NetEase’s Secret Advantage: Games That Refuse to Die

NetEase loves to say that Games aren’t just something you play, But “entertainment shaped by culture and education.” Sounds big, sure… But coming from one of China’s biggest tech giants, it fits. On November 20, they dropped their Q3 2025 investor presentation. The Big Numbers First NetEase posted $4B in net revenue+ $1.2B in net income for Q3. Sitting on $21.5B in net cashwith a market cap of 84.5B dollars 🤑 MSCI even gives them an AA ESG rating, basically telling the world:“Yep, this is one of the healthiest balance sheets in gaming.” A Company That’s All-In on Games Here’s the real headline: Out of that $4B revenue, $3.27B comes straight from online games. Yes, NetEase runs other businesses like Youdao, Cloud Music & Yanxuan…Those are side quests :) The main storyline?Gaming. They don’t rely on one golden product. Their […]

Gamigion November 29

Analysis

Huuuge Games: Revenue Down, Profit Up. What?

Our Polish Gaming Giant, Huuuge just published its Q3 2025 financials. So grab a coffee, and let’s walk through what’s actually going on behind the numbers. Revenue Down, Margins Up. How??? Huuuge closed the Q3 with: $55.8M in revenue $21.6M in EBITDA Compared to Q3 2024, revenue is down 5%.But here’s the twist: EBITDA margin increased by 3.2%, reaching 38.7%. So the company is making less money, yet keeping more of it.Strange at first glance… until you see what changed this year. The Real Star: Huuuge Pay At the end of August, Huuuge enabled Huuuge Pay for iOS players in the US, and extended it to Android in November. Huuuge Pay is their own Direct-to-Consumer (DTC) payment system: no Apple commission no Google commission players pay directly Huuuge keeps a much bigger slice of every purchase So even though revenue […]

Gamigion November 29

Analysis

A Tale of Two Bros: What Happened to Royal Kingdom?

Following the success of Royal Match, Dream Games finally decided to create another game in the match-3 space: Royal Kingdom. When it was released, a lot of people, including me, were excited about the game. There were a lot of ads, some included famous celebrities, and the others had an animation with a high level of production value. Then, the numbers came, and we saw that Royal Kingdom might not be the next big thing in the match-3 world. People started to ask: “What happened?” More: What Makes Royal Match So Good: Level Design? Royal Kingdom promotional art No one can blame them for asking. It’s been four years since Royal Match first launched and people want more. We are searching for the next big thing in match-3, but we haven’t found it yet. Why is it that Royal Kingdom […]

Naufal Tanansyah November 21

Analysis

Candy Crush is Crushing it with Ad Revenue!

What has long frustrated me is having epic discussions with various Game Designers about how ads ruin a mobile game and don’t make sense. I always find myself talking about Candy Crush and how they are crushing it with both rewarded ads and Interstitials. According to Sensor Tower, Candy Crush has about 26 million Daily Active Users worldwide and 2.7 million users in the United States. According to my estimates, Candy Crush should generate between $580,000 and $610,000 per day in ad revenue, or just over $200 million per year. Candy Crush can achieve this by segmenting its users and only showing ads to players it is confident will never convert to in-app purchases. It is one of the cleanest examples in mobile where ads complement the economy rather than compete with it. So let’s take a look at Candy […]

Felix Braberg November 21

Analysis

What Makes Royal Match So Good: Level Design

Royal Match’s Banner The mobile casual game industry has always been keen on taking on the giant in the industry. The “King” for match-3 game was held by King Games itself, that is the original Candy Crush Saga. Alas, one day, the king has been dethroned by another match-3 game that is brave enough to join in on the red sea itself. Royal Match, a relatively new contender in the market, is killing it. In July 2023, Royal Match has surpassed Candy Crush Saga by gaining $112M in gross revenue, beating Candy Crush’s $104M gross revenue. Daily active users for Royal Match and Candy Crush Saga from April 2025–September 2025 from Sensor Tower The story is not even done yet. The new king continues to thrive, gaining over $80M per month, compared to Candy Crush’s $60M per month. This phenomenon […]

Naufal Tanansyah November 20

Analysis

1-Hour Analysis: Match Villains by Good Job Games

🟥 How to Survive a Hyper–Red Ocean: Match Villains, which made a familiar flavor even better. In a hellish Match-3 market, what innovation can we realistically expect? High-quality art, textbook obstacles, familiar meta, and LiveOps. In the end, aside from the concept, won't they all feel roughly the same? Looking at the latecomer Match Villains, I honestly didn't expect much. I assumed this was no longer a space where the word “innovation” really applies. But I learned something again. “The same ingredients don’t necessarily produce the same dish.” Good Job Games felt like an excellent chef. They showed that depending on how you process, cook, and decorate familiar ingredients, you can create a completely different dish. And one more interesting point, this course seems designed from the outset to steal the “competitor’s patrons.” 🎮 Game Overview Match Villains is a […]

