two & a half gamers

This puzzle game feels like work… but it’s making money In this episode of Two and a Half Gamers, we break down Brilliant Sort, a puzzle game by Belka Games that is scaling fast - despite gameplay that feels more like a chore than entertainment. With around 50K DAU and strong monetization, the game proves once again that in mobile gaming, player psychology beats gameplay innovation. We analyze: •...

Layoffs, closures, and major strategy shifts across gaming This week in Two and a Half Gamers Breaking News, we cover one of the toughest weeks for the gaming industry — with layoffs, shutdowns, and major strategic pivots across multiple companies. Here’s what happened: 🎮 Ubisoft launches The Division Resurgence on mobile 📉 Multiple studios shut down or reduce teams 💸 A $100M+ project gets canc...

Today, we break down Castle Clashers, a new game from Voodoo that’s generating $220K+ daily revenue and scaling aggressively with 100K downloads per day. But this is not your typical Voodoo game. It combines: • Artillery shooter gameplay (Worms-style) • Clash Royale-inspired gacha systems • Heavy-rewarded ad monetization • Aggressive UA scaling We dive into why this hybrid approach works, where it...

In this special episode, we sit down with Tactile Games and Loomit to break down how ad monetization actually works at scale - using Lily’s Garden as a real-world example. https://loomit.ai/ https://meetings.hubspot.com/iortizf/25gamers?uuid=c4c16368-14b8-4277-9ab2-ab55d5614c2d - to book a meeting From segmentation and A/B testing to dynamic floors, multiple ad units, and user-level optimization —...

In this episode of Two and a Half Gamers, we break down one of the strangest success stories in mobile gaming right now — Yarn Loop. Despite having a relatively small player base, the game is already generating millions in revenue, driven by strong Tier 1 users, efficient monetization, and heavy AppLovin scaling strategies. We explore how this “Pixel Flow-inspired” puzzle game evolved into a top p...

Subway Surfers City just hit 10 million downloads in 3 weeks — but is it actually a good business? We tear apart Sybo's long-awaited follow-up to one of the most downloaded games in history. We break down the gameplay, the surprisingly advanced (and stingy) economy, Felix's obsession with the ad placements, and why the UA setup is basically a ghost town despite having MiniClip's full w...

I automated my weekly UA reporting using AppsFlyer MCP and it took less than 15 minutes to set up. https://bit.ly/4lMS8jM Every week, I was doing the same painful thing: opening AppsFlyer for one client, then another, then another. 10 accounts, 10 dashboards, hours gone before the week even starts. Not anymore. In this episode, I walk you through the exact setup I use - live, on screen - so you ca...

In this episode of Two and a Half Gamers, we break down the insane launch strategy behind Last Asylum: Plague by 37 Entertainment - a game that mixes onboarding mini-games, massive AI-driven creative production, and aggressive scaling tactics that could define the next phase of the 4X market. From My Perfect Hotel-style onboarding loops to hundreds of AI-generated creatives flooding ad networks, t...

Mobile Gaming & AI Industry Breaking News. This week’s biggest stories reveal major shifts in platform power, investment flows and UA channel consolidation. In this Breaking News segment of Two and a Half Gamers, Felix explains: • How Apple is making nearly $1B from generative AI apps despite lacking a clear AI product strategy • Why new mobile gaming funding rounds signal renewed investor con...

Slay the Spire 2 just proved that game design still wins In this episode of Two and a Half Gamers, we break down one of the biggest indie launches in recent years. Slay the Spire 2 reportedly generated over $100M in revenue within two weeks of early access, driven by massive wishlist numbers, Twitch coverage and an already legendary community built over nearly a decade. The hosts discuss why the g...

Influencer marketing in mobile gaming is growing fast, but most campaigns still fail. Not because creators are bad or games are weak. The real problem is setup. In this episode of Two and a Half Gamers, Marion breaks down the real execution framework behind profitable influencer campaigns. From defining goals and calculating budgets to choosing the right creators and measuring organic uplift, this...

How Super Bear Adventure Became a Massive Ad Revenue Machine In this episode of Two and a Half Gamers, Matej, Jakub and Felix break down one of the most surprising mobile success stories right now. Super Bear Adventure looks like a nostalgic low-budget console platformer. But behind the simple visuals hides a huge scale business driven by ads, social features and organic traffic. The game reached...

