Deconstructor of Fun

After years of saying not yet, Sensor Tower finally estimated mobile ad revenue, and the number is $12 billion for 2025.Josh Chandley and Sensor Tower's lead gaming insights analyst Sam walk through how the estimates were built and why $12 billion is a conservative floor. We get into why puzzle pulls more than half of all gaming ad revenue, how AppLovin keeps eating share while smaller networks sh...

The crew breaks down Sensor Tower's big H1 2026 report, digs into why downloads keep falling while nobody seems to want new games, and asks whether ad revenue was ever going to save anyone. Plus a Warframe live service masterclass and the arrow craze that Kress would very much like everyone to stop talking about. Topics Covered:• Disney Solitaire cannibalizing Solitaire Grand Harvest • Where t...

Why is Toon Blast still growing while every other Blast game is fading away? In this episode of Puzzle Monthly, we break down Toon Blast's remarkable resurgence, from its early days challenging Toy Blast to its recent revenue explosion fueled by Super Light Ball, LiveOps innovation, and relentless experimentation. We explore why Peak Games continues to outperform the entire Blast genre, and wh...

Convoy says 85 million copies in 60 days. That means 63% of every console owner alive buys GTA 6, and the closest anyone has come without a bundle is half that. The crew digs into the Newzoo and Convoy numbers behind GTA 6 and finds projections that would require almost every active console owner on earth to buy it. Then Playtika, where a badly negotiated earn-out turned Superplay's success in...

Bungie built the defining live shooter of the decade, then spent ten years surviving its own crises. This one plays like the eulogy. The crew runs the full ups and downs of Bungie from Myth to Marathon, with an ex-Bungie insider walking through every near-death moment, why Destiny endured far longer than anyone predicted, why it finally fell off, and whether Sony and Marathon can pull the studio b...

InnoGames didn't reach for AI to chase a trend. They reached for it because the alternative was shutting down a game people love. Thomas Lehr walks through how InnoGames kept Sunrise Village alive after the business case stopped working, taking the team from 25 people down to 3 and stabilizing a title that was slipping. This is the rare AI adoption story told with actual numbers, actual workflows,...

Jen, Eric, and Phil break down a week where EA torched a premium launch, Sony declared the disc dead, and Riot reminded everyone that nostalgia is still the most reliable growth lever in games. Monetization is the throughline all the way down: who actually has a lever left to pull, and how badly you can blow it up when you pull it wrong. Topics Covered:• League of Legends Classic and the nostalgia...

AppsFlyer just took attribution off mobile and put it on the open web, and it might be the biggest unlock D2C web shops have seen yet. Josh Chandley talks with Adam Smart, Global Director of Product for Gaming at AppsFlyer, about the company's new web attribution product and its bigger bet on becoming a "Modern Marketing Cloud" spanning web, PlayStation, Xbox, and Oculus. Topics Covered:• AppsFlye...

Xbox just got torched, and the math says new games can't win. Jen and Eric (two for TWIG this week) break down the biggest restructuring in Xbox history: 4,800 jobs cut, Asha Sharma unwinding Phil Spencer's entire studio buying spree, and King and Minecraft pulled in to report directly to her. Is this the setup for an Activision Blizzard 2.0 spin-out? Then they dig into fresh Newzoo data o...

Zoe Bell is the Executive Producer of Games at The New York Times. If you've played Wordle, Connections, Spelling Bee, Strands, Letter Boxed, the Mini, or the Crossword, you've played something she helped build or bring to life. NYT has nearly 13 million subscribers, which includes the game business that features some ads but no in-app purchases and no battle pass. The players run from you...

Destiny is dead, Xbox is about to make the largest layoff in gaming history, and Google Play just completely changed how it charges developers. In this episode, we break down:• Why Sony's $3.6B Bungie acquisition was doomed from the start• What Destiny's gradual player decline actually looked like on the data• Where hundreds of laid-off Bungie developers go from here• Which five Xbox studi...

In this episode of Puzzle Monthly, we trace Good Job Games' path from two clean exits to a struggling Match 3 launch, and break down why the studio that built Zen Match and sold its hypercasual portfolio for billions in downloads can't get Match Villains to monetize like Royal Match. Topics Covered: • Good Job Games' history, from hypercasual hits to Zenmatch's $100-150M exit • Won...

