Top VC Deals for Game Content in Q1 2025 • Just 2 of 10 were in North America 😬• Top 3 deals were mobile-focused. 𝟮 𝗼𝗳 𝟯 𝗶𝗻 𝗧𝘂𝗿𝗸𝗲𝘆 🇹🇷• Grand Games (Magic Sort) 🇹🇷• Good Job Games (Match Villains) 🇹🇷• Pixion (Fableborne, action-rpg / base builder) 🇬🇧From Konvoy Q1 Report
The Reality of Video Game Investments Even now, pre-seed and seed rounds are competitive for investors: everyone wants to be the one who discovered the talent and had the highest ROI. Fund investors expect VCs to do exactly that. This leads to situations where most VCs want to participate in the first round but are reluctant to join following rounds if they weren't in early. After all, what’s the point for LPs to back them otherwise? This is especially true for gaming VCs, where LPs expect not just financial returns from their VCs but also co-investment opportunities and market insights, so the funds with the best access to original deal flow win. This creates a vacuum at the Series A and later stages, which can be a brutal wake-up call for founders who previously enjoyed FOMO-driven fundraising because of their […]
One of Turkey’s rising stars in the gaming world, HOGO Games, just announced a new investment round led by Red Axe Games and a group of angel investors, all at a $5 million valuation. Founded in December 2022 at the Bilişim Vadisi Gebze Campus, HOGO is a lean team of 11 developers creating both mobile and PC games. Their mobile titles are already live on Google Play and the App Store, and they’ve also released two PC games to date. Their debut title, Rock Star Life Simulator, made headlines as the first AI-driven game approved by Steam. Both PC games performed exceptionally well, ranking in the top 5% globally on Steam in terms of sales and revenue. Currently, HOGO is working on two new PC titles as they continue to scale. Speaking about the investment, Ahmet Çetinli, Founder and CEO […]
Old Genre, New Momentum Solitaire isn’t a new genre — in fact, it’s one of the oldest and most familiar in mobile gaming. But recently, the genre seems to be gaining new momentum. It’s not often that 2 major studios release Solitaire games almost back-to-back, but that’s exactly what happened with Candy Crush Solitaire and Disney Solitaire. Both come from strong brands. Both use the familiar Tri-Peaks formula. But once you dive in, the experiences feel very different. In this article, I’ll break down the Core Gameplay, standout Features, Live Ops, Monetization, and the subtle tricks that make each game tick. And yes - I’ve played and paid them both ... a lot ;) Let’s deconstruct. Core Game Loop Both Solitaire titles are built around the classic Tri-Peaks Core Mechanic — a proven formula that’s been successful for years. Naturally, […]
Warning ☢️ Heavy Game Design post ahead. How about we talk about a game genre that essentially self balances itself? 😱 Rogue-lite mechanics are one of the few systems in game design that self-balance itself. Of course its not completely hands off, you still need to make sure that you are creating difficulty spikes, flow curve, etc. But it is much more forgiving than other genres, especially compared to its hard brother Roguelike. There, you loose everything ☠️ and the main focus is rewarding player skill above all. If you learned and know the game, it doesn't matter if you always start from scratch. But Rogue-lites rewards you for every run that you do, giving you resources even if you fail, which makes that time meaningful, instead of zero progression you would get during a fail state in Roguelike 😭.This […]
The Great Genre Shift: from Hyper to Hybrid Last year was all about embracing Hybridcasual and adding depth to Hypercasual. Both large publishers and small studios took the simple, catchy cores of Hypercasual games and layered them with Casual features, adding boosters, meta systems, and more refined monetization. We covered this shift in detail in our Casual Games Report 2024! This wave of change also led us to adjust our own approach. As developers enhanced their UA with LiveOps and monetization upgrades, we realized it was time to level up our reporting, too, which is why our quarterly Hypercasual Games reports are going Hybridcasual! IAP growth of the Hypercasual market If you’re familiar with our navigation system (and if not, just have a quick look here), you might be wondering how we analyzed the Hybridcasual segment if there’s no dedicated tag for […]
