Made a 121k$ business at 30 y.o and CEO @ RZAIN Consulting & Croissant games
In today’s hybrid-casual landscape, studios that take several years to develop a mobile game are falling behind for a few key reasons. Speed to market has become critical, and big studios can’t compete with agile teams that can produce and iterate quickly. Here’s why: 1/ Competitive Advantage Through Speed: Rapid development cycles allow smaller studios to capitalize on trends, design innovations, and adtech advancements while they’re hot. This ability to pivot and iterate quickly gives them a competitive edge in a fast-evolving market, whereas games stuck in multi-year production cycles risk becoming outdated by the time they launch. 2/ Admon DSPs Learning Phases: New releases benefit from the exploration phase, where ad networks experiment with placements, formats, and audiences at higher eCPM. 3/ Almost no admon historical learnings: Today’s ad formats are more interactive and gamified, enhancing engagement. Hybrid-casual games that integrate seamlessly into these ad networks achieve faster growth, as they’re designed for quick iterations and monetization testing. The more traditional approach of bigger studios limits their ability to keep pace with these ad innovations, often resulting in lower conversion rates and less effective ad spend and the reality is that being best in class in admon to have immediate cashflow and generate growth is now a must. An Admon test much more simple than a product test to launch (without any dev involved) can double your ARPDAU. 4/ Traffic Sources and Genre Blacklisting: Long development cycles mean that by the time a game is finally released, it may be blacklisted from valuable ad sources within the same genre, as networks prioritize fresher titles. This reduces the available reach and exposure, effectively squeezing out studios that can’t keep up with rapid deployment cycles. With ad network share-of-voice now a top media spend factor according to AppsFlyer performance index, UA teams need to leverage adnetwork channel fast and efficiently for those new games to capture the most valuable audience prior being blocked as competitors ad in my game can cause churn. 5/ Operational and Design Gaps in admon: Many traditional studios lack the design agility and operational knowledge needed to succeed in the hybrid-casual space. Hybrid games require continuous testing, ad optimization, and fast data-driven iteration—skills that studios accustomed to long development cycles often underutilize. For any mobile game studio, success now hinges on rapid time-to-market, flexibility, and a deep understanding of UA and ad network dynamics.
According to AppsFlyer's latest Performance Index: 😁 Apple Search Ads leads globally across all iOS categories, followed by AppLovin in second place. 😁Google Ads also ranks prominently, securing top positions in various categories. 😁 Notably, Moloco achieved third place in Match and Strategy games in Japan and Korea, as well as third in RPGs in North America.
CBDO @ Lovemobile, Mobile Growth Expert | Marketing | IT industry | Startups
1moSo true!