Former Space Ape Exec Simon Hade launches NextBeat

The creators of Space Ape Games’ popular music rhythm game Beatstar have spun the title out into a dedicated music-gaming company called NEXTBEAT. The move follows Supercell‘s full acquisition of Space Ape Games in November 2024 – a deal which is expected to close in the spring. Beatstar was launched globally in 2021 after five years of development within Space Ape Games by a team that included Simon Hade as COO and co-founder of the studio, and Olly Barnes, who led music strategy and rights acquisition. Barnes is the co-founder of Voisey, a music-making app that Snapchat acquired for $70 million in 2020. Snapchat later offloaded Voisey in 2022 as part of Snap Inc.’s wide-scale restructuring. Beatstar is a free-to-play mobile game often compared to Guitar Hero. It features over 850 global music hits secured through music licensing deals with major labels, indie publishers, and dozens of rightsholders. In September 2022, MBW reported that Beatstar shared USD $16 million of its revenue with music labels and […]

Ömer Yakabagi January 16

Highlights

The Strategy Behind Aonic’s $70M Acquisition of Mega Fortuna

Turkish Ad Tech startup Mega Fortuna boasts 10 million MAUs for its mobile gaming discovery and loyalty platform. Aonic, a fast-growing video gaming and technology group, has completed a $10M minority investment in Mega Fortuna. The deal includes an option for Aonic to acquire the entire share capital of Mega Fortuna for a valuation of up to $70M. The WHY behind the investment Paul Bowen This acquisition is logical in the highly fragmented Play & Earn (P&E) ecosystem, which is experiencing unprecedented growth. With 27 companies listed in the Incentivized Advertising Database offering gift card reward services, consolidation is inevitable as larger players and their owners absorb smaller companies to expand their P&E portfolios. However, key questions remain, particularly around the total addressable market (TAM) for users interested in earning gift cards by playing games. I anticipate we'll see further consolidation […]

Ömer Yakabagi January 16

Journal

Mobile Ad Monetization #6

After a long hiatus the best Mobile Ad Monetization Newsletter in the world is back... and this time it will keep coming back.. Once a week! Promise. 🥇Block Blast! The Next Largest Mobile Game Publisher?🥇 Block Blast! is on the road to becoming the largest mobile publisher app in the world. On December 20th it looks like Block Blast! for the first time whizzed passed the second-largest mobile game publisher “8 Ball Pool” by Miniclip. Block Blast! is firing on all cylinders and has been downloaded 28.2 Million downloads in the last 30 days and has a DAU of 13 Million users compared to 8 Ball Pool’s 12 Million DAU. I estimate that Block Blast! is earning anywhere between $800k-1.1m a day in ad revenue. 🤯 The largest mobile game publisher remains “Subway Surfers” by Sybo (also owned by Miniclip) […]

Felix Braberg January 16

Journal

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. […]

Andrei Zubov January 16

Journal

Mobile Gaming 2022 to 2025

Mobile Gaming grew in 2024 by 5.3% YoY (Sensor Tower, worldwide data excluding China) 📲 . But downloads are lagging both on Android and iOS... are we seeing a shift towards smaller number of bigger games? At the same time concentration among top publishers is not necessarily growing🤔 ... Genres that had significant scale and high growth rates were Board, Casual, Strategy, Puzzle - they were growing both in 2024 (2024 vs 2023) and in 2023 (2023 vs 2022). All details how mobile gaming was behaving in 2024 you can find in my report 📕 📕 📕 - almost 60 pages with different data analyses, data points around mobile gaming (from various data sources).#mobilegaming #data #insights #gaming #market #mobilegaming2025

Mariusz Gąsiewski January 15

Journal

10 Game Genres to Avoid in 2025

10 Game Genres to Avoid in 2025 (backed by data)𝟭. 𝗣𝘂𝘇𝘇𝗹𝗲-𝗥𝗣𝗚 (https://lnkd.in/eXaSg-Fg) • New Games Released in 2024: 39 • Games Reached $1M IAP Revenue: 0 • Games Reached 1M Downloads: 0 • Success Rate (Revenue): 0% • Success Rate (Downloads): 0% • 𝗔𝗹𝘁𝗲𝗿𝗻𝗮𝘁𝗶𝘃𝗲: 𝗜𝗱𝗹𝗲 𝗥𝗣𝗚 (https://lnkd.in/eSU2EBSG)𝟮. 𝗠𝗮𝘁𝗰𝗵-𝟯 (https://lnkd.in/eCK7KeAx) • New Games Released in 2024: 284 • Games Reached $1M IAP Revenue: 2 • Games Reached 1M Downloads: 7 • Success Rate (Revenue): 0.7% • Success Rate (Downloads): 2.5% • 𝗔𝗹𝘁𝗲𝗿𝗻𝗮𝘁𝗶𝘃𝗲: 𝗠𝗮𝘁𝗰𝗵-𝟯 𝗧𝗶𝗹𝗲 (https://lnkd.in/eVdgx3fu)𝟯. 𝗖𝗮𝘀𝗶𝗻𝗼 𝗦𝗹𝗼𝘁𝘀 (https://lnkd.in/ebZmjNAm) • New Games Released in 2024: 1,143 • Games Reached $1M IAP Revenue: 0 • Games Reached 1M Downloads: 11 • Success Rate (Revenue): 0% • Success Rate (Downloads): 1% • 𝗔𝗹𝘁𝗲𝗿𝗻𝗮𝘁𝗶𝘃𝗲: 𝗔𝗿𝗰𝗮𝗱𝗲 𝗦𝗽𝗼𝗿𝘁𝘀 (https://lnkd.in/emagsy63)𝟰. 𝗥𝗲𝗮𝗹-𝗧𝗶𝗺𝗲 𝗦𝘁𝗿𝗮𝘁𝗲𝗴𝘆 (https://lnkd.in/etqA8wBD) • New Games Released in 2024: 344 • Games Reached $1M IAP Revenue: 11 • […]

