Gameloft vs SayGames

Gameloft Sunsetting Minion Rush After 13 Years

Gameloft is shutting down Minion Rush, its long-running mobile game based on the Minions franchise, after 13 years. The game will be removed from app stores and in-app purchases disabled on October 30, 2026, with servers shutting down on January 29, 2027. Players can continue playing offline after server closure, but no content updates will follow. A special farewell event will run in October, with potential price and reward adjustments. Gameloft cited the evolving mobile gaming landscape as the reason for the wind-down. The game has nearly 500 million downloads and generated over $45.7 million in in-app purchases, according to AppMagic estimates.

• Gameloft will remove Minion Rush from app stores and disable in-app purchases on October 30, 2026.
• Minion Rush servers will shut down on January 29, 2027.
• The game has been downloaded nearly 500 million times and generated over $45.7 million in IAP revenue.

Data Digest: Pokémon Go at $9bn, Gameloft Profits, GungHo Stake Sale

This weekly data digest presents key mobile gaming industry metrics. Pokémon Go surpassed $9 billion in lifetime revenue per Sensor Tower. Gameloft reported $153.5 million in H1 2026 revenue with an EBITA of $10.5 million. Sony Music Japan acquired a 23.29% stake in GungHo Online Entertainment for about $179 million. Burlingame Studios secured $12 million in non-dilutive user acquisition financing. Newzoo forecasts the global games market to reach $213.9 billion in 2026. Roblox creators contributed $752 million to the US economy. Niko Partners predicts Southeast Asia's games market to pass $7 billion by 2030.

• Pokémon Go generated over $9 billion in lifetime revenue and 800 million downloads per Sensor Tower.
• Gameloft reported $153.5 million revenue in H1 2026, up 10% year-on-year.
• Sony Music Japan acquires a 23.29% stake in GungHo Online Entertainment for ~$179 million.

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.

• Anastasiya Kara is lead product manager at Rovio and spoke about live ops at Pocket Gamer Connects Barcelona.
• Kara argued live ops shifted mobile games from a core-first to an event-first model centered on time-limited events, offers, content updates and retention tactics.
• She traced many modern features back to social casino titles such as Slotomania and cited Clash of Clans, Coin Master and Royal Match as influential examples.

What Makes a Publisher–Studio Partnership Last? Five Years of Building Tower War

New blog post published on October 6, 2026, discussing the five-year partnership between SayGames and Pavetra in building Tower War.

What Makes a Game Ready for an Entertainment IP?

In a guest post for PocketGamer.biz, SayGames COO Denis Vaikhanski discusses when a mobile game is ready for an entertainment IP collaboration, using the Tower War × Terminator 2: Judgment Day event as a case study. The collaboration was integrated into Tower War's existing progression systems rather than as a cosmetic layer, leading to over 2.5 million participating players, a 40% increase in in-app revenue, and up to 45% growth in daily downloads. Vaikhanski emphasizes that IPs should amplify already successful games, and that successful partnerships are built over years, as exemplified by the five-year evolution of Tower War and its developer Pavetra. The article highlights the publisher's role in creating opportunities and the developer's focus on game quality.

• More than 2.5 million players participated in the Tower War × Terminator 2 collaboration event.
• In-app revenue increased by approximately 40% during the collaboration.
• Daily downloads grew by as much as 45%.

SayGames uses analytics to tune hybrid puzzle difficulty

SayGames describes its data-driven approach to balancing level difficulty in hybrid puzzle games so that challenge, retention and monetisation coexist. Producer Pavel Korbut explains the studio’s test-and-learn process: release levels early, track metrics such as fail rate, churn, attempts, booster usage and rewarded ad views, form hypotheses, and run A/B experiments. The company stages new level chains to limited audiences and tests content packs before full rollout. SayGames reports steady in‑app purchase growth (May 2024: $3.53M; May 2025: $6.19M; May 2026: $8.49M per Sensor Tower) and highlights design techniques such as controlled “close win” tension and smoothing or shifting difficulty spikes to improve pacing and LTV.

• SayGames uses player data and continuous A/B testing to tune level difficulty in hybrid puzzle games.
• SayGames’ reported in-app purchase revenue was $3.53M (May 2024), $6.19M (May 2025), and $8.49M (May 2026), according to Sensor Tower.
• The studio tracks metrics including fail rate, churn, number of attempts, booster usage, level duration, and rewarded ad views to evaluate levels.