Sungsu Kim November 19

Analysis

Inside Supersonic: Hyper to Hybrid, Join Clash to Unravel Master

Hello, world! Deep Dives keep rolling. 🤟🏻 Here again with my partner-in-CRIME, Yağız 🤟🏻 Next Station? SUPERSONIC. We hear a lot about the Hyper to Hybrid transition, a.k.a Hybridization. The shift is global, especially with Türkiye, Israel, Vietnam & China out there. Today? We’re diving into Unravel Master, a slick screw-puzzle hybrid by EO Games, published by Supersonic. Worth tracking! ⚡️ 🎁 Bonus: We Went All In. While digging into Unravel Master, we ended up capturing 500+ Screenshots! They were too good to keep to ourselves, so we’ll be sharing a selection soon. 👉 Download all the visuals here: Free & Open Supersonic - Let’s Remember Supersonic was born in 2020 right inside the ironSource ecosystem, bringing strong ad-optimization and publishing know-how into games. They made their name fast with Hypercasual hits like Join Clash & Bridge Race, and that […]

Gamigion November 13

Analysis

User Acquisition and Creatives in the Era of AI

In the Age of AI Content Chaos, Can Your Mobile Game Still Find Its Authentic Win? The mobile game marketing world is moving at the speed of high-frequency trading. With tools like AI enabling the production of hundreds of content variations overnight, we're drowning in a tidal wave of content. The algorithm is a hungry, greedy beast that demands scale and speed, meaning if you aren't producing faster, you're already behind... "There’s no shortcut to creative performance. AI can scale our output, but the creative core is still human. The real win comes from knowing your product, listening to your vision, and building step by step. Ignore the noise, back your unique voice, and empower a team that blends data with artistry." Full Shot First? UA & Creatives in the Era of AI Amit Carmi, Co-founder & CEO at Sett, […]

Gamigion November 10

Analysis

Hybridcasual Puzzles: The Next Big Battleground in 2026

If you are building puzzle games, you likely heard of “Hybridcasual Puzzle” way too often. The term gets tossed around, often pinned to whatever mechanic is trending. Let’s be precise. Hybridcasual Puzzles aren't a new mechanic. It’s a monetization choice. In fact, we talked about them in the beginning of the year when they were just starting to take off. Casual Puzzles, with their rich and long history, have already converged on a small set of mechanics, which is what happens in big, mature markets. The hybridcasual turn, on the other hand, came from rising UA (User Acquisition) costs and heavier competition, as teams looked for alternatives. By definition, a puzzle is usually hybridcasual when it mixes IAP (In-App Purchase) with IAA (In-App Ads). For instance, a sort puzzle with zero ads, à la Magic Sort, sits in the casual […]

Ahmetcan Demirel November 8

Analysis

Boost Ad Revenue During Black Friday!

There was a time. A simpler time. A time when eCPMs used to explode for the last two weeks in December. People called it “Q5” because you could earn almost a quarter’s worth of revenue in those two weeks. Those days are now gone, and Christmas is dead. Well, at least from an ad monetization perspective. With changing US consumer buying behavior, Q5 has shifted over the last three years to become the Black Friday Weekend. During those four magical days, brands, e-commerce companies, and gaming companies all ramp up their UA budgets. Average eCPMs jump anywhere between 15 and 55 percent. If you do not plan accordingly for this window, you are leaving money on the table. Today, I have eight tips to help you boost your Black Friday ad Revenue. To increase ad revenue, you can focus on […]

Felix Braberg November 7

Analysis

Inside Pine: Beyond the “Freezing Family” Merge Drama

So many killer Studios & Games out there... Every week, there’s something new to track, especially from Türkiye, Vietnam & China. And, we’re constantly detecting them with my partner-in-CRIME, Yağız 🤟🏻 Today? We’re diving into Viking Island! A bold new Merge-2 hit from Pine Games, one of Türkiye’s fastest-rising studios 🇹🇷 We’ve all seen hundreds of Merge-2s & Puzzles come & go. Right now, China’s running the show. Microfun alone has turned fast-following into an empire, outspending even Dream Games while still playing by the same formula... Then Viking Island dropped, not another “Mom’s Revenge” or “Cheating Drama” merge. 😅 It’s got weight, texture, and attitude, masculine energy, art-heavy world-building, and a sense of creative ambition the genre desperately needed. It still feels familiar enough to sit next to Merge Mansion or Gossip Harbor, but with its own tone, audience, […]

Gamigion November 4

Analysis

Top 10 Hybridcasual Games in Q3 2025

Hybridcasual keeps gaining traction in 2025, blending Hypercasual core loops with Сasual-inspired features and deeper monetization. Back in Q1 2025, our quarterly Top 10 reviews shifted from Hyper to Hybrid, evolving along with the market trends. As Hybridcasual hits continue to scale revenue steadily quarter after quarter, our goal remains the same: to understand exactly what pushes them forward. Data by AppMagic IAP growth of the Hypercasual market Before we dig deeper, let’s make one thing clear: Hybridcasual remains a broad and flexible term, stretching across the spectrum from lighter Casual games to more accessible Midcore titles. To keep our analysis focused on what is truly shaping the Hypercasual space these days, we stuck to the same proven method as before: filtering Hypercasual-tagged titles by top-grossing performance. This helps us spotlight all IAP-heavy games that clearly fall into the Hybridcasual […]

Andrei Zubov October 30

Analysis

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