two & a half gamers

This is no BS gaming podcast 2.5 gamers session #63. 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 am conference discussion vibe, so let's not take it too seriously.

Panelists: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Jakub Remia⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠r, ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Matej Lančarič⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Felix Braberg⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

Youtube: ⁠https://youtu.be/nhTzSeenLJ8

Today’s episode is brought to you by Mistplay, the #1 loyalty app for mobile gamers. Mistplay is a media source that leverages continuous rewarded engagement to drive retention and LTV for advertisers. If you’re looking to reach high-value users and achieve your performance goals, check out Mistplay and get in touch at mistplay.com!

Agenda

00:00 Intro

01:23 Stuff that nobody cares about

02:56 Important announcement & Mistplay intro

04:35 Does Mistplay actually work? Yes!

05:30 Agenda of today's session

06:14 Two waifus & half male character

07:48 People come for ads

08:30 Smoky Admon backrooms

16:37 Viva la dirt league

19:36 Jakub making enemies

24:48 Why are we even talking about Viva La Dirt League?

26:35 How do you even measure campaigns like these?

27:25 Viva La Dirt league is a step up from influencer marketing

29:54 Pedro Pascal & Merge mansion audience mismatch?

31:30 How much money do they charge for a video? Benchmarks from other influencers

33:05 Human ads on Linkedin

34:05 Remo skips the intro because he assumes everybody knows Honkai: Star Rail

36:20 Matej goes full ASMR

38:25 Is Honkai: Star Rail basically a Raid Shadow legend?

40:16 Where are the horse girls?

42:30 No Ads, goodbye Felix

46:59 No social features yet

48:30 Is this game going to cannibalize Genshin?

We are co-organizing a fun night at the Encore beach club with YouAppi, Sensortower and MetricsWorks. Register on the link in the show notes, or ping me. 

⁠https://info.youappi.com/mau-2023-club-guest-list-general⁠

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

New article: ⁠https://lancaric.me/ua-manager-life-post-idfa-reality

This is no BS gaming podcast 2.5 gamers session #62. 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 am conference discussion vibe, so let's not take it too seriously.

Panelists: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Jakub Remia⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠r, ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Matej Lančarič⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠,

Youtube: ⁠https://youtu.be/1a3L9sx0EbE

Agenda

00:00 Intro

02:02 Great time not to have Felix on

02:50 Why are we talking about Call of Dragons?

04:16 Game design intro

06:15 TOP10 4X strategy games

13:13 Jakub finally struggles to play games on an emulator

14:15 Revenue per download comparison

16:20 Jakub showcases the Call of Dragons gameplay

18:58 Hello Supercell!

19:59 Noob vs. Pro game

24:04 Mr. Gachapoooool is back in the game

25:00 Players are the content

31:32 Hospitals in 4X games

37:52 These games have 150k spend depth

38:35 User acquisition intro

38:41 Soft launch of CoD

41:10 Top 10 countries - revenue wise

42:39 Competitors

43:18 Retention comparison

45:12 UA channel mix

45:40 Creative showcase

51:20 Interesting tidbits

54:00 Viva La Dirt League

57:15 Call of Dragons overall rating

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

New article: https://lancaric.me/ua-manager-life-post-idfa-reality

This is no BS gaming podcast 2.5 gamers session #61. 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 am conference discussion vibe, so let's not take it too seriously.

Panelists: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Jakub Remia⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠r, ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Matej Lančarič⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Felix Braberg⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

Youtube: https://youtu.be/1qY6jZVSOeQ

Agenda

00:00 intro

00:57 Thank you very much for your support!

01:27 Imitation is the best form of flattery

01:40 You can't copy fun

01:52 Agenda of this session

02:26 Matej's ego is not out of the control

03:17 Legend of Slime revenue split

03:30 Jakub challenges Felix for leadership of the ads movement

03:54 Matej makes assumptions about the revenue split

04:30 Million-dollar questions: Why push players to watch 500 ads? Not answered!

05:09 Jack, the legend of Slime, talks about the game

06:35 Ad monetisation intro

07:35 Why is this game doing so well in Asia?

07:59 Waifu game design Puritans denying ads

10:19 The heart of the ads

11:17 30+ ad placements

12:20 Million-dollar questions: Why push players to watch 500 ads? Answered!

