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Impact46 Buys Saudi Gaming Studio Kammelna in $53M Deal

Saudi venture capital firm Impact46 has acquired Dammam-based gaming studio Kammelna in a landmark deal worth over 200M SAR ($53M), the largest investment in Impact46’s history. By the Numbers $53M+: Value of the acquisition 6M+ downloads across Kammelna titles 1M+ monthly active users 150K+ tournament participants 40 employees, making it the largest independent gaming employer in Saudi Arabia Why It Matters Kammelna is best known for bringing the traditional card game Baloot into the digital age, alongside hit title Jackaroo. With over a million Saudis playing every month, the studio has built both cultural and commercial weight in the Kingdom. For Impact46, the acquisition is part of a bigger gaming push. Earlier this year, the firm invested in 7 gaming companies across Saudi Arabia and the US. With more than 2.3B SAR AUM, Impact46 has backed success stories like Jahez, […]

Gamigion August 25

Journal

Why I stopped taking pitch meetings on Mondays

Here's why I stopped taking pitch meetings on Mondays (data from 200+ founder meetings). I tracked every pitch meeting for 18 months. The pattern was clear:Monday meetings had a 23% lower conversion rate to second meetings.Tuesday-Thursday? 65% conversion.Monday? 42%.At first I thought it was the founders. Maybe the best ones grabbed prime slots?Wrong.I dug deeper. Tracked my own energy levels, decision quality, even my note-taking.Monday meetings had:• 40% fewer notes per meeting• Shorter average duration (38 min vs 52 min)• More "maybe" ratings instead of clear yes/noThe problem wasn't them. It was me.After a weekend of family time, my brain needed time to shift back into investor mode. I was physically present but mentally warming up.So I killed Monday pitches entirely.Now I use Mondays for:• Planning the week's activities and tasks• Portfolio founder catch ups• Deep work on deals in […]

Joakim Achren August 25

Journal

New Game Ideas Are Getting Harder to Find

Billions of annual dollars for a mechanic so simple you hate that you missed it. When Royal Match introduced the additional win streak tier in 2023, Harshal Karvande wrote a year later that it “increased revenue baseline by more than 1.5 times.” On a net present value basis, the invention of Super Light Ball will return tens of billions in recurring casual puzzle GDP increases. Pretty good for a feels-so-obvious mechanic. And yet, it took over 31 years since match3’s debut in 𝘚𝘩𝘢𝘳𝘪𝘬𝘪 and at least eight years since the win streaks first appeared in 𝘊𝘢𝘯𝘥𝘺 𝘊𝘳𝘶𝘴𝘩 for match games to discover the obvious. Its discovery, though, makes clear that industry stagflation is a choice, not a destiny. The most remarkable thing about the discovery of Super Light Ball is that nothing about it is a new ingredient. It's simply introducing and doubling down […]

Phillip Black August 25

Journal

3 ways to sell “No Ads” – and when to use each one.

3 ways to sell "No Ads" - and when to use each one: ↳ Special No Ads Offer - simple & direct ↳ Bundled Bonus - preserves ARPPU, removes “either-or” choice ↳ Any Purchase = Temporary No Ads - lets players taste the experience, even with small spend Which one fits your game best?

Olha Semykina August 25

Analysis

UA Notes Here.

I use these notes as a cheat sheet when talking to UA or Data teams. They’ve also been super helpful during job interviews at various companies. I hope you'll find them useful too. How to Evaluate Mobile Ad Creatives — A Simple Guide When you’re launching new ad creatives, the first thing to check is IPM (installs per mille). Or CTR, if you’re more used to that — the two are closely related. The key point is to understand how well the creative grabs attention right from the first impressions. Ad networks start with “learning” impressions — their algorithms need to train. But their goal is simple: to make money. So they’ll start pushing the creatives that have IPM at least as good as your current ones. Not better than the competition — better than your own mix. The algorithm compares new […]

Aleksandr Dadaev August 25

Journal

Nothing New in the West? Think Again!

Why Gamescom 2025 breaks records, why Europe delivers creative answers, and why monetization remains the industry’s defining challenge. An Event of Superlatives Gamescom 2025 in Cologne once again demonstrated why it has firmly established itself as the most important gaming event in the Western hemisphere. With more than 1,500 exhibitors from over 70 countries, a record 233,000 square meters of exhibition space, expected 335.000 visitors, and millions of viewers worldwide, the show reaffirmed its dominant position. Blockbusters and Big Reveals The opening highlights included Call of Duty: Black Ops 7, Resident Evil: Requiem, Silent Hill, Lego Batman: Legacy of the Dark Knight, World of Warcraft: Midnight, and, to the delight of many, long-awaited footage of Hollow Knight: Silksong. Sony revealed Ghost of Yōtei, while Black Myth: Zhong Kui from China showcased its surreal tiger-mounted ghost-catching god. Horror fans were thrilled […]

Adam Smart August 24

Journal

Old School RuneScape Still Grows After 12 Years of Relaunch

I’m going to love writing this one. I’ve been playing RuneScape since I was 11 years old. I remember being on our family computer downstairs back in 2004 at 2 a.m. when I was supposed to be asleep way before that. I would hear my dad wake up upstairs and walk to the bathroom. That was my cue to haul ass back upstairs, slip into my room, and pretend to be asleep as he inevitably came to check on me. Most of the time I got away with it and could go back to fishing lobsters or chopping a few more trees for a Woodcutting level. Fast forward to today and the game is still not only alive, but continually smashing player records with the most recent run up being extra wild with ~250,000 concurrent players being recorded. Not bad for […]

Bryan Cindell August 24

Journal

Our Tools Have Evolved. Have We? The 2025 Games Leader.

