Supercell rebooted MoCo, their monster-hunting RPG, with a big relaunch update - new weapons, new abilities, redesigned portals, daily jobs. The hype cycle lit up. And after playing it, the verdict is brutal: it's still dead on arrival.

Matej Lančarič, Jakub Remiar, and Felix Braberg dig into the MoCo relaunch and why it doesn't fix the game's core problem. MoCo launched in March 2025 with a download spike, hit a hard shark fin, and the relaunch pumped it back up to roughly 230K DAU — but only around $14K/day in revenue and ~$5M lifetime (about one peak day of Brawl Stars). Jakub's diagnosis as a hardcore RPG player: the game has no depth, no chase items, no endgame, just farming stat-cores and a cosmetics shop. The relaunch added "depth-ish" — a little bit of depth sprinkled into the depth — but lightweight RPGs don't exist, and Supercell's broad-and-accessible business model is fundamentally incompatible with what makes RPGs work.

The conclusion the hosts land on is uncomfortable: in its current state, MoCo is essentially unsalvageable as an RPG. Either pivot it into a MOBA, or kill it and go back to strategy games — the thing Supercell is genuinely great at.

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⏱️ TIMESTAMPS

00:00 Cold open — what does this mean for Supercell?

02:19 The relaunch and the search for one positive sign

03:30 The numbers — shark fin, 230K DAU, $14K/day

07:40 The core problem — no depth, no chase items

12:50 "Gen Z slop": why the RPG genre rejects this

16:00 The endgame problem — stat-cores and cosmetics

26:00 MoCo vs Diablo Immortal vs Path of Exile

30:45 The verdict — kill it or pivot to MOBA

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

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 - [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

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

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

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

📌 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

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

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━-

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 - [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

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 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.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

⏱️ 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 - [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

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.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

⏱️ 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

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

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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-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 - [email protected]

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 - [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

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.

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⏱️ 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

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

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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

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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:

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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-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 - [email protected]