Game Refinery

OCTOBER 26, 2023

The ever-changing nature of the mobile market means that new monetization mechanics are constantly emerging and evolving. One of the most popular monetization mechanics is the subscription-based battle pass , which was introduced via Valve’s DOTA 2 in 2013 but popularized by the worldwide phenomenon, Fortnite.

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PreMortem.Games

FEBRUARY 2, 2024

In the past I worked with a team developing a mobile game, where I had my first experience with developing a commercial game. It was very different from the short games for exhibitions that I had previously developed. Promote your game from the early stages of development. Beware of mutant scope.

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Deconstructor of Fun

JANUARY 10, 2021

Mat Baker has been making mobile games for 15 years. Laura Taranto has 12 years experience in casual games and is a product advisor and puzzle game aficionado. 2020 was a very good year for mobile games. But the actual number is over 30% larger as the in-app-ad revenues in Casual games are very significant.

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Deconstructor of Fun

MAY 23, 2023

For a quick and general introduction of the game, it’s a player vs player only CCG game, which limits your cards to only 10 per deck, each game is less than 4 minutes, and it uses a very simple poker-like betting mechanic to keep things interesting. At a high level just know that you have 10 cards to a deck.

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Deconstructor of Fun

OCTOBER 10, 2021

Written by Ethan Levy , who is always looking for worthy, free-to-play mobile games for the N3TWORK Platform. Ask him about a free, $10,000 UA test for your game. If you’re interested in growing your business on mobile and beyond, look no further. In my heart, I am a game designer. This post is sponsored by Xsolla.

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Deconstructor of Fun

JUNE 3, 2020

This post is written by Nebojsa “Nebo” Radovic , who’s an experienced mobile marketing professional who currently heading the user acquisition for N3TWORK’s Scale Platform. Hoping that your game is going to become a cultural phenomenon is a super long shot and often requires access to a top IP that can be very expensive.

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Deconstructor of Fun

JANUARY 13, 2021

While Hypercasual games account for less than 1% of the total IAP revenue of all Casual games, it drove well over half of all downloads for the category during 2019. In fact, Hypercasual games alone made up for ~45% of 2019’s total download volume across all mobile games. Surplus of games. Fast to follow.

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Deconstructor of Fun

JANUARY 29, 2024

Events with different mechanics sometimes complement each other, but at other times they divert players' attention, resulting in reduced activity and monetization. We had a case with an event based on merge mechanics. They just liked the mechanics and continued playing until the event had ended. Try different combos, too.

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Deconstructor of Fun

NOVEMBER 25, 2019

AAA game franchises are in the middle of a renaissance on mobile. Several of the industry’s top IPs have received high-fidelity ports that have been successful in bringing core franchise players to the mobile format. It was only a matter of time before Call of Duty would find its feet on mobile. So is COD Mobile dead?

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Deconstructor of Fun

MARCH 27, 2019

Both of the authors are true fans of Command & Conquer franchise and both of the authors understand all to well how hard it is to ship a hit mobile game. No matter how you look at it, Command and Conquer Rivals is a good mobile game and the team behind it should be proud of the game they shipped.

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Deconstructor of Fun

FEBRUARY 12, 2024

Guest post by Kenneth Landen , Director of Product at Hit Factor Executive Summary In the ever-evolving landscape of mobile gaming, Supercell's Brawl Stars has undergone a remarkable resurgence, transforming challenges into triumphs. That’s because these new tiered purchase options include an old fan favorite, luck mechanics!

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Deconstructor of Fun

MARCH 14, 2023

Last week in Istanbul, Google and Deconstructor of Fun brought together a thousand-strong group of high-level mobile game execs to talk about the future of the business. His data and insights were based on US data as a proxy for the western market, and focused on platform privacy, or the “Apple global mobile game recession”.

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Deconstructor of Fun

JUNE 6, 2022

Passes can generate different player experiences, follow a different balance, and emphasize different components depending on the genre and audience. For most players (including payers) the Pass is primarily retention and an engagement mechanism. It will be interesting to see how it turns out in the long term.

