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The First-Ever NFL-Licensed Social Casino Mobile Game!

Product Madness, the free-to-play social casino division of Aristocrat Leisure, has officially rolled out NFL Super Bowl Slots worldwide, marking the first time the NFL has licensed a free-to-play social casino game for mobile. Developed in collaboration with the NFL and NFL Players Association, the title combines the intensity of gameday with slot mechanics. Players can choose any of the NFL’s 32 teams, unlock fully branded content, and experience unique features like “Quarterback Rush” and “Daily Drills,” progressing from “Prospect” to “Hall of Famer.” To spotlight the launch, Dallas Cowboys linebacker Micah Parsons has signed on as brand ambassador. The game also features real NFL footage, iconic plays, and seasonal updates, while crossover content from Aristocrat favorites like Buffalo and Lightning Link will make appearances. Matt Labbat, SVP and Head of Product Madness, said the goal was to build more […]

Gamigion August 22

Journal

Grand Games’s Car Match has already crossed $100K a Day!

Grand Games's Car Match already crossed $100K a day 🤑 in revenue, while their other game Magic Sort makes $190K a day in parallel. Is it this another Dream Games in the making or is it gonna be hampered by its UA? The game is essentially an alternative execution of Voodoo's Block Jam 3D as you can see the core gameplay. But on much higher production values as it follows the Dream Games formula of looking like a Pixar movie 📽️ in context of visual quality. This way it is much more skewed towards microtransactions in its overall revenue profile. But let's be honest, with the current competition in puzzle games, you really need to look like this to even have a chance at the table 😅. This is not the studio's first game as Magic Sort 🧴 already made […]

Jakub Remiar August 21

Journal

Hiring, Layoffs, and Surviving the Game Industry’s Reset

As an old-timer in the games industry, I've seen cycles come and go. But the current downturn feels different—prolonged, painful, and amplified by emerging tech like AI. There seems to have been a fundamental shift in the environment in which we work and compete. Is this time different? Today’s discussion focuses on many of the new macro forces impacting the games industry, including layoffs, getting hired, staying employed, AI, work culture, and more! The State of Play: A Cyclical Downturn with a Twist It's tough out there. Keith confirms that the market is in a cyclical decline after a post-COVID boom, but with some unique characteristics. Larger studios are aggressively cutting costs by shuttering projects and entire studios, while many independent developers have seen their funding dry up. The result is a market focused on the perception of sure bets—games […]

Joseph Kim August 21

Journal

The New System Design Jawbreaker

The system designer's core responsibility is to find and maximize the area under the curve for any piece of content. How do we generate the maximum amount of revenue for a given amount of content under a particular distribution system? The introduction and evolution of live ops event design is a function of this model. Squad RPG provides a clear example of this, where new content waterfalls across different vectors over time. A new character might have a collection event with a distinct set of rules, or a seasonal loot box with differing odds from the normal distribution. The system designer must balance the short-run price inelasticity of new content against the more difficult-to-analyze effects of limiting the marginal ability of labor to acquire the same good.The neoclassical Cobb-Douglas framework remains useful here: a player's production is a function of […]

Phillip Black August 21

Journal

We’re building the next Supercell. Heard this 50 times.

I met with a gaming founder last week who said something that stopped me cold: "We're building the next Supercell."I've heard this 50+ times. Here's why it never works.Supercell succeeded because they built Supercell, not because they copied King or Zynga. They created their own playbook: small teams, kill games fast, give developers autonomy. Plus, they broke through when free-to-play mobile games where just coming up.The founders who actually break through in gaming? They're building the next version of themselves.Look at the pattern:• Habby didn't try to be Voodoo. They focused on mid-core hybrid casual.• Dream Games didn't chase Match-3. They reinvented the collapse gameplay.• Metacore didn't copy Supercell. They built narrative-driven merge games.Each found their own lane and dominated it.The gaming industry doesn't need another Supercell. It needs founders who understand:- Your unfair advantage isn't in copying what worked […]

Joakim Achren August 21

Highlights

Dream Games Paid $100M, Türkiye’s 18th Biggest Taxpayer in 2024

The Turkish Ministry of Treasury and Finance has released the 2024 list of top corporate taxpayers, and Dream Games has officially joined the country’s financial elite. Istanbul-based mobile gaming giant ranked 18th, paying 4 billion TRY in corporate tax. As of 2021, the corporate tax rate in Türkiye is 22%. There’s only one true technology company on this entire list. (1) Unregulated: No state protection or monopoly advantage.(2) Global-first: Building for the world, not just for Türkiye. Founded in Istanbul in 2019 by Soner Aydemir (now CEO), İkbal Namlı, Hakan Sağlam, Eren Şengül, and Serdar Yılmaz, Dream Games has quickly risen to become one of Türkiye’s most prominent mobile game studios. The company has reached global audiences with smash-hit titles such as Royal Match and Royal Kingdom, both of which have resonated worldwide. In just five years, the company has […]

Gamigion August 20

Highlights

Clash Royale made $105M in 30 Days, Top Game After 8 Years!