13:55 Jakub cheats all the time

14:08 11 ad partners!

15:06 How much money are they earning on ads?

17:40 600-900k a day on ads? :-O

18:42 User Acquisition Intro

19:20 Thank you, Game Refinery, for providing insights!

20:00 Felix's job is done

21:07 Top geos

21:38 Competitors?

22:37 Matej is not a friend with Mariana Trench

25:30 UA channel mix

26:40 Let's look at the Applovin Legend of Slime playable

28:04 TOP 3 UA channels

28:50 Deep Creative review

34:23 No AI UGC

36:36 Interesting User Acquisition tidbits

38:15 Maven Matej UA rating

40:40 Kudos to Luna

41:35 Expressing a disappointment in the UA

43:00 UA could be so much better

43:32 One gamer and two noobs

45:00 Tell me the edge, it's no bullshit

45:16 My name is Felix, and I disapprove of this message

45:51 The evolution of Idle games

47:22 GACHAPOOOOOL

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

New article: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://lancaric.me/8-must-have-before-post-idfa-soft-launch

This is no BS gaming podcast 2.5 gamers session #60. 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 am conference discussion vibe, so let's not take it too seriously.

Panelists: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Jakub Remia⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠r, ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Matej Lančarič⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Felix Braberg⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

Special guest: ⁠Manuel Prueter⁠

Youtube: ⁠https://youtu.be/79dnIjfWbRA⁠

Agenda

00:00 Intro

01:10 Manuel intro

02:18 Jakub is cheap

03:48 Is mobile really dead?

05:37 King of Organic Downloads

06:52 How to think about ASO?

08:28 How to get into Auto Collection similar games?

09:08 Stop with keyword stuffing

09:38 Google loves revenue (as quickly as possible)

10:05 App health intro

10:49 What are ANRs?

12:02 Magic number for ANRs is 0.47%

12:20 Why 0.47%?

12:48 mmmmmm

12:53 Put on your tinfoil hat pls!

14:23 How does the app loading process look like?

17:50 When do most ANRs occur?

18:32 You don't know when mommy is calling

19:28 Why is this app on pause consuming so many resources

19:38 Ways to mitigate ANR's

21:05 Manuel spilled already all the meat about ANR's :(

22:31 but shares more actionable tips about ANRs

23:40 Removing firebase help decrease ANRs by 25%

25:35 Tinfoil hat part 2

27:15 When to update the SDKs?

28:04 How ANRs influence the organic downloads

29:45 Lost organics, buy more users with UA

30:22 Slowcode, what is it?

31:07 Look at home first!

32:06 Million-dollar question: How hard is it to implement SDKs?

33:43 It's a business decision!

36:10 How to project ad revenue?

36:22 Remo gets excited and eventually asks a question!

38:11 Am I working for the paper bin now?

39:18 Do you exclude devices for showing ads?

41:03 Shout-out to Xiaomi devices

41:24 What are web view and ad loading?

43:30 No Ads for you, sir!

44:10 Manuel loves all SDKs

46:27 How do you structure the team around updating SDKs?

47:46 If you had to choose, what would you implement: SKD or a new feature?

GitHub resource mentioned in the podcast - ⁠https://github.com/AppLovin/AppLovin-MAX-Unity-Plugin/issues/165#issuecomment-1504341154⁠

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

New article: ⁠https://lancaric.me/ua-manager-life-post-idfa-reality⁠

This is no BS gaming podcast 2.5 gamers session #59. 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 am conference discussion vibe, so let's not take it too seriously.

Panelists: ⁠⁠⁠Jakub Remia⁠⁠⁠r, ⁠⁠⁠Matej Lančarič⁠⁠⁠, ⁠⁠⁠Felix Braberg⁠⁠⁠

Youtube: https://youtu.be/Ct-h1YmYEiY

Agenda

00:00 Intro

01:08 Ad mon beef

02:02 Phil Collins in Korean games

03:12 UA flamboyant session intro

03:38 UA flamboyant checklist

05:20 Epic UA flamboyant session intro

07:31 How to do a proper UA & creative review?

12:15 CPI benchmarks

14:50 Goal setting for the UA team

18:25 Well, it depends...

20:34 Growing UA budgets

22:22 Maven Matej doesn't only acquire payers? Pche!

