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Andrei Zubov

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How to Monetize Whales Through Milestone Events

How to Monetize Whales Through Milestone Events 🐋 Monetization features for whales are designed to target the highest-spending players, while also engaging less-spending players with the potential to convert them into whales.💡 How milestones tied to hard currency spend work:Players complete milestones and receive rewards by spending standard hard currency during the event.🐳 In-game Examples:— “Emerald Waterfalls” event in Hero Wars is held weekly, starting on Wednesdays. While its long duration and regularity make its exact impact on revenue harder to measure, its continuous rotation demonstrates its importance.— “More Than Gems” event in Rise of Kingdoms is held on weekends during major clan events like the “Sunset Canyon Tournament” and “Alliance Mobilization,” resulting in a 12–40% revenue increase on the following Mondays.✅ Why it’s important:Whales are one of the most important cohorts that can generate the absolute majority of revenue […]

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Merge-2 with Complex Meta: The Year of LiveOps & Monetization

Merge-2 with Complex Meta: The Year of LiveOps & Monetization 🚀 The genre surged in 2024, with revenue up 106% YoY and downloads rising 43%.But here’s the catch—this growth comes from just a few dominant titles, including Merge Mansion, Travel Town, Gossip Harbor, and Seaside Escape. 👑How did they achieve this? By doubling down on LiveOps and refining monetization strategies, drawing inspiration not just from each other but also from Match-3 and Casual Casino. 🎰Want the details? You’ll find them all in our report.Casual Games Report 2024 also covers:🏆 How Two games outperformed Merge Mansion, which dominated the niche for three years.🔄 How Merge Mansion is fighting back to reclaim its position.📈 How three new games broke into the Top 10—and what set them apart.

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Casual Casino: Behind the Locked Doors

Casual Casino: Behind the Locked Doors 🗝️ In 2024, the genre saw a 60% revenue surge and a 24% drop in downloads. While the revenue growth is impressive, its structure tells a more important story:🎲 Monopoly GO! dominates—Scopely’s hit alone generates over 50% of the genre’s revenue.💰 Playtika owns 4 out of the top 10 after spending $2.3B+ on two recent acquisitions.With 80% of revenue coming from just three games and only one new release hitting our $50k/month success benchmark, it’s clear—breaking into this genre is tough, even for the big guys 🤯Still, Casual Casino is buzzing with innovation in LiveOps, monetization, and event design—offering valuable lessons for the entire industry! ✍️

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Match-3 with Complex Meta

Match-3 with Complex Meta: You Shall Not Pass? 🧙‍♂️ At first glance, the Match-3 market seems to be thriving, with revenue up 13% YoY in 2024! But here’s the catch: Royal Match alone accounts for 51% of Tier-1 West revenue! 👑Without Dream Games’ flagship, the genre’s revenue actually declined by 8% YoY—making Match-3 with Complex Meta one of the most monopolized and challenging markets to break into. Of the 60 new titles launched in 2024, 5 crossed our $50K/month success benchmark, including Truck Star and Hollywood Crush ⭐️An 8.3% success rate might seem high, but don’t let the numbers fool you. Many smaller developers are just avoiding the genre, leaving only the most prepared and resourceful teams to take on the challenge.

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Toca Boca Hits $1B in User Spending!

Toca Boca Hits $1B in User Spending! 🚀 The publisher’s success skyrocketed with Toca Boca World—an open-ended kids’ simulator that has captured a massive audience 👯Popular among girls mostly, the game offers complete freedom: no levels, no achievements, no penalties—just endless customization, exploration, and decoration 🧘‍♀️Generating 82% of Toca Boca’s revenue, Toca Boca World peaked at $17M per month in 2021. Today, seasonal spikes during school vacations continue to drive revenue, reaching $9M in December 2024 🌊Check out the publisher’s public AppMagic page for more insights: https://lnkd.in/dnhhG5zpMonetizing kids’ games is no easy feat, but Toca Boca has mastered it. Today, the publisher holds the #1 spot among kids’ game publishers worldwide! 🥇

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Playtika Owns 4 of the Top 10 Casual Casino Games

Playtika Owns 4 of the Top 10 Casual Casino Games 🎰🎲 87% of Casual Casino’s worldwide IAP revenue comes from just two games—Monopoly GO! and Coin Master—making it one of the most consolidated genres in the industry!The Tier-1 West market looks slightly less extreme but it doesn’t change the picture. You can check the full breakdown in AppMagic's latest report: https://lnkd.in/dUTfz33a Can anyone even compete with this level of dominance? Well, Playtika certainly found its way:— In Sep’24, it acquired Animals & Coins developer InnPlay Labs for $300M. 💰— In Nov’24, it made a $2B acquisition of Dice Dreams studio SuperPlay. 💸With Board Kings and Pirate Kings already in its portfolio, Playtika now holds 4 of the Top 10 games in the genre!With such a portfolio, top-tier talent, and deep complementary expertise in slots, Playtika is becoming a serious threat […]

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Royal Match Hits $5B User Spending!

