The New Rules of the Soft Launch Game
The New Rules of the Soft Launch Game
Remember when you soft-launched a mobile game to test metrics before scaling? That playbook’s evolving—and fast. Everyone knows that most mobile games fail. But there seems to be one way that savvy developers are maximizing their success rate on mobile. They look at successful Steam Games, letting them act as their soft launch. Let me ask you: what do R.E.P.O Mobile, Dreamy Room, and I am Cat have in common? Each started as a Steam or Meta Quest hit, then leaped to mobile.
Dreamy Room by ABI Games was launched in February 2025. It has about 1.1 million DAU and earns about $80k/day in IAA and IAPs. Dreamy Room is one of the first titles in ABI’s portfolio, earning significant IAP revenue. A knowledgeable fan, Matheiu Halley, in the 2.5 gamers Slack group (join here), mentioned that the core gameplay was heavily inspired by Unpacking, a game developed by Witch Beam and available on Steam. Safe to say that ABI games could drastically reduce the risk of developing this title, as the core gameplay was already proven on Steam.
Do you remember 2024’s insane rise of Supermarket Manager Games on Steam? At one point, there were 27 supermarket manager games that all came out within a month of each other. There were so many supermarket games that they became their own subgenera, as mentioned by Gokan Uzmes. It took only a few months for the same core gameplay to arrive on mobile.
Currently, the Supermarket Manager game category on mobile is dominated by Game Districts’ My Supermarket Simulator 3D, which generates approximately 5.5 million downloads per month and around $400,000 in in-app purchases (IAPs), with an estimated additional $500,000 to $600,000 in ad revenue. Game District was able to execute My Supermarket Simulator 3D with a superior ad monetization strategy compared to anyone else on the market and capitalize on the massive wave of organic downloads. Again, another example of how a Steam trend influenced mobile development.
R.E.P.O. Mobile by Sandswept Studios is another example of a mobile game I covered in a recent newsletter, where the developer ported a Steam hit game from Steam to mobile. In this case, R.E.P.O. was inspired by Lethal Company by Zeekers on Steam. R.E.P.O. has so far amassed approximately 8 million downloads and generates $18,000 to $23,000 per day from ad revenue, which is quickly declining. While R.E.P.O.’s revenue is declining, its rapid early traction proves how even mid-tier Steam hits can gain serious momentum on mobile.
I Am Cat is the most successful game ever on the Meta Quest store, with over 60,000 positive reviews, developed by New Folder Games. After generating nearly $200 million in sales on Meta Quest, the developer was approached by mobile developer Estoty to bring the game to mobile. Currently, it’s Estoty’s highest-grossing game. At launch, I estimated I am Cat to be generating close to $175,000 in daily ad revenue, which has declined since then.
I’m sure the list of heavily inspired Steam and Meta Quest games debuting on mobile is longer, but the trend is clear. If you want to hack the system and create a breakout mobile game, tracking emerging PC and VR hits might be your best product roadmap.
💰Great Content 💰
After reading about it above, are you interested in learning more about Dreamy Room by ABI Games? Don’t worry—we dedicated an entire episode to covering it. Please check it out for the full UA, Admon, and Game Design Breakdown.
🎯The Cinderella of the Week🎯
Since I’ve covered Supercent quite a lot in this newsletter, I wanted to dedicate this week’s Cinderella of the week segment to highlight that Supercent is again out on maneuvers, and they’ve released a new game. Suzy’s Restaurant was released quietly in December 2024 and started scaling in March. So far, it’s been downloaded 3.2 million times and has about 300k Daily Active Users. The game looks to follow the standard gameplay in Outlets Rush and Pizza Ready. Right now, I estimate the ad revenue to be only around $10k/day as it’s very early days.
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