24:01 Campaign structure consolidation

26:17 You should always have a margarita

26:25 UA diversification

28:40 Creatives are made for players, not Art directors

31:08 Political ads THE OG's of fake ads

31:23 Generative AI in UA workflow

34:29 Where to get inspiration for creatives?

35:38 Confused Travoltas

37:08 Fake ads = lower retention, BUT!

39:30 Matej is saying some controversial shit

39:45 Meme & AI creatives

42:37 Anatomy of the well-performing creative

46:08 You keep the charade!

46:40 Videos leveraging Youtubers with channels and their audience

51:05 2nd best UA manager on the podcast has spoken!

52:39 Article for you guys: ⁠https://lancaric.me/hybrid-casual-sssnaker-habby-post-idfa-ua⁠

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

⁠https://lancaric.me/ua-the-new-frontier-of-game-dev

This is no BS gaming podcast 2.5 gamers session #58. 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 am conference discussion vibe, so let's not take it too seriously.

Panelists: ⁠⁠Jakub Remia⁠⁠r, ⁠⁠Matej Lančarič⁠⁠, ⁠⁠Felix Braberg⁠⁠

Youtube: https://youtu.be/ojqMHg0d03c

00:00 Intro

00:50 Special guest Philips

02:47 Jakub goes full systems & vectors on Diablo 4

04:50 SSSnaker introduction

05:00 SSSSSSSSSnakeeeeer

06:14 SSSSnake jazzzzz

07:40 SSSSnaker Ad mon analysis time

08:29 7 Jakub's sons = 1 Katarina

08:39 two noobs & one gamer

10:06 Jakub is having some technical issues

10:25 Showing the actual gameplay with ad placements

11:38 six rewarded videos placements

12:58 SSSnaker makes around $17-20k ad revenue per day

14:25 Could SSSnaker be making 30-40% ad revenue?

15:10 Philips is an SSSnaker noob

18:11 SSSSnake jazzzzz

19:32 Flamboyant UA intro & country breakdown

21:54 Survivor.io & SSSnaker global launch numbers comparison

22:11 Soft launch review

25:00 Creatives

26:37 UGC creative deep dive

27:18 14862.23 USD for a creative?

28:11 How do AI creatives perform against real people?

32:00 UA channel mix

33:00 Behind the curtains deal?

35:11 Retention comparison Habby games vs. action category

39:14 Habby monetization framework

41:00 Hypercasual is dead

41:50 No more ASMR background noise :(

42:36 Snake master vs. SSSnaker - gameplay comparison

43:21 Life lesson no.1 - play with the keyboard

44:03 We hope you get killed!

45:32 Unfolding gameplay

45:54 It would take generations of Felixes to get to world 11

47:21 Is Habby the new Voodoo?

48:20 It's all about the efficiency

49:00 Is Habby publishing two more games in 2023?

50:00 This episode is brought to you by stuck Felix

53:16 Jesper is amazing!

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

https://lancaric.me/ua-the-new-frontier-of-game-dev

This is no BS gaming podcast 2.5 gamers session #57. 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 am conference discussion vibe, so let's not take it too seriously.

Panelists: ⁠⁠Matej Lančarič⁠⁠, Kate Lovejoy, Loic Anton

Youtube: https://youtu.be/z6QTF7oHu-I

Agenda

00:00 Intro

02:36 What the hell is Privacy Sandbox?

05:44 How does the Privacy Sandbox work?

07:34 Why should we pay attention to the privacy sandbox?

10:37 What can you beta test?

15:58 Do you need to implement SDK for every client?

17:44 How does the cooperation with Google look like?

22:31 Audience definition before and after Privacy Sandbox

29:41 When is the Privacy Sandbox happening?

36:32 When do you need to deep-dive into Privacy Sanbox?

40:00 Closing remarks

Email at kate@adikteev or [email protected] for more information

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

User Acquisition as the New Frontier of game development

https://lancaric.me/ua-the-new-frontier-of-game-dev/

This is no BS gaming podcast 2.5 gamers session #56. 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 am conference discussion vibe, so let's not take it too seriously.