This week’s biggest industry stories come straight from GDC announcements, platform changes and new market predictions. Here’s what we cover: 🎮 Google reveals more details about reduced Play Store fees 💸 Fortnite increases V-Bucks pricing ahead of the new season 🤖 Google Genie world models disappoint investors 📉 Gaming stocks react to AI hype cooling down 📊 Newzoo predicts PC will overtake co...

In this episode of Two and a Half Gamers, we run Steam Scanner to look at the latest PC games that are quietly exploding in revenue. Why does this matter for mobile? Because some of the biggest mobile hits originally came from PC trends first. Studios that watch Steam early often get a 12–24 month head start on mechanics that later dominate mobile charts. We break down several surprising titles, i...

Rewarded user acquisition and offer walls are suddenly becoming a major part of mobile game UA strategy. In this episode of Two and a Half Gamers, Matej and Felix talk with Max from MAF about how rewarded UA evolved from a questionable growth hack into a legitimate acquisition channel. Studios are now allocating 30–40% of their UA budgets to rewarded channels, and some games are scaling them even...

The Mobile Game That Makes Money… But nobody understands why. Well, we kinda do. In this episode of Two and a Half Gamers, we dive into one of the strangest successful mobile games they’ve seen recently: Cell Survivor. The game looks confusing, the onboarding is painful, and the design feels chaotic. Yet somehow it’s making serious money, especially in Asian markets. So the team breaks down what’s...

Three huge stories this week are reshaping the mobile and tech landscape. First, Epic and Google finally settled their long legal battle, meaning Fortnite is returning to Google Play. Even more importantly, Google is cutting store fees and allowing developers to use alternative payment providers. Second, the AI race just took a strange turn. Claude briefly overtook ChatGPT in US App Store download...

What if you built a puzzle game in the most crowded genre on earth… …and scaled it to 5M downloads per month? In this episode, we sit down with Vlad from Malpa Games and Ritzki from PVX Partners to unpack: Why Malpa focused on production before ideas 90%+ ad revenue strategy Why is ad tolerance in puzzles insanely high How Cardscapes grew 200% month over month Why AppLovin ROAS campaigns are the s...

D2C Trends 2026: Steering is still allowed in the US. No fees (for now). But that window is closing. In this episode, we sit down with Chip Thurston from FastSpring to break down: The current state of D2C in the US Japan’s 15–20% platform fees Brazil joining the party Apple’s 7-day attribution window Google’s 24-hour window Why this might actually increase D2C adoption How to treat web shops like...

This episode is special. We sit down with Akin Babayigit — early Facebook gaming, Audience Network launch team, King, co-founder of Tripledot, investor at Arcadia — to talk about what actually builds winning game studios. We go deep into: Why Pixelflow exploded Why Match Villains keeps growing Why China, Turkey & Vietnam are ahead Why copying doesn’t kill winners Why are ads misunderstood? Why...

Mobile revenue barely grew in 2025. Downloads fell on both app stores. Meanwhile 200,000+ new games launched across iOS and Google Play. The market is saturated and attention is fragmented. The only category that keeps expanding across downloads, revenue and time spent? Strategy. Especially 4X. Deep systems, high LTV, long retention curves. That’s where scale still exists. The lesson is simple. Yo...

In this episode, we break down War Inc: Rise, the new title from the studio behind Art of War: Legions - a game that previously generated over $150M. The gameplay? Solid. The systems? Efficient. The monetization? Confusing. The UA strategy? Questionable. We dive into: Why War Inc feels like Battle Legion + Lucky Defense combined How Fastone Games recycled their old IP smartly Why ad monetization i...

I also built a playable during the recording! Playables are no longer optional. If you're running on AppLovin, Unity, ironSource, or any SDK network and you don’t have playables, you’re leaving scale on the table. https://playablemaker.com/25gamers/ build your playables now! In this solo episode, I break down: • Why top games produce 60 playables per month • The real playable testing structure...

AI game creatives just made another massive leap. In this episode, we break down 127 new creatives across Dark War, Top Heroes, Township and more and the quality jump in just one month is honestly insane. We’re talking: • Full anime-quality world model sequences • AI influencers everywhere (grandmas, gamers, street interviews) • 50+ completely different “games” promoted under one title • Movie-lev...

This week’s episode centers around two major AI developments in gaming. Unity claims its upcoming AI beta will allow developers to prompt full casual games into existence. At the same time, Meta has begun embedding Manus AI into Ads Manager, signaling deeper automation inside UA workflows. The industry is clearly shifting — but whether this is real product evolution or investor-driven positioning...