Every Wednesday we break down the latest data, research and financial results into digestible chunks.
Read on for the numbers you need to know about without the fluff.
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FirstPoint reveals €50m fund for AI start-ups
Firstpoint VC has launched a €50m fund for AI-driven gaming and entertainment startups, led by general partners Burak Yılmaz and Mike Fischer.
As reported by gamesindustry.biz, Yılmaz is the former CEO of Türkiye’s WePlay Ventures, and Fischer has held senior roles at Square Enix, Epic Games, Amazon, Bandai Namco, Sega and Microsoft.
The firm is targeting emerging markets and its advisory board also includes former Xbox general manager Jen MacLean, Take-Two’s former AI lead Luke Dicken and Riot Games veteran Bora Bora Kocyigit.
Aldora reveals its ‘franchise leaderboard’ for April
Data firm Aldora says Counter-Strike, Apex Legends, Pokémon, Call of Duty and Rainbow Six were the media franchises showing the biggest month-on-month revenue growth in its April leaderboard.
Honkai: Star Rail was the top ‘mobile-first’ franchise, though of course Pokémon, Call of Duty, Rainbow Six and Dragon Ball each have major mobile games on the market which will have contributed to their revenue rises.
Reforged Studios lands $30m investment
Reforged Studios has secured a $30m growth investment from MEP Capital Management. It says it will use the funds to accelerate plans to build a leading platform for video game IP and publishing.
News of the investment follows Reforged’s recent acquisition of Headup, the German publisher behind titles including Bridge Constructor, Pumpkin Jack and Super Meat Boy 3D.
Reforged was founded in 2023 and has operations in the UK and Malta. It also previously acquired Fights in Tight Spaces maker Ground Shatter, Broken Sword co-dev Extra Mile Studios and Metavoidal maker Yellow Lab.
Tasty Travels hits $21m in monthly revenue
Century Games’ Tasty Travels: Merge Game earned $21m in March to become the second highest-grossing title in the merge 2 market. Appmagic reports it’s the first time since June 2024 that there’s been a change in top three merge 2 games.
Tasty Travels generated 10% of total merge 2 revenue in March, with Gossip Harbor accounting for 48%, Travel Town for 9%, and Seaside Escape for 7%. Monthly Tasty Travels revenue has risen 71% since December, compared to a 17% increase for Gossip Harbor.
Since its release in April 2024, Tasty Travels has earned $124m and racked up 31m downloads, giving it a revenue per download of $4.03. It has also reached $207m in user spending.
Appmagic says the top five merge 2 with complex meta games by lifetime revenue are Gossip Harbor ($1.2bn), Travel Town ($593m), Merge Mansion ($503m), Seaside Escape ($372m) and Merge Cooking ($141m).
AI marketing platform Uplane closes $4.5m seed round
AI marketing automation platform Uplane has raised $4.5m in a seed funding round led by Play Ventures, with participation from Y Combinator, 20VC, Multimodal Ventures, and Rebel Fund.
The San Francisco-based startup says its platform automates ad creation, testing and budget allocation, resulting in an average 30% increase in return on ad spend after three months.
Tiles Survive hits 20m downloads
Tiles Survive has surpassed 20m downloads since it launched in July 2025, according to FunPlus. Blending accessible tile-based exploration with deeper strategic gameplay, it sees players questing to construct a stronghold against a zombie horde.
Animal Suika maker Smash Games secures $2m
Israeli startup Smash Games has secured $2m in user acquisition funding from PvX Partners. It will use the non-dilutive financing to scale its debut title, the drop merge game Animal Suika, which it claims has seen “explosive growth” since its release.
The studio was co-founded by former Moon Active product manager Ben Eshel, who serves as its CEO, and ex-Papaya director of engineering Nimrod Harel, who is CTO. The pair previously worked together at Bingo Drive maker Gliding Deer, where Eshel was a game owner and Harel was VP of R&D.
Smash says it aims to “leverage AI-native innovation to create and scale the next generation” of hybridcasual games.
War Robots tops 325m downloads
As War Robots celebrates its 12th anniversary, My.Games says the tactical PvP shooter has surpassed 325m registered users worldwide. That figure is up by around 20m year-on-year, or roughly 1.7m users per month.
Developed by in-house studio Pixonic, War Robots crossed $1bn in lifetime revenue across mobile and PC in February 2025. At the time, My.Games said the lion’s share of its earnings were split across Android ($455m) and iOS ($442m), and that the title had been installed 300m times.
UK mobile game sales up 7.9% in 2025 to $2.7bn
UK mobile game sales increased 7.9% YoY to reach £2.067bn (≈$2.795bn) in 2025. That’s according to data published by industry trade body Ukie as part of its annual UK games market consumer valuation report.
Mobile accounted for approximately one third of total game software sales, which increased 7% YoY to hit $6.03bn (≈$8.15bn).
“Spend on mobile continues its growth trajectory in 2025, with monetisation rising across all business models and major app stores despite a year on year decline in downloads,” Ukie said.
The wider games market, which also includes hardware sales and game culture (which tracks spending on film, TV, merchandise, and more) saw annual sales rise 7.4% YoY to reach a record high of £8.76bn (≈$11.84bn) in 2025.
Survey finds flexibility, cost are primary drivers of outsourcing
The latest annual report from the External Development Summit explores the primary drivers of outsourcing, with spending on external development in 2026 expected to remain broadly consistent with the past several years.
Its survey was based on over 250 submissions from industry professionals worldwide. Over 60% of developer/publisher respondents identified flexibility skillset ramp-up/ramp down as a primary driver for working with external partners.
Other major reasons identified for outsourcing by buyers included cost savings (≈50%), augmenting primary teams (45.8%) and a lack of internal resources (39.6%).
Almost 70% of outsourcing service providers predicted cost reduction pressures will be the top driver of outsourcing demand in 2026, ahead of team flexibility and scalability (over 50%), AI and emerging technology (over 40%), and competition for specialised/niche skills (40%).