Panelists: ⁠Jakub Remia⁠r, ⁠Matej Lančarič⁠, ⁠Felix Braberg⁠

Youtube: https://youtu.be/ON3hmNokPfQhttps://youtu.be/ON3hmNokPfQ

Agenda

00:00 Intro

00:15 Chit-chat (nothing important, you can skip this)

05:20 Century games intro

09:15 Frozen City ad monetization update

11:21 Felix is heartbroken

13:41 Frozen City making about $1mil ad revenue/month

14:20 Felix gives ad placements suggestions

15:08 How much more could they be earning?

16:20 Double placements during weekends

17:00 Negative nancy dresses up as a detective

21:08 Felix's wet ad revenue dream in 4x games starts

25:00 Whiteout Survival UA epic intro

25:43 Soft launch dates of Frozen City & Whiteout survival

28:31 Unity Square videos beta? Pls, pls, pls. Can I get in?

29:30 Top 10 Geos revenue wise

30:31 Retention KPIs

32:43 UA is dead? How come they get so many users on iOS?

34:50 Whiteout survival creative strategy

38:50 Game design intro

42:00 Wait, wait, wait, wait?! Is this a 4X game?

44:11 Smooth transition from idle game to 4X

45:25 Where are the ads?

47:34 Chef's Kiss

50:07 Baloon mechanic, pure genius

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

Frozen City post-IDFA global launch UA case study

https://lancaric.me/post-idfa-ua-frozen-city-global-launch-case-study/https://lancaric.me/post-idfa-ua-frozen-city-global-launch-case-study/

This is no BS gaming podcast 2.5 gamers session #55. 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 am conference discussion vibe, so let's not take it too seriously.

Host: Matej Lančarič

Special guest: Eran Friedman 

Youtube: https://youtu.be/edfxCUnVOnI

Agenda

00:00 Intro

04:18 State of the iOS

07:11 Current adoption rate of SKAN 4.0 (iOS 16.1 and above)

09:17 Why update MMP SDK now? 

10:35 What's the advantage of being an early adopter?

12:19  Is it possible to have SKAN 3 in place and start testing SKAN 4.0?

14:22 What's the most significant difference between SKAN 3 and SKAN 4?

15:47 What are the different postbacks? How do the conversion windows look for these postbacks?

22:17 How to think about the three postbacks? Is it actionable?

26:27 What is the locking window feature about?

28:37 How can I track the evolution of LTV in SKAN 4.0?

32:20 Could you set up different conversion schemas for each postback?

39:58 Is there a SKAN 4.0 checklist?

46:05 How to get creative-level data? 

49:30 Crowd anonymity 

51:30 Eran's contact details ([email protected])

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

This is no BS gaming podcast 2.5 gamers session #54. 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 am conference discussion vibe, so let's not take it too seriously.

Panelists: Jakub Remiar, Matej Lančarič, Felix Braberg

Special guest: Eric Kress

Youtube: https://youtu.be/mzxxL_UtzoI

00:00 Intro

01:00 Jakub makes himself visible by introducing

02:53 Eric, is this glass half full or half empty?

03:36 What does Eric actually do?

06:42 Is mobile dead?

08:49 six people on the top destroying the lives of mobile developers

10:00 UA is shifting

11:50 Kumbaya Matej strikes again on iOS

12:38 What is the adoption rate of SKAN 4?

13:15 Everybody does fingerprinting (Unity, Applovin, Ironsource)

14:02 What story are Unity, Applovin, and Ironsource trying to spin?

16:00 Jakub wakes up & shoots vectors immediately

18:31 Eric disagrees with us! No shit sherlock!

20:20 New frontier of game development

21:15 Felix sharing UA secrets from his smokey darkrooms

22:25 Old companies gonna die

24:10 Gaming trends are coming from East to West

24:52 Jakub goes into the rabbit hole with Eric

27:55 Applovin increases revenue guidance

30:38 Why Eric got so negative?

32:48 Which companies does Eric like the most?

33:40 VR is dead again (blockchain dead too)

34:42 What is the endpoint for mobile?

35:50 30% fee is a joke!

38:00 Hypercasual shit is on!

40:08 Ads are beautiful

41:18 The new frontier of game development

44:20 You can always lie in your ads

46:55 Mr. Gachapool returns

48:35 Matej is Matthew from now on

48:51 How bad will things be for Unity, Applovin, and Ironsource?

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