Royal Match Hits $5B User Spending 🔥 Royal Match remains the leader in Match 3 with a complex meta genre, capturing an overwhelming 50% of the market 📈The game is confidently increasing its user spending number and achieving $126M in monthly revenue to close out the year 🚀In 2024, the game shifted focus from scaling downloads to enhancing LiveOps with new social features, mechanics, and innovative event integrations 💰

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Gaming vs. Tech: Where Are Investors Heading in 2025?

Gaming vs. Tech: Where Are Investors Heading in 2025? This is my favorite slide from InvestGame's Gaming Deals Report 2024! It highlights how VCs are gradually shifting their focus from game publishers and developers to infrastructure and tech solutions around gaming. 📊We can see this trend in the Top-30 gaming-focused VC funds too, with more capital now going to Platform & Tech startups than to content creators.For me, this is one of the most fascinating changes to watch in 2025: — Will investments and M&As in Platform & Tech accelerate? 📈— Could AI become the key factor here? 🤖— And will we see a web3 comeback? 🌐While I can’t predict for sure, I know where to find the data to back up any forecast. 👇Get your copy of InvestGame’s report in the comments below!P.S. Infinite Reality raising $3B at the […]

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Why play Netflix’s Squid Game when Roblox already exists?

Why play Netflix’s Squid Game when Roblox already exists? 🔺⭐🔴☂️ “NO NETFLIX MEMBERSHIP REQUIRED” — these are the first words in the App Store description of Netflix’s Squid Game: Unleashed.Yes, with caps lock!By making its new multiplayer battle royale game free-to-play, Netflix seems to have learned a thing or two from its three years in the gaming market. 🤓But here’s the twist: players have already been enjoying Squid Game for years —on Roblox! That is why so many people downloaded Roblox when the Season 2 of the TV Show was launched. 📈Squid Game: Unleashed generated 15M downloads in just one month, according to AppMagic. This is an amazing result! But what happens once the hype dies down? Players will likely move on to other games in the App Store. 📱Now, consider what happens when Roblox players get tired of Squid Game. […]

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Arcane: Bringing a New Audience to League of Legends: Wild Rift 💎

Arcane: Bringing a New Audience to League of Legends: Wild Rift 💎 59K downloads in a single day—the highest number Riot Games’ legendary mobile MOBA has seen in 2.5 years (since May 2022).This is the power of Arcane, my favorite animated series that introduced League of Legends to me and countless others. Here’s what Wild Rift developers did to take maximum from the show:— Two new characters from Arcane: Heimerdinger and Ambessa 👸🏾— An Arcane Battle Pass featuring two exclusive skins from the series 🎟️ — Special puzzle quest with Arcane characters and landscapes 🧩— Six Arcane-themed skins available in the store 🎨— ASO changes featuring Arcane characters📱What really impressed me, though, was how Riot planned to retain players after the series concluded and the initial hype began to fade:1️⃣ Exclusive skins were released after the final act, encouraging players […]

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Supercell Takes Full Ownership of Space Ape: Next?

Supercell Takes Full Ownership of Space Ape: Why Now and What's Next? 🎯 Space Ape Games' recent hits, Beatstar and Chrome Valley Customs, have influenced developers around the world and put the studio at the top of my favorite companies out there. 🌟According to AppMagic, Space Ape Games has generated over $280M in IAP revenue alone! 🚀But why is acquiring the remaining 25% shares now? After all, Space Ape has been Supercell's subsidiary since 2017. 🤔Several factors could explain this move:1) Straight from the press release: fully acquiring Space Ape is the best way for Supercell to expand its presence into London. 🇬🇧2) If long-term incentives were in place, Space Ape’s founders, with their strong track record, may have hit their KPIs and been ready for an exit. 💼3) With Squad Busters being Supercell’s first global launch since 2018 but […]

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Is it true that former Activision Blizzard employees raise VC money more effectively?

Is it true that former Activision Blizzard employees raise VC money more effectively? 🤔 Short answer: Yes, they do.Long answer: can be found in the new research by InvestGame, published on Deconstructor of Fun.For this, we analyzed all the startups founded by Activision Blizzard alumni who publicly secured funding over 2020-2024. Here are the key takeaways:— Average deal size: Higher.— Follow-up rounds: More frequent.— Products in the release: Marvel Snap and... Concord… — Exits: Already happening!For all the details and numbers, check out the new InvestGame x GDEV Inc. ($GDEV) feature via the link here! 👇P.S. Yes, it’s just like we did with ex-Rioters!

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