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Game Daily

MARCH 10, 2023

How does the tower defense (TD) genre – generally associated with casual, mobile gaming – fit into the Web3 world? This extra layer of strategy balances the need to kill off stragglers, focus on impeding more skilled opponents, or exact revenge against irritating individuals. It’s like any deck-building game.

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Deconstructor of Fun

APRIL 25, 2022

Cookie Run is has some imporessive traction in the Western markets, which may potentially turn this game into a proper worldwide hit. The card-battling RPG genre was one of the first in mobile games that enjoyed success at scale and popularity around the world. What was Cookie Run: Kingdom ’s secret to success?

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Deconstructor of Fun

OCTOBER 27, 2020

And while those two titles dominate the top charts, Playrix road to the top started a long time ago with a non-assuming little game know as Township. The game was launched in 2011 as a freemium social game first as Google+ (!) The game evolves as players gain experience, level up. exclusive and then on Facebook canvas.

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Deconstructor of Fun

JANUARY 24, 2023

TWIG #216 Ubisoft Staff Threatens to Strike over 4-Day Work Week / Laying out the Bull case for Mobile ? How to Plan and Nurture Your Career in Games - with Sophie Vo and Mishka Katkoff (Rise & Play podcast) ✉️ Received this email from a friend? For a market game designer, revealing information should be an orchestrated event.

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Deconstructor of Fun

JANUARY 21, 2021

Strategy Games in 2020 Strategy games, which are composed out of 7 sub-genres, generated $5B in net revenue during 2020 growing IAP revenues by 21% while the downloads were up 9% year-over-year. This makes the genre second largest on mobile in (outside key Asian markets) after Puzzle games. Then Yu-Gi-Oh came along.

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Deconstructor of Fun

MAY 2, 2023

Most of the changes have been related to progression and side mechanics (new upgrade systems, clans…), with just one being clearly impactful on gameplay (Gizmos). Ultimately, it seems that the strategy has been around completing the game with side mechanics and not touching the core. But have the updates been ambitious enough?

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Deconstructor of Fun

APRIL 2, 2022

Gaming expert speakers talked about the hottest topics in the gaming industry from 2022 predictions to rising game categories, from blockchain & NFT gaming to launch strategies. Mobile games market predictions in 2022 Michail Katkoff, Savage Game Studios, and Deconstructor of Fun.

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Deconstructor of Fun

JANUARY 17, 2020

Here are the three things you need to know about ironSource: #1: They’re developing the most robust, data-driven growth engine for mobile games. #2: The State of Arcade Games While the Arcade genre only accounts for 7.5% In fact, Arcade games alone make up for ~45% of 2019’s total download volume across all mobile gaming genres.

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Deconstructor of Fun

SEPTEMBER 11, 2023

In the latest episode of the DoF Podcast, Mishka reconnects with Rina Onur Sirinoglu, CEO of Spyke Games, to talk about her exciting new mobile gaming venture, which recently secured a $55 million seed round. It's worth noting that Spyke Games places a strong emphasis on sustainability.

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Deconstructor of Fun

NOVEMBER 3, 2023

A 10-year gaming industry veteran, leading game development teams focused on free-to-play titles across mobile and PC. Worked on hit mobile titles such as Sims Freeplay, Need for Speed No Limits, Subway Surfers, and Sims Mobile. Written by Christopher Brousseau. The Arclight Booster pack, available for $19.99

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Deconstructor of Fun

MAY 4, 2020

Most mobile gaming companies bet on incremental innovation as their gateway to success. They make marginal improvements to an existing game, hoping to convince enough players to switch to their game. This game packs some of the best balanced, nerve- wracking, strategic gameplay on a mobile device.

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Deconstructor of Fun

JANUARY 17, 2022

If you’re interested in growing your business on mobile and beyond, look no further. Xsolla has dedicated tools that will help you create your own online commerce platform, improve your performance marketing and discoverability, and expand your game business on mobile and PC. This post is sponsored by Xsolla.