Supercell's Clash Royale last 30 days revenue is 🤑 $105 Mil., which is a 600% increase from its January 2025 rev, which is 50% of the whole monthly portfolio revenue making it again the Supercell biggest game 😲 after 8 years! Yes, you read that right, its nearly 3x Brawl Stars daily revenue currently. It seems Supercell pulled another "6x revenue on an old game" trick out of its sleeve. Let's look at the last 2 years of what was happening.▪️ In June of 2023, it introduced Card Evolutions, essentially doubling the daily revenue from 250K to 500K 🤑. This is a qualitative upgrade to some units. More units are getting these with every update. Basically recycling their unit collection for more different units created from old ones. ▪️ Then in March 2024 they introduced Lucky Drops 🎰, an analogue […]

Jakub Remiar August 20

Journal

455 Tower Defense games were launched in 2025.

455 Tower Defense games were launched in 2025. But just ONE will cross $10M this year.Why is Galaxy Defense that game?What is it doing differently?I haven't played all 455 😅 but have some observations:1. GD is Cyberjoy's 5th Tower Defense attempt (grit).2. Design modeled after successful BangBang survivor.3. D1R (57%) assisted by addictive roguelike elements.4. D1R assisted by 2nd-screen, pseudo-idle gameplay.5. Spend depth geometry is elegant & well above $1M.6. 10+ Battle Passes support LiveOps at $300 / mo.TD is having a moment in current hybrid-cas. meta, 🧩I love to see TD games doing well! 🤗And, I'm really enjoying working on a few!May the odds be ever in your favor ✌️

Matthew Emery August 20

Journal

The Future of Gaming: Doom or Destiny?

There is a real degree of existential uncertainty currently gripped the gaming industry. For all the growth, global visibility, and sheer volume of content being produced, one uncomfortable question is keeping many awake at night: Is the industry running out of road? Over the past decade, the industry has been defined by performance metrics, monetisation models, and subscription platforms. But the very mechanisms that once propelled it forward now seem to be holding it back. From the mass layoffs, conservative greenlighting, and bloated “just ship more” pipelines driven by Game Pass-like services, the industry is chasing scale, often at the expense of creativity. Looking East, looking small, but still looking back It is natural to search for momentum elsewhere. In China, gaming still works. Economically, creatively, and culturally. There, a younger, more risk-tolerant audience engages deeply with experimental formats and […]

Adam Smart August 20

Journal

Mytona Arrived at $1B User Spending!

Mytona Arrived at $1B User Spending 🚀 In the past few years, Mytona has reached a steady IAP revenue plateau, averaging $4.5M a month.Most of this revenue comes from two titles: 1️⃣ Seekers Notes: Hidden Objects — responsible for 58% of the publisher’s lifetime revenue. The game also ranks among the top two in the Hidden Objects genre, accounting for 14% of the market lifetime revenue.2️⃣ Cooking Diary: Restaurant Game — contributes 39% of Mytona’s total revenue and 0.6% of the Simulation genre lifetime revenue.With Simulation growing and Hidden Objects peaking, will Mytona push its hits to new heights or launch a game-changing title? Let's see!

Andrei Zubov August 20

Highlights

AppsFlyer Eyes $4.5B Sale, Appcharge Secures $58M, Neon Machine Lands $19.5M

Written by our partner, InvestGame. Unlocking Growth: How UA Financing Is Reshaping Mobile Gaming User Acquisition (UA) remains one of the most capital-hungry functions in mobile gaming, with studios spending up to 50–70% of revenue to scale. In today’s cautious funding climate, few can raise growth rounds — but cohort-based UA financing offers a new path: non-dilutive capital tied to real-time campaign performance. Our latest report with PvX Partners, Enabling Growth: Cohort User Acquisition Financing, breaks down the $143B mobile gaming spend, the state of VC funding, and real case studies from SuperPlay, Malpa, and others. Read the full report NOTABLE TRANSACTIONS MERGERS & ACQUISITIONS🤝 [RUMOR] Israel-based marketing analytics platform AppsFlyer has entered advanced negotiations to be acquired by an undisclosed private equity firm for $4.5B. The proceeds are expected to support strategic growth initiatives and enhance platform capabilities. AppsFlyer […]

Gamigion August 20

Journal

New feature in Meta Ads!

🚨New feature in Meta Ads🚨 After rolling out the Value Rules, Meta has now introduced a new ad enhancement called "RELATED MEDIA" that basically adds media pieces from other active assets to the ad item that you pick.This is very similar to the "Flexible" ad format where you can put different creatives within one single ad item but it's not exactly the same as this appears as an ad enhancement so you are actually not changing the formatAlso, this does NOT appear within the Ad vantage+ creative enhancements popup that you always have to close when uploading a new creative.Let's see if this really makes an impact because it really suggests to mix videos and static banners in different formats.

David Vargas August 20

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