at Offroad Games, whose journey from mining in South Africa to “mining” player data in mobile gaming offers a fresh take on sustainable growth.

The interview grew out of a chance meeting at a dinner hosted by the Mobile Finance Collective, a new community bringing together finance leaders and founders in mobile apps and gaming, and surfaces some genuine gems along the way.

Drawing on a background in heavy industry, Cameron explains how exploration, capital discipline and long-term yield thinking translate directly into player acquisition, LiveOps strategy and monetisation in mobile games.

Key takeaways:

⛏️ The parallels between mining ore bodies and building player value, from discovery and development to maximising lifetime return

📊 How radical transparency around KPIs and runway builds trust and aligns teams around shared financial goals

🎮 Why CFOs who stay close to product and LiveOps make stronger growth decisions

💰 How Offroad Games approaches ad monetisation and D2C partnerships to unlock new revenue streams

🚀 Why sustainable growth and runway protection sit at the centre of every strategic decision

A candid conversation about capital discipline, growth strategy and what it takes to build a mobile studio that survives the cycle.

Chapters:

0:00 Cameron Simon: The "Jack of All Trades" CFO at Offroad Games

2:12 Translating Financial Data to Motivate the Team

3:34 From Mining in South Africa to Mobile Gaming in London

7:10 The Secret to Live Ops and Keeping a Game Fresh

8:29 Partnerships, D2C, and Ad Monetization

12:05 Sustainable Growth and Protecting the Team Runway

** Let's Connect **

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Check out more world-class speakers sharing their insights and expertise at one of our events. You can find details of our next event here - https://www.pgconnects.com/next-event