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Deconstructor of Fun

JUNE 3, 2019

There was also this no-name developer Supercell that launched their first mobile games just few miles away back in 2012. What makes this game so successful? After carefully composing a balanced team of fighters, the player takes their party of stalwart heroes into battle. An unprecedented success from a no-name developer.

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Puzzle Build Feature Balance 52

Deconstructor of Fun

NOVEMBER 2, 2023

A 10-year gaming industry veteran, leading game development teams focussed on free-to-play titles across mobile and PC. Worked on hit mobile titles such as Sims Freeplay, Need for Speed No Limits, Subway Surfers and Sims Mobile. Written by Christopher Brousseau. The Arclight Booster pack, available for $19.99

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Mobile Mobile Mobile Gaming Concepts 52

Game Refinery

OCTOBER 11, 2022

Although, in these types of games, whenever there is a new content update, there is also a revenue spike, which can be shown in the case of Tower of Fantasy. Tower of Fantasy: co-op PvE game mode Dimensional Trial. The post Tower of Fantasy – Is the Game Really a Genshin Impact With a Social Twist?

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Designer Notes

OCTOBER 14, 2021

Without them, a 4X game suddenly becomes an aimless simulation where the players set their own goals. Simulations can be great games, but they tend not to be a good format for turn-based games with transparent game mechanics. Thus, Paradox grand strategy games follow this model.)

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Deconstructor of Fun

NOVEMBER 7, 2019

Legends of Runeterra is Riot’s new card game. It is built for mobile but will first debut on PC. The closed beta will start in Q1 of next year, with the game fully launching sometime later in 2020. Still, it achieves Runeterra’s goals of reducing in-game variance and making sure that strong players always defeat weak players.

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Content Balance Build Mobile 52

Deconstructor of Fun

OCTOBER 17, 2022

In order to achieve that goal, the game had to overcome two major challenges: it had to be free-to-play and it had to appeal to the Chinese audience. Given the lack of copyright enforcement, all western games were pirated, making premium games a losing proposition.

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Deconstructor of Fun

FEBRUARY 17, 2020

Realistic sports with an IP has proven to be successful way to conquer and control market share in mobile sports. However, t he arcade category caters to a more casual userbase - more interested in gameplay than offering an opportunity to engage with franchises and sports/car brands on mobile. That genre also attracts more installs.

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Keith Burgun

JANUARY 27, 2023

I’m reminded a bit of those mobile games where the first 10 minutes is like this absolutely incredible looking and sounding thing, and then you’re sort of “dropped off” into the same old 2015 gacha clone looking thing. One last thing about the combat: it is very poorly balanced.

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Deconstructor of Fun

NOVEMBER 10, 2020

Travis Boatman : Travis has held senior leadership positions at a bunch of major gaming and mobile gaming companies including Mattel, JAMDAT, EA, and Zynga. a mobile and PC games studio located in Southern California. And they will soon launch their new mobile shooter called Catalyst's Black.

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Deconstructor of Fun

AUGUST 27, 2019

This post is sponsored by Lab Cave , a Mobile Growth Company that provides App Store Optimization and Mediation services for mobile Apps and Games. This deconstruct is written by Eva Grillova (Game Designer at Smirk Game Studios) and Abhimanyu Kumar (Mobile Games Consultant).

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Radiator Blog

JULY 6, 2021

Some people may be familiar with my past work : uncanny CG beefcake sex games that toy with hardcore gamer aesthetics, which only run on laptop / desktop computers. For the longest time, I've wanted to make a gay mobile game, but I was unsure how to get my queer politics past Apple and Google's anti-sexuality censors.

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Deconstructor of Fun

MARCH 22, 2021

Early this year the Turkish mobile startup Dream Games has raised $50 million in new funding ($57.5M total funding), despite having only soft-launched its first game, Royal Match. Dream Games was founded by two of Peak’s former Product Directors. Thus a full breakdown of the newly released game is warranted.

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