two & a half gamers

The ultimate AI creative breakdown: Why Western studios are late & who dominates the meta?


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This is the ultimate AI creative breakdown: 112 creatives in 36 minutes.

Jakub, Matej, and Felix review the best (and worst) AI-generated ads across rise of castles clones, tasty travels madness, fluffy animals, Pixar-style mutations, fake physics, and high-production AI cinematics that now rival outsourcing studios.


AI is no longer “experimental.”

It is the creative pipeline.


What you’ll learn

• How to spot AI in 2025 (lighting errors, physics breaks, muscle glitches)

• The new top AI hooks (animals, food, POV inward movement, waifus, chaos)

• The rise of “high-production AI” replacing studio cinematics

• Why Rise of Castles, Golden Goblins, Tasty Travels, and Whiteout Survival dominate AI usage

• How top teams use loras, inpainting, upscaling & 20-step workflows

• The new East–West gap in creative production

• Why by end of 2026, 50% of ads will be AI-driven

• And the moment Candy Crush uses AI bear attacks 😅


Key takeaway

AI creatives are no longer a gimmick. They’re a production system, and the studios that master workflows will own the CPI curve.


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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


00:00 — AI jokes

02:30 — Spotting AI: Botox faces, broken physics, weird lighting

04:00 — Tasty Travels deep dive: AI characters, mutation loops, animal overload

07:40 — AI pets, fluffy rabbits, “cuteness overload” & why animals = low CPI

09:20 — AI POV trends: camera moving towards the object, not the player

11:00 — Rise of Castles AI: medieval films, flying swords, fake Warcraft scenes

14:40 — Engine-quality AI creatives (text errors, menu artifacts, but insane quality)

16:00 — How top teams build AI workflows (loras, upscaling, inpainting, layering)

18:50 — God-hand AI creatives, bear rescues, cinematic transitions

25:00 — Whiteout Survival hooks: 2D, 3D, transitions, smooth animations

27:20 — Idle Lumber & Golden Goblins: the kings of AI hooks

29:00 — Horror hooks, brain-rot, Tom the Train nightmares

30:20 — Full-length AI creatives: stitched shots, Olympics watermarks (!?)

34:00 — Why Western studios are late & who dominates the meta

35:40 — Final insights: AI catching up to real cinematics


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


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