Long time, my friend! Christmas came and went, and the year started with a bang. Will this year be the year we actually have time to play games or just work really hard on them? Nobody knows, but if GTA 6 is coming out, get ready to take some time off.
The best-performing mobile game of the past year got there by making super creative strategies when it comes to UA, expanding the horizons in terms of the play styles they highlight in UA creatives.
JigSolitaire hit 30 million downloads in two months. The game is a jigsaw puzzle. The ads say it's Solitaire. Turns out nobody cares. The genre you sell doesn't have to match the genre you ship. Whatever converts gets copied.
The old playbook says spend more, test faster, optimize harder. The new playbook says lie smarter, ship leaner, let organic do the heavy lifting.
Asia figured this out first. Mini-games as R&D labs. 20-30% production cost cuts from AI. Off-store monetization dodging the app store tax. They're shipping titles in months while Western studios are still in pre-production.
This newsletter is about the tactics that actually worked. The ones that sound wrong until you see the numbers.
The Future of Work is Managing Minds
Anthropic just launched Cowork. You grant Claude access to a folder on your computer. It reads your files, makes a plan, and works through tasks autonomously. Reorganizing downloads. Creating expense spreadsheets from screenshots. Drafting reports from scattered notes. You queue multiple tasks. It works in parallel. Loops you in on progress.
The interaction feels "much less like a back-and-forth and much more like leaving messages for a coworker."
This is where knowledge work is heading. You manage AI minds. They execute.
Two things happen when this works:
- Efficiency explodes. Tasks that took hours take minutes. One person does what used to require five. The bottleneck shifts from execution to judgment.
- Outcomes get better than human-only work. The AI doesn't get tired. Doesn't forget edge cases. Explores more options than any human would have time to try.
This is exactly what we're building at Sett.
Creative production in UA has the same dynamic. Volume alone doesn't win. You can generate 1,000 creatives and still miss the winner. The breakthrough comes from intelligent exploration. Testing concepts systematically. Finding patterns humans would never spot in the data.
Sett isn't a creative factory. It's a system that explores smarter. Fast creation, yes. But the real value is in discovery. Finding the winners that move ROAS, not just filling the pipeline with content.
The future of creative UA looks a lot like the future of knowledge work: humans collaborating with AI minds that execute, explore, and surface insights faster than any team could alone.
We're already there.
The State of Game Marketing 2026
A really cool report by AppsFlyer (in partnership with Unity) about the state of game marketing.
You can read the full thing here (it's gated) but one thing caught my eye.
"In the last year 2,400โ2,600 creative variations per quarter produced by top gaming spenders, up 25โ30% YoY.
The paradox is clear: AI makes it easier to build and create, but exponentially harder to stand out. In 2025, the bottleneck shifted from production to attention. Content creation exploded, game development accelerated, and creative variations multiplied, but the audience did not grow at the same pace. More games now compete for the same pool of players, often across multiple platforms, and only exceptional marketing backed by strong data foundations can rise above the noise"
Super interesting read - get the full thing here.
Your Playables Are Black Boxes. Open Them.
Most UA teams treat playables like slot machines. Pull the lever, check the payout, and move on. What happens in between? Nobody really knows.
A playable is a gameplay session. Players tap, swipe, win, lose, retry, rage-quit. They show you their preferences, friction points, and decision patterns through every interaction. And almost nobody watches.
The measurement gap is massive. The industry knows playables work. 319% higher conversion than video. 47% longer attention. 30-40% better retention. The performance case is settled. But most teams measure playables like non-interactive ads: impressions, clicks, installs. Nothing else.
The problem: A concept can work while the specific playable has execution problems. Without data from inside the playable, you're guessing where. Is the tutorial confusing? Is difficulty too high? Is the CTA timing wrong? You won't know unless you measure it.
What you need: Game-specific analytics that map to your mechanics. AI that finds patterns at scale. Iteration loops that compound learning.
This is part of how we think about winning with UA creatives at Sett. Fast creation. Smart exploration. Analytics that reveal where playables break.
Read the full article: here
Podcast Season 2 in Barcelona + PGC London
The route: We're stopping in Barcelona to shoot season 2 of the Unpredictable Hits podcast, then heading to PGC London (Jan 19-20).
Barcelona first: Europe's third-largest games market. Game studios like Scopely, King, Rovio, Socialpoint, Tilting Point. We'll be recording conversations with super interesting names before the conference madness starts. Stay tuned to February when we publish the new season.
Then London: If you're at PGC, find us. Barbican Centre, 3,000 delegates, three events under one roof.
Industry Buzz
1. Clash Royale's Second Wind: The Creative Strategy Behind the "Organic" Surge
Michail Katkoff analyzed Clash Royale's remarkable 2025 resurgence. Downloads surged 600% over six months. Peak net revenue jumped from $9M to $33M. Weekly active users approached 120 million by year-end.
The real story: The installs looked organic. They weren't falling from the sky. Supercell shifted spend from social platforms and influencers to SDK networks (AppLovin, Unity, Mintegral) with a rich creative strategy. Cinematics. Playables. Gameplay-focused ads that actually showed the game.
Why it worked: Ten years of brand equity combined with intelligent creative execution. The shift from social/influencer to gameplay-first creative drove the surge in Browse and Search. Organic growth doesn't just happen. It's the result of deploying firepower with the right creative mix.
The lever: Playables and engaging creative formats. Not influencer campaigns. Not social ads. Gameplay.
Source: Deconstructor of Fun
2. The New UA Playbook: Exercising Creative Freedom About Your Genre
Felix Braberg breaks down how developers are grabbing downloads by combining genres in UA. Smart positioning, not innovation.