Some puzzle genres are nearly impossible to break into. The top 5 games often take over 90% of the entire market.Here’s the full list of the most monopolized puzzle genres in 2025, ranked by how much of the market is controlled by just 5 games:𝟭. 𝗣𝗵𝘆𝘀𝗶𝗰𝘀 𝗣𝘂𝘇𝘇𝗹𝗲 – 𝟵𝟱% • $77M IAP revenue (2024) • Angry Birds still rules the roost. • Top games: https://lnkd.in/e7KJPFUR𝟮. 𝗖𝗵𝗮𝗶𝗻 𝗣𝘂𝘇𝘇𝗹𝗲 – 𝟵𝟯% • $152M in IAP • LINE: Disney Tsum Tsum leads the pack. • Top games: https://lnkd.in/edZNn3fY𝟯. 𝗠𝗮𝘁𝗰𝗵-𝟮 – 𝟵𝟮% • $539M in IAP • Toon Blast, Toy Blast, Angry Birds Dream Blast dominate. • Top games: https://lnkd.in/eQ9VeDfV𝟰. 𝗠𝗮𝘁𝗰𝗵 𝟯𝗗 – 𝟴𝟱% • $440M in IAP • Triple Match 3D and Happy Match Cafe™ hold their ground. • Top games: https://lnkd.in/eBv4fJaK𝟱. 𝗠𝗮𝘁𝗰𝗵-𝟯 𝗧𝗶𝗹𝗲 – 𝟴𝟮% • $138M in IAP • Tile Busters […]
Let’s be honest: Midcore games didn’t just define the genre. They defined the art of misleading ads. Remember this? A hero climbing a deadly tower… (not in the game) Epic boss fights with 5-button combos… (not in the game) A full-on dungeon crawler? Nope. Just a turn-based RPG under the hood. And the wild part? It worked. For years. Because showing the actual game was either: 1. Too complex 2. Too boring 3. Or just too mid So they did what marketers do best: They sold the fantasy. Not the product. --- 🧠 The “Promise” Era The golden era of fake ads wasn’t about fraud. It was about emotion-first targeting. UA teams optimized for: curiosity frustration problem-solving instinct Not clarity. It was smart — until it broke. Now, everyone’s seen the traps. Everyone’s watched tower puzzles turn into turn-based […]
Top 10 Hybridcasual Games in Q1 2025: The Great Puzzle Takeover 🧩 With the trend of Hypercasual games enhancing their UA and monetization, we knew it was time—our quarterly reports had to go Hybridcasual too! 🏁So, here we go!In this article, we’ll cover:📈 The dynamics of the Hybridcasual games market: +67% YoY in net IAP revenue 🔎 Key Hybridcasual market trends: meta and boosters from Match-3 and Social Casino 👑 Leading titles and how they innovate: analysing the success of Сolor Block Jam, All in Hole, Mob Control, and Screwdom The full report here.Let us know in the comments what you think about this format 💛
🎉 Just hit my 1-year anniversary in MONOPOLY GO — and they surprised me with 500 dice! This kind of loyalty reward is simple but so effective. A personalized moment, clean design, and a strong gift that reminds players why they keep coming back. 🙌
For those looking to understand the mobile market, A treasure trove of data in Udonis' 2025 blog post...Some highlights:• There are over 700,000 mobile games on iOS/GP• Users spend 3.5 hr/d on mobile devices, 11% on games• Roblox was most downloaded mobile game in 2024.• Azur Games was the most downloaded publisher, by a long shot (1.4B DL)• Monopoly GO was the highest-earning game • Tencent was the top-earning Publisher• US aOS Banner Ad eCPM are 2x iOS' ($0.60 vs. $0.27)
Chess.com's Chess app scaled to $200K a day Its record revenue after unbelievable 16 years in the mobile stores. How is this possible? 😱 This is an all you can eat buffet for everything Chess. The feature set is super robust from around 10 different modification of main chess gameplay such as blitz, ranked, limited time from 3 minutes to 14 days a move ⏲️ to single player content of puzzles to solve in level based fashion and of course a chess coach with fully fledge coaching lessons. The best part about this app is that it takes great focus on analysis of your previous matches, training you and giving you real advice. In the end you will really be better at chess, not just play a game. The most unbelievable part is that there is NO UA. Yes, you […]
Please login or subscribe to continue.
No account? Register | Lost password
✖Are you sure you want to cancel your subscription? You will lose your Premium access and stored playlists.
✖