Over the past four posts, we've navigated change: global market paradoxes, the complex EMEA maze, and the powerful AI-driven tools at our fingertips. But none of it matters without the final piece of the puzzle: us. The tech is ready. The question now is, are we? The "crunch and command" leadership models that defined previous eras are not just outdated; they are a liability in 2025. To build studios that don't just survive but thrive, we must fundamentally evolve our approach.This isn't about soft skills; it's about strategic imperatives. Here is my new leadership playbook:❤️ Lead with Humanity, Not Just Metrics. In an industry recovering from layoffs and grappling with burnout, empathy is your superpower. Prioritizing your team's well-being and creating psychological safety isn't just "nice"; it's a performance driver. Engaged teams are 23% more profitable. It starts with trust. […]

Tony Clark August 23

Journal

India Just Nuked $23B in Real-Money Gaming Overnight

India just swung the hammer on a $23 billion industry, and the fallout is brutal. Innovation Out, Offshore Casinos in? On Wednesday, Parliament passed the Promotion and Regulation of Online Gaming Bill, 2025. The name sounds tame. The reality? A blanket ban on all real-money games, skill or chance, ads, or payments. Banks can’t touch it. Celebrities can’t promote it. Operators risk prison time. Investors call it catastrophic. Startups call it unconstitutional. Players call it the end of fun. The government’s pitch? Protecting society from addiction, debt, and tragedies tied to gambling apps. The industry’s clapback? Offshore operators — the true villains — will now thrive, while 200+ Indian studios and 200,000 jobs vanish overnight. I welcome the Govt’s decision to prohibit Real Money Gaming & establish a strong regulatory framework. 🇮🇳Too many young lives were being lost to addiction […]

Gamigion August 22

Journal

Remember when we could track conversions accurately on mobile?

Remember when we could track conversions accurately on mobile. Those days are gone. Now it's all "probabilistic attribution" - fancy words for educated guessing. The same conversion gets credited to 3 different channels depending on which dashboard you check. Signal-to-noise ratio is terrible. Measuring incremental gains is key. Everyone's rushing to web2web thinking it's salvation. Reality:- 3x budget needed for same learnings- Requires complete product rebuild- Aggressive paywalls become mandatory- Complex cancel flows are table stakesSome businesses with high LTV and aggressive subscription models are winning with web2web. But most aren't prepared for the economics.It's not fixing attribution. It's just moving to a more expensive casino with higher table minimums. Same house edge, different dealer.Maybe the real question isn't how to track better - it's how to build businesses that don't need perfect attribution to scale profitably.Maybe the solution isn't […]

Nikita Zatsepin August 22

Journal

The Most Ingenious Game of the Last 5 Years

𝗧𝗛𝗘 𝗠𝗢𝗦𝗧 𝗜𝗡𝗚𝗘𝗡𝗜𝗢𝗨𝗦 𝗚𝗔𝗠𝗘 𝗢𝗙 𝗧𝗛𝗘 𝗟𝗔𝗦𝗧 𝟱 𝗬𝗘𝗔𝗥𝗦 & 𝗝𝗨𝗚𝗚𝗟𝗜𝗡𝗚 𝗠𝗢𝗡𝗞𝗘𝗬𝗦 Clawee is the most ingenious game/app/experience I've played in the last five years. Players control a 𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘭 claw machine, with the app streaming the video as players make claw moves in real-time. Everything outside of that execution is dogshit, and you know what? That's actually okay. Not only is it okay, it's exactly how it should be. When Offer Yehudai was trouting the development method of FIRST putting up $500 paywalls last year, I couldn't endorse it loud enough. In the explore-exploit framework of modern development, way, way too many devs spend too much time digging, when they don't even know if they're sitting on an oil well. 𝗢𝗻𝗲 𝗼𝗳 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗲𝗮𝗿𝗹𝗶𝗲𝘀𝘁 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝘀𝘁𝗿𝗼𝗻𝗴𝗲𝘀𝘁 𝘀𝗶𝗴𝗻𝗮𝗹𝘀 𝗶𝘀 𝗱𝗲𝗺𝗮𝗻𝗱, 𝗱𝗲𝘀𝗽𝗶𝘁𝗲 𝗽𝗼𝗹𝗶𝘀𝗵, 𝗻𝗼𝘁 𝗯𝗲𝗰𝗮𝘂𝘀𝗲 𝗼𝗳 𝗶𝘁. Everything about Clawee's UX and […]

Phillip Black August 22

Journal

Why not sell skins or emotes for Grok’s anime girl?

Why not sell skins or emotes for Grok’s anime girl?That was my first thought when I saw Grok’s new Misa Misa–like assistant. Sounds like professional bias, but here me out: Right after Grok 4 launched, daily IAP revenue jumped 5x! This proves what we already know at mobile gaming: personalization + gamification = monetization.ChatGPT tells the same story. Its success didn’t come from inventing LLMs, but from making them approachable for anyone. That’s why it now owns 80% of mobile AI chatbot revenue, according to AppMagic.> So what’s the next step in this “approachability game”? That's right: making AI more pleasant to interact with. And if visual novels taught us anything, it’s that a 2D girl talking to you is 1) very pleasant 2) makes people more likely to pay.So… in this context, skins, emotes, and personalization packs for Grok’s […]

Andrei Zubov August 22

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