Aristocrat

Rovio: Live Ops Shifted Mobile Games to Event-First

At Pocket Gamer Connects Barcelona, Anastasiya Kara, lead product manager at Rovio, argued that live operations (live ops) have transformed mobile games from a core-first model to an event-first model, driven by time-limited events, offers, content updates and retention strategies. She traced modern live ops features back to social casino titles like Slotomania and cited Clash of Clans, Coin Master and Royal Match as examples of escalation in social, gating and monetisation mechanics. Kara highlighted a new wave where hypercasual cores are adopting full live ops — Color Block Jam is the cited example — and predicted further cross-genre feature adoption (mini-games, merge mechanics, pets) and continued copycatting across studios.

Hasbro Earns $44M from Monopoly Go; Games Revenue Up 17%

Hasbro reported that Scopely’s mobile game Monopoly Go generated $44 million in Q2 2026 and $86 million year-to-date, contributing to a 17% year-on-year increase in Hasbro’s digital and licensed gaming revenue to $135.5 million. For H1 2026 the digital and licensed gaming division rose 10% to $256.8 million, while tabletop gaming grew faster (32% to $989 million). The Wizards and digital gaming segment grew 27% in Q2 to $663.8 million, driven largely by Magic: The Gathering’s 32% growth to $545.3 million. Hasbro flagged more than 200 active or in-development projects with partners including Scopely, Aristocrat, Tripledot, Marmalade, Gameberry Labs, Ubisoft and Gameloft.

Growth Gurus From The Gaming World Are In High Demand At Brands

Talent mobility is shifting as Uber, Postmates, Yelp, SmartNews and other nongaming apps actively hire growth marketing talent from the mobile gaming world. Industry observers note gaming marketers' strong data discipline, ROI focus, and rigorous testing as valuable for brands seeking to optimize user acquisition across platforms. Key executives discussed include Yelp’s Eyal Grundstein leading consumer online marketing with responsibility for UA and performance marketing; AppLovin’s Neil Baquiran noting collaborations with UA game managers moving to brand roles; and SmartNews’ Fabien-Pierre Nicolas, who became head of US marketing in 2017 after roles at App Annie, Perfect World and DeNA. Postmates’ Patrick Witham is now directing UA, while Uber’s Nathan Dinh highlights the ROI-driven, ecosystem-aware approach of mobile marketers. The trend underscores a broader shift toward analytics-driven marketing talent in non-gaming apps, with ongoing cross-pollination between gaming and nongaming teams.