Deconstructor of Fun

TWIG has a special guest: Phillip Black! Phillip joins the usual mötley crew of Eric Kress, Eric Seufert, and Laura Taranto, to cover: Marvel Snap’s performance, roughly 3 months post-launch; Ubisoft CEO’s email to employees; Voodoo’s $3m privacy slip-up; Apex Legend’s Matchmaking as well as a few other smaller updates. REMINDER: The Deconstructor of Fun x Google Istanbul conference is coming up o...

If you've triggered a rewarded video ad anytime in the past few years, you have most likely seen a captivating, easy to understand advertisement for Lightheart Entertainment's hit game Mr. Autofire. With over $40m in lifetime revenue and still growing, Mr. Autofire is an understated and indisputable success story. In today's interview, Ethan sits down with Lightheart Co-Founder Miikka Ahonen about...

TWIG’s 2023 Predictions. This week, the fearsome trio Eric K, Eric S, and Laura go through their 2023 Predictions: Eric K makes a call on the mobile & console markets, blockchain, China, and AppLovin; Eric S on content, M&A’s, brand advertising, and a few “too hot for TV” surprises; Laura on Apple & VR, monetization and innovation in mechanics. Until next week. thanks to our sponsors:...

In a recent episode, Yevgeny Peres, the EVP of Product Strategy at Appsflyer, returned to the podcast to reveal and cure Ethan of his ignorance of many critical parts of the user acquisition side of game development. One of the big takeaways from this interview was the importance of a measurement framework that provides a unified, single source of truth for your marketing team.

Happy New Year! Erik, Eric, and Laura kick off 2023 by reviewing the TWIG 2022 Awards. The team discusses how last year fared with respect to web3 games and investors, talks about a host of acquisitions, gives thoughts on big moves from the biggest players, and, of course, debates about the best and most disappointing games launched. Until next week! thanks to our sponsors: www.xsolla.com > www...

With privacy becoming more important to mobile players and the prevalence of artificial intelligence (AI) in-app advertising inventories, the quality of your creatives has never been more critical to the success of your games. This was one of the key takeaways from our recent discussion with Sandro Gelashvili , Head of Creative Works at Google, and Rau Dosymbetov , Creative Producer at Nexters, on...

This is the last TWIG of 2022! Closing out the year, Seufert, Kress, and Laura discuss the 2022 Game Awards and what game launches to look forward to in 2023, Apple’s concessions on outside the app store payments, a brief FTC vs MSFT update, Playtika’s layoffs and Brawl Stars removing Loot Boxes. Have a great end of the year and we look forward to delivering all your game-related news in January.

James Marr has been a Technical Director at studios including DeNA, Zynga and N3TWORK Studios . His work includes Eliminate, which was not only the first 3D, competitive shooter on the App Store, but its first free-to-play game as well, as well as top-grossing hit Legendary: Game of Heroes . In this wide ranging discussion, he goes deep on the qualities which separate Good vs Great when it comes t...

Eric Kress , Ethan and Laura gather this week to tackle Nintendo’s mobile strategy, the importance of taxonomy and game classification (part 2 to “Hybridcasual”), an Apple update on pricing and NFTs and Rovio’s newest character to their long successful Angry Birds franchise. Eric also shares his short but sweet second career as a basketball coach. Until next week.

Eric sits down with Rachit Moti at Layer Licensing to discuss how to discover and manage licenses and how his technology works.

Sarah Fuchs 's background and success in game development is formidable to say the least. With a career spanning James Bond, The Godfather, Spore, We Rule, serving as the Head of Production for The Sims Mobile and the GM for Covet Fashion, Sarah's experience leading top-grossing mobile games is hard to match. Now, she has red-pilled on Web3 and teamed up with Amber Bezahler to bring fashion gamers...

Eric Seufert, Kress and Laura cover 2 major headlines this week: an update to Loot Box legislation down under and looking back at the effects of ATT on mobile gaming from Mobile Dev Memo. Smaller updates include the ATVI & MSFT deal, Boom Beach Frontlines’ sunset, a PocketGamer sponsored piece wanting to coin a new genre, Wildlife Studios layoffs and Supercell’s first hire in Austin. Until nex...