The case study: JigSolitaire by Gamincat launched in May 2025. 30 million downloads in under two months. 2.3 million DAU. $130-150K daily from interstitial ads.
The trick: Core gameplay is pure jigsaw puzzles. But marketing emphasizes both solitaire AND puzzle aesthetics. Braberg calls it "a puzzle game that lies about also being a Solitaire game."
Why it works: Broader creative targeting leveraging the two genres. Cheaper CPIs at scale. Royal Match does the same thing with puzzle-style creatives for match-3.
Source: Gamigion
3. Web2App Funnels: Lancaric's UA Prediction for 2026
Matej Lancaric's boldest 2026 prediction: Web-to-App funnels will gain traction in gaming despite skepticism. Adding extra steps sounds counterintuitive. But web funnels offer real data vs. Meta's probabilistic modeling.
The funnel structure:
- Web entry: "Play Before You Install" hook
- HTML5 playable: 5-7 minute game slice at 10x speed
- Mid-playable conversion: Power spike overlay around minute 3
- Web paywall: Monetization before app install
- MMP deep linking: Seamless app continuation
The advantage: "Every click, conversion, and session is real and traceable."
Super interesting stuff I have to say that goes well with the rise of the D2C revolution of recent years and its recent acceleration.
Source: Gamigion
4. Strategy Overtakes RPG as Top-Grossing Genre
Andrei Zubov's genre breakdown shows a major shift in 2025's revenue landscape. Strategy finished the year with 21% higher annual revenue than RPG.
The winners: Last War: Survival, Whiteout Survival, Pokรฉmon TCG Pocket, and Clash Royale's resurgence.
The losers: RPG revenue down 17% YoY. Anticipated launches failed to materialize. Honkai: Star Rail and Dungeon & Fighter saw diminishing peaks.
The sleeper: Puzzle grew 11% YoY. Hybrid-casual IAP mechanics are working.
Source: Gamigion
5. The Great Asian Pivot: Efficiency Over Volume
Jenifer Vu from T-Accelerate Capital makes the case for Asia as the efficiency-driven future of gaming investment.
The numbers: Asia-Pacific projected to generate $87.6B in gaming revenue by 2026. That's 46% of the global total. China's mini-program gaming hit $3.2B in H1 2025, growing 40% YoY.
The thesis: Mini-games as R&D engines. "Ship titles in months, not years" via frictionless distribution in super-apps. AI-native studios reporting 20-30% production cost reductions. Off-store monetization now accounts for 20%+ of mobile revenue for major Asian publishers.
To me, APAC is the future in many aspects. I think that mini-games could be a crucial part of how game product teams test game experience very fast, and the mini-program (shipping these mini-games as standalone products within super-apps in Asia) is something we don't have in the West. But we do have playables, which are a great sandbox to test new game product ideas.
Source: Gamigion
6. Cygames Launches AI Studio for Game Development
Cygames, the studio behind Umamusume: Pretty Derby and Granblue Fantasy, established Cygames AI Studio on January 9, 2026. A dedicated subsidiary focused on generative AI tools for creators.
What they're building: Proprietary AI models for game development. Generative AI services designed for "a unique creative cycle to expand on the creators' creativity."
The hiring: Actively recruiting engineers for language models and image generation. Full-time positions in Japan.
Why it matters: A major game studio is betting on AI-native creative tooling. Building in-house, not outsourcing to third-party vendors. The studios that figure out AI-powered creative workflows will have a serious edge.
An interesting take here is that Cygames are identifying it's not just about improving the team's efficiency, it's about expanding creativity - testing more ideas.
Source: Siliconera
7. Where's the Growth? Three Paths for 2026
Mariusz Gฤ siewski maps out three strategies driving mobile gaming expansion in 2026.
Path 1 - Innovation: New audiences for established genres. Fresh genres for existing audiences. New business models. Highest risk, highest reward.
Path 2 - Capital: VC shifted toward later-stage investments. Series A over Pre-Seed. Sustainable cash flow management beats growth-at-all-costs.
Path 3 - Optimization: "Consistent 5โ10% gains every month or quarter" through incremental improvements. More realistic than chasing exponential growth overnight.
Source: Gamigion
Quick Hits
Pocket Gamer Awards: Voting closed. Winners announced soon. Over 20 categories including Best Mobile Publisher, Best Mobile Developer, and Mobile Game of the Year.
PGC London 2026 (Jan 19-20): Three events, one ticket at the Barbican Centre. 3,000 delegates, 1,200+ companies, 290+ speakers, 30 conference tracks. Be there or be square.
New Games in January 2026: Thanks to our friend Omer from Gamigion - you have here a cool list of new games being launched - always a gread source of ideas for marketing, as well as unique genre combinations. Read on Gamigion.
Wrap Up
That's it for this edition. Clash Royale push on SDK networks lifts organics. JigSolitaire proving creative "freedom" work. Strategy dethroning RPG. Asia shipping faster than everyone else.
PGC London next week. We're going to meet, drink, chat, party, and freeze like the characters in Gossip Harbor's playables.
If you're heading to London, say hi. We'll be there. Not wearing any Sett t-shirts because even though they are gorgeous we are working too hard to have time to make a winter edition.
But you'll know us when you see us.
Until next time,
Jonathan Fishman, Sett
Head of Marketing, (and lover of facts that don't necessarily advance you in life but are cool to know like the fact gold is made only when neutron stars collide which is super rare and it's why it is so rare and expensive).
About the Author
Fishi is the Head of Marketing at Sett. His brain is a chaotic jukebox of ideas with more cultural references than any feed can handle. He collects sneakers and plays chess while youโre still counting sheep.
