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High-signal thoughts on live-ops, game production, and the evolving mobile industry.

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Observations from the trenches

2026-05-11ai-gaming

AI Replaces Tasks Not Roles

Playtika cut 500 people in January. The announcement cited AI directly. That's the clearest version of this conversati...

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2026-05-07esports

India Esports Is Compounding

S8UL qualified for 13 titles at the Esports World Cup 2026. 13 titles. One org. That's an all-time record for India. ...

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2026-05-06leadership

Revenue Records Don't Equal Job Security

The gaming industry hit $195.6 billion in content revenue in 2025. All-time record. 44,000 jobs have been cut since 20...

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2026-05-05live-ops

GTA 6 Should Already Be in Your Live Ops Calendar

GTA 6. November 19, 2026. That date should already be in your live ops calendar. Not to panic around it. To plan arou...

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2026-05-04monetization

What 4X Strategy Got Right That Everyone Else Got Wrong

Nobody in casual gaming predicted this. Last War: Survival and Whiteout Survival were the top two grossing mobile game...

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2026-04-30live-ops

GTA Online 1.3M a Day After Twelve Years

$1.3 million. Every single day. That's what GTA Online averaged between September 2025 and April 2026, confirmed by a ...

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2026-04-29partnerships

Consolidation Kills Mediocre Retention

Q1 2026: 51 gaming M&A transactions. Over $117 billion in disclosed deal value. Fifteen-month high. The headlines are ...

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2026-04-28live-ops

Scale Should Follow Signal

Supercell shut down Squad Busters in November 2024. Eighteen months after global launch. Ilkka Paananen said it plainl...

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2026-04-27live-ops

Great Live Ops Isn't Enough — Is It Though

Supercell's president said this out loud on April 13: great live ops isn't enough. Sara Bach was explaining