Guest host trio Javier Barnes, Philip Black, and Matej Lancaric discuss Marvel Snap's present and future. The crew dives into the launch, marketing strategy, gameplay, and systems of the hit title. They also discuss what we can expect from developer Second Dinner in the future. Shoutout to our sponsors: AppsFlyer, Data.ai, and Xsolla

Eric , Eric and Laura are joined by guest David Nelson , former head of the experimentation group at King, to discuss the last 10 years of Candy Crush Saga and the Blizzard and NetEase divorce. Seufert shares his experience at Slush last week in Helsinki and Kress blames the switch hardware for the lackluster performance of the otherwise interesting new Pokemon game, Scarlet and Violet. And lastly...

In Esports giant 100 Thieves, Nadeshot, John Robinson , Valkyrae and their army of competitors, streamers and content creators have built one of the most impressive lifestyle brands and marketing superpowers in all of gaming. Now, they've brought on industry legend Pete Hawley to run their brand new game studio. Just a few weeks into development and they've already released the initial footage and...

Eric and Laura cover their respective trips and dig into a few positive updates on Landmark’s funding and new game. The two rehash Nintendo’s partnership with DeNA, discuss releasing games in China, and rant on Newzoo’s mobile market update. Kress offers an update on Microsoft and Activision Blizzard acquisition.

It's big #20! In this latest episode of Tokenomics, Ethan sits down with Koh Kim , Head of Ecosystem at Sui maker MystenLabs . The company, formed by ex-Meta veterans, has raised a $300m treasure trove to build a new and better Layer1 blockchain purpose built for Web3 gaming. Koh tells us about her history in gaming, how she red-pilled on Web3 and why she joined up with Mysten, and how the Sui blo...

Ethan and Eric S are in the house to talk about all the dramatic news this week! We're talking about massive layoffs across the tech industry and gaming in particular, new mobile game studios from NetEase and Nintendo, Playtika's latest earnings report, the dramatic and sudden collapse of FTX and the ongoing creator royalty debate going on in the world of NFTs.

Kress’s Corner - I sat down with Jason Chapman at Konvoy to discuss how VC’s really work.. How they invest, why they invest and most importantly how much money they make… We also explore how VCs navigate the booms and busts in the business cycle

Laura, Seufert, and Kress discuss TikTok's standalone gaming channel and evaluate whether the Xbox pass is profitable. The team also discusses Modern Warfare II topping $800M in sales, Rovio's new Barcelona studio, and Netflix's acquisition of SpryFox. TWIG wouldn't be what it is without a public apology. In this episode, Eric Seufert walks back his statements on Marvel Snap after being bombarded...

Kress sits down with Robin Astrom at Wehype to discuss how influencer marketing can be an alternative/supplement to traditional marketing and how it can help products and brands find audiences in a hostile user acquisition market.  And how is it working with these Gen Z influencers…

This week, the team talks about Microsoft Xbox' plan on having their store on mobile, Snapchat's parent company's uphill battle after IDFA depreciation and the upcoming launch of Age of Empires Mobile. Your hosts Eric Kress , Laura Taranto and E ric Seufert also discuss the launch of Marvel Snap by Second Dinner and dive into the implications of Apple's SKAdNetwork 4.0.

Animoca Brands owned Sandbox is an undisputed pioneer and leader in the blockchain gaming space. That's why we are beyond excited to have Sandbox COO Sebastien Borget speaking with Ethan on the podcast this episode. Sebastien tells takes us through the history of Sandbox, which started as a mobile, free-to-play game, and explains how the Sandbox team saw the early potential in blockchain gaming li...

This week, the crew goes back to the metaverse to talk about the many stories coming out of Meta's Horizon Worlds. From lower than forecast engagement numbers to stability issues to low team morale to doctored footage of legs, it seems like Horizon just can't catch a break. Your hosts Eric Kress , Laura Taranto and Ethan Levy also discuss Take Two's shutdown of Playdots studio and why you should e...

Today we have a true legend of game production on the podcast! There are few in the game whose CV even comes close to Rod Fergusson , who currently serves as Senior Vice President and General Manager of the Diablo franchise. With credits including Gears of War, Unreal Tournament, Shadow Complex, Infinity Blade, Bulletstorm, BioShock Infinite, Microsoft Train Simulator and now Diablo, few producers...