GTA 6 finally has a price tag, Steam Machine lands with a $1,000+, and Tencent is quietly pulling out of Japan. In this episode, we break down: ● Why GTA 6's $80/$100 pricing is good news for the industry ● What the deluxe edition actually includes (and what it's missing) ● The attach rate debate for GTA 6 on PS5 and Xbox ● Why Tencent is exiting its Japanese gaming investments ● Who's...

Andrew Bowell, CEO of Iconic, who spent 15 years at Havok and a decade at Unity, discusses the future of game development, AI integration, and the challenges of building new game engines. He shares insights on technological shifts, AI's role in creating immersive worlds, and why his company is building an engine to “craft intelligent, living worlds”. https://iconicgames.io/ 02:10— The shift to...

Roblox's Chief Safety Officer and VP of Safety Products join the podcast to answer the question every parent is asking: Is it actually safe? What's covered:● Why Roblox's safety chief uninstalled the app for his own daughter● The new Roblox Kids and Select accounts launching in June● How facial age verification works at scale, and how parents keep breaking it● AI moderating 150 million...

Microsoft is laying the groundwork to spin Xbox off, Supercell just cut 70% of Metacore's staff after burning through $180M. Meanwhile, EA just launched a real ad platform for sports games. In this episode, we break down: ● Why Xbox keeps losing its top studio leadership ● Whether Microsoft is actually preparing to spin off Xbox ● What Sharma's first 100 days reveal about her real strategy...

Gossip Harbor is beating Candy Crush, Merge Mansion is going to Supercell, and the Merge genre is at an inflection point. In this episode of Puzzle Monthly, we break down the real state of Merge games in 2026, from the history of the genre to why Gossip Harbor succeeded where others failed, and what the next Merge hit might look like. Topics Covered: ● The history of Merge — from Tripletown to Mer...

Nintendo's stock is getting hammered without a new Mario, Monopoly GO is going all-in on The Simpsons, and Liftoff is back on the public markets. Meanwhile, Xbox finally seems to be doing what it should have done years ago. In this episode, we break down:● Liftoff's IPO and the AppLovin challenge● Monopoly GO's Simpsons mega-event● How Scopely uses IP for reactivation● Apple's crac...

Two mobile games with a $500M annual run rate in just two years, with a fivefold revenue increase in the last 12 months alone. If you're building in mobile gaming or just want to understand what a genuine rocket ship looks like from the inside, this one's worth your time. Grand Games' founder Batuhan Çelebi built one of the fastest-growing mobile game studios in history. In this episod...

Two thirds of Americans now play video games every week. That is more than 212 million people, the average player is 37, and among Boomers, more women play than men. These numbers come from the ESA's 2026 Essential Facts report, the kind of audience and demographic data most companies pay a lot of money for, free to anyone. Jen Donahoe sits down with Stanley Pierre-Louis, President and CEO of...

Call of Duty is getting back to basics, Sony is pulling the plug on PC ports, and Bungie is laying off staff after Destiny 2's final update. Meanwhile, Summer Game Fest is here, and everyone has something to announce. In this episode, we break down: ●  Call of Duty Modern Warfare 4, kill blocks, DMZ is back, no last-gen SKUs ●  Why dropping PS4 and Xbox One could hurt units but help revenue ● ...

Most studios still treat influencer marketing as an experiment. Match Masters, a top 150 grossing game globally, has run it as a permanent growth pillar for 8 years. Jen Donahoe sits down with Candivore's Aviv Vidro and consultant Marion Balinoff to break down the playbook behind one of mobile gaming's most disciplined influencer programs. Studios that treat influencer as a permanent pillar see co...

Griffin just handed $100M to indie developers, Lilith is back with a pachinko creature collector that's turning heads, and Toon Blast hired Gus Fring for reasons that actually make sense. In this episode, we break down: ● Griffin Gaming Partners' $100M indie fund and why project financing beats VC math for games ● Why the tourists are gon,e and the OG gaming VCs are back ● Embracer's e...

The gaming industry has seen 24,000+ layoffs in 2024–2025 alone, and a wave of new consultants has followed. But how many of them actually chose this path? Michail Katkoff sits down with John Wright to unpack the raw, honest reality of gaming consulting: the anxiety, the income rollercoaster, the identity crisis, and the strategies that actually work. In this episode, we break down: ● Why 70% of g...

Turkey's game industry is overheating, Xbox just hired a chief strategy officer that has the panel in meltdown mode, and Roblox is betting big on a HD pivot that could blow up in their face. In this episode, we break down: ● Why Turkey is dominating the gaming landscape and what's fueling its growth ● The talent shortage threatening Turkey's gaming boom ● Why West Coast game developmen...