Anton Slashcev January 15

Journal

My 2025 Product trends for Mobile Games Predictions

Here are my 2025 Product trends for Mobile Games predictions 😎 you can watch/listen to the whole episode on our channel 😁 or read the TLDR bellow 😅 🔷 Adapting proven Steam games into MobileLast year we saw great success of the Supermarket 🛒 simulator games adapted by Game District and many others and this trend will continue. Another example is the adaptation of the Backpack Hero mechanic. 50/50 there is gonna be a mobile version of Helldivers 2. F2P version of Balatro is a done deal for sure (The mobile premium version makes $100K a day 🤑). I guess 5 teams are on this already. Palword-like monster fighting and collection mechanics are already seen in China. It will be probably Q2 when they hit the western mobile market. 🔷 Casual Genres DisruptionBecause the traditional puzzle match 3 🧩 market […]

Jakub Remiar January 15

Journal

AI App Wars: Deep Dive in a Heated Race

AI is everywhere. On our laptops, on our phones. Artificial Intelligence has become a part of daily life. From removing the background of a photo to generating lyrics for a new song or making an email more friendly, there are endless use cases, and even more apps to choose from. But the AI app space is changing, and fast. With the category growing so quickly, we’re seeing both exciting opportunities and major challenges, like rising competition in regional markets. This article looks at ChatGPT’s revenue boom, the competition bringing challenges in specific regions, and the advertising strategies these apps are using to keep up. Insights shared in this article come from the Sensor Tower report “ChatGPT Maintains US Lead; Share Weakens in Emerging Markets”, with graphs and additional insights & analysis sourced from Mobile Action. The Rise of ChatGPT No […]

Julie Tonna January 15

Journal

HYBRIDCASUAL’S TIMELINE

HYBRIDCASUAL’S TIMELINE 2021/2022First hit Hybridcasual games released by leading Hypercasual publishers, such as “Squad Alpha” & “My Little Universe” (Estoty Riga LLC/SayGames) and “Mob Control” (Voodoo).2023“Hypercasual is dead” (PocketGamer.biz) - Hybrid blows up in the gaming media press. Big Hypercasual publishers run specific launch programs for Hybrids. Hypercasual structured studios are moving towards the Hybrid. Puzzle is hot. Rising new hit titles.2024Good development practices, with consolidated processes (from weeks to months), long-term retention as a KPI, and game design features, such as depth layers, collectibles (e.g. city builder), etc. Hybrid moves into other game genres (e.g. Shooters, Runners, and Simulators). New Hybrid studios.2025LiveOps leaps in quality.Big Hits (+$10MM IAP / month).Take a look at the images below and compare the LiveOps schedule for “Royal Match” and “Block Jam 3D”. I don't believe that the Voodoo puzzle aims to achieve the […]

Carlos Pereira January 15

Journal

Welcome Back with Style!

🌟 Welcome Back with Style! Loving this feature from DB Legends by Bandai Namco! Offering exclusive content for returning players is such a smart way to reignite engagement and show appreciation. It’s all about making players feel special and giving them a reason to dive back in.

Michael Kopelovich January 15

Journal

Game Development Renaissance

Extremely happy to have contributed to Metaplay’s most recent survey and e-book on the “Game Development Renaissance”. It’s really cool to see my name and Kwalee’s game assets in this book surrounded by so many interesting data points and expert opinions!If you’re in mobile gaming and thinking of doing live ops (which you categorically should) then make sure to download the report via the link today!

John Wright January 15

Journal

Brutally Honest #147

Hey, FAM! What’s up? 🥃 Drink talk So much stuff happened in the last few days. We started the year strong! A few days ago, we hosted our first Play Global event of the year in Seoul in collaboration with Airbridge, Moloco, and Sensor Tower. Over 150 attendees joined us for a half day with valuable insights and networking opportunities. Sign up to our Korean Channel now! two & a half gamers MERCH is live. Go and grab it here! Yes, that's it! 🦩 🦄 🕺 Have you signed up to Gamesforum already? SIGN UP WITH MY OWN PROMOCODE - Unicorn20. Register now! 🦩Tip of the week In 2025, UA is set to undergo a transformative shift with a pronounced emphasis on creative excellence. The convergence of storytelling and motion design will become pivotal in crafting compelling narratives that captivate […]

Matej Lancaric January 15

Journal

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