Deconstructor of Fun

Marathon’s player numbers are collapsing, Apex Legends is surging again, and rumors suggest Disney may be entering the extraction shooter genre. In this episode, we break down:● Why Marathon’s retention and onboarding may be fundamentally broken● Whether Bungie can still save Marathon● How Arc Raiders became the first mainstream extraction shooter hit● Why extraction shooters still struggle with a...

John Wright and Vincent join Josh Chandley for the monthly deep-dive into what's actually moving the needle in mobile user acquisition. Questions we answer in this episode:● Is Sensor Tower now a monopoly, and should you be worried about pricing?● Why did Google reinstate Freecash but Apple still won't?● Is there one person at Apple secretly controlling which apps live and die?● Is Misplay...

Supercell enters the toy business, Playtika fully embraces casual games, and Turkey’s puzzle game machine keeps printing hits and billion-dollar studios. In this episode of TWIG, Jen is joined by Adam, Phill, and LT to break down the biggest stories in mobile games, from Grand Games’ massive $70M raise to the deeper economics behind hybrid casual, DTC monetization, and why puzzle games are evolvin...

Why are gaming VCs shifting capital to consumer apps? In this episode, Henric Suuronen and Harri Manninen, founding partners of Play Ventures, one of gaming's top venture funds with $500 million under management and over 100 portfolio companies, break down how they evaluate founders, why they require a two-year vesting cliff, and what co-founder conflict really looks like from the investor sid...

Supercell absorbs Merge Mansion, Xbox fires its veterans and hires from Instacart, and the math behind gaming's VC collapse finally gets laid out in full. In this episode of TWIG, Mishka is joined by Josh Chandley, John Wright, and Ethan Levy to break down the biggest moves in games this week, from Finland's most beloved merge studio quietly running out of road to why gaming VC funding has...

Xbox doubles down on a DAU strategy with no real plan to get there. Ubisoft keeps cleaning house while its franchises collect dust. And the most doom-and-gloom post ever written about the games industry lands on LinkedIn, and it's hard to argue with. Topics Covered: ● Xbox's public memo: Rebranding back to Xbox, shifting to DAU as a north star ● UK games subsidies: £28.5 million, three fun...

Match-3 is harder than ever to win, clones are getting taken down, and Royal Kingdom is scaling toward the top of the puzzle market. In this episode of Puzzle Monthly, we break down the real state of puzzle games in 2026, from Turkish startup funding to Supercell’s latest attempt, Pixel Flow clone drama, and whether Royal Kingdom can actually challenge Candy Crush. Topics Covered:● Turkish puzzle...

Game Pass just got cheaper, China is rewriting the mobile market, and Ubisoft ships one of the most polished mobile games in years. Topics Covered: ● Xbox drops Game Pass Ultimate by 23% and pulls Call of Duty from day one, but none of it actually fixes what's broken ● Chinese, Hong Kong, and Singapore publishers now own 30% of Western mobile revenue, up from 16% in 2019 ● Pokémon Go surged 52% in...

Two kids. Zero filter. All the takes. Rocky and Mickey are back for Twig Jr., and they didn't hold back. From aging out of Roblox to explaining brain rot to calling out in-game money grabs, this is how Gen Alpha actually thinks about games. Topics Covered: ● Roblox's highs and lows and what's actually gone downhill ● Friend Slop and how it's replacing traditional multiplayer ● Brai...

The mobile gaming ecosystem is shifting fast this month. We break down the shocking deplatforming of Freecash, a $500M+ rewarded ad network, and what it signals for the future of user acquisition. Then we dive into Unity’s major strategic pivot: shutting down ironSource and going all-in on Vector. Is Vector actually working, or just great marketing? Topics Covered: ● Freecash ban: what happened an...

We sit down with Joakim Achren, serial entrepreneur, former GP at F4 Fund, and now AI-first founder, to talk about why he walked away from venture capital and what he's building next. Topics Covered:● The founder-turned-VC trap: why it sounds like a natural progression but has a flaw nobody warns you about ● Micro-fund economics: a $10M fund pays you less than a startup salary, and you spend h...

A lot happened this week in games. Kids are outsmarting Roblox's age verification, Xbox is cracking under its own pricing, and Pokémon is running laps around everyone else's marketing. Topics Covered: ● Roblox age tiers: Three new segments, parental controls, and why lawsuits from 8 states still aren't the biggest threat● AAA dominance debate: Is the top 20 really losing ground, or is Newzoo misle...

We sit down with Ben Porter, Director of Consulting at Newzoo, to go through their 80-page 2026 PC & Console report page by page. Topics Covered: ● Newzoo calls it an Inflection Point but we call it winner-takes-more on a flat engagement base● Roblox is the #1 most played franchise on PC & Console with 50%+ playtime growth YoY but is it even a game?● The Roblox generation actively avoids A...

This week, we go two-on-two for a lighter, looser TWIG, but there’s nothing light about the topics. We break down the biggest shifts across film, platforms, AI, and where attention is really going. Topics Covered:● Don’t ever put Mario in the corner; he crushed it at the Box Office● Aream and Investgame report ● Take Two takes an Axe to its AI team and lets them go in advance of GTA6● Monopoly Go...

What to do, what to do about Marathon? The crew considers radical shock therapy with surprising answers and solutions. Deadlock pushes systems design to its logical extreme in a few shooters that are just starting to play with, but does it actually have an audience? Take bets now. We discuss:● Deadlock’s systems-first design philosophy◦ Layered stat architecture across weapon, vitality, and spirit...

Roblox has over 150 million daily active users, a million concurrent hits, and some of the fastest game iteration cycles in the industry. So why do so many Roblox games still fail to become real businesses? We sit down with Nick Tornow, SVP of Engine and Creator Engineering at Roblox, and Zach Letter, CEO of WonderWorks, to unpack how discovery really works on the platform, why small teams are out...

The industry isn’t slowing down. This week, we break down the biggest shifts across games. Topics Covered: ●  Disney and Epic:  Why the speculation is picking up and what a bigger Disney move into games could look like ●  Unity’s latest shift:  A strong earnings beat, the shutdown of Ironsource, and the sale of Supersonic ●  Studio closures and shutdowns:  What the latest cuts across VR, live serv...

The games industry is hitting another inflection point, and the "old rules" of growth are being rewritten. This week, we’re unpacking: ● Google’s "Level Up" Program: Is it actually a win for devs, or just more platform gatekeeping? We look at Sidekick and the new UA economics. ● The Epic Pivot: Layoffs, the UEFN "platform" gamble, and what the future of Fortnite actua...

The mobile ecosystem is experiencing some massive shifts this month. We dive into the real implications of Unity Vector's new D28 campaign, break down what Google’s recent fee cut actually means for your studio's growth trajectory, and unpack the wild news of AppLovin stepping out of the ad-network shadows to build its very own social network. Topics Covered:● Unity Vector's D28 campai...

It's been 2030 days since Google pulled Fortnite, and the Epic vs. Google settlement is finally here. We sit down with AppCharge CMO Gil Tovly to read the fine print of Google’s new 15% fee, unpack the mandatory AI sidekicks in the "Level Up" program, and figure out if this is actually a win for developers going direct-to-consumer. Questions we answer in this episode: ● What is the r...

The Deconstructor of Fun crew is back from San Francisco, recovering from a whirlwind GDC week to break down the massive shifts hitting the industry. No prep, no scripts. Just the real conversation on whether the "lowest attendance since 2011" is a sign of a dying conference or just a more efficient executive retreat. Questions we answer in this episode:● What is the "one word"...

The full Deconstructor of Fun crew, all six of us, recorded live and on-site in San Francisco at the end of GDC week. No prep, no scripts. Just the real conversations from a week of side events, back channels, and late nights. Questions we answer in this episode: What's the one word that captures the mood of GDC 2025? Is GDC still relevant? What's the wildest rumor that we heard? Why is ev...

Extraction shooters are finally confronting their identity crisis. Is Marathon the answer, or just another branch of the same lineage? Phil, Sides, and Anjos break down a pivotal moment for shooters: Highguard’s collapse, Marathon’s high-stakes launch, and Overwatch’s unexpected resurgence. The debate rage on: are we watching the evolution of battle royale into something more persistent, or just a...

Sam Aune from Sensor Tower breaks down the State of Gaming 2026 - from Battlefield 6 proving premium is far from dead, to why free-to-play is getting harder to break into, and how social indie games are driving viral success. In this episode, we go deep on mobile’s slowdown, strategy games dominating revenue, and how Chinese publishers are out-executing the West across both midcore and casual. CHA...

We talk about how Pixel Flow scaled so quickly, why its core design works for monetization, and how games like Hexa Sort and Magic Sort helped push the sort puzzle genre forward. The discussion also covers UA, the wave of Pixel Flow-style clones appearing in the market, and whether hybrid-casual puzzle design is starting to influence traditional puzzle studios. We also touch on what kinds of mecha...