Merge Mansion maker Metacore has added a new growth lead, Brent Blazek, as it continues developing several new projects, two of which are in soft launch already.
Metacore says Merge Mansion passed 55m downloads and over $500m in lifetime revenue last year. Blazek joins Metacore as Merge Mansion growth lead from Jam City, where he was general manager. He has also served as head of product and business performance manager at King’s Stockholm office.
Regular readers of our soft launch games updates will already be aware that Metacore recently released two new games in test markets on Google Play only. Grandma’s Solitaire Secrets is a Merge Mansion spin-off, and there’s also a new merge puzzler, Merge Plaza. Another merge game called Countess has also previously been in testing.
Metacore boss Mika Tammenkoski told us that these titles are the result of “pre-alpha testing”, and are examples of multiple new games it is developing to follow up its flagship game, Merge Mansion.
“At the moment we have new game projects ongoing in different phases, and we will continue to test, iterate, deprecate projects and start again,” he told us. “What the future holds for Grandma’s Solitaire Secrets and Merge Plaza, that’s unfortunately too early to tell. We are investing heavily in creating new, global hit games, and sharing learnings across teams. This also includes taking learnings from games in pre-alpha testing phases and our other projects, and applying them to the development work.”
When asked whether any of these games could go global this year, Tammenkoski couldn’t say either way. “Naturally game development is hard, and we are rigorously testing and iterating with different game projects in different phases, and time will tell which games will reach a global launch,” he said.
Metacore’s new game team is based in at its Helsinki HQ, while its newer Berlin office, opened in October 2023, primarily works on live flagship title Merge Mansion.
“We just celebrated our first anniversary in Berlin, and Berlin has proven to be a great choice for our first expansion,” Tammenkoski continued. “Within the next couple of years, we aim to expand the Berlin team up to 50 talented Metacoreans.”
New Merge Mansion growth lead Blazek stressed that the casual puzzle category is still growing, according to market data, and remains optimistic about the market overall.
“The genres we are operating in, casual and Merge 2, have developed over the years hand-in-hand with Merge Mansion, and we see great potential ahead,” Blazek told us. “According to Sensor Tower, both of the categories grew in 2024, which is a positive sign for us. We want Merge Mansion to continue to be the number one benchmark of these categories.”
“Casual players are increasingly experienced audiences with high expectations,” Blazek continued. “Dedicated players in this genre explore new games often but stick with their favourites for a long time. Games that deliver amazing art and highly refined player experiences set themselves apart in this genre. Metacore is well positioned to deliver world-class experience to this audience in Merge Mansion – and hopefully also in the future with our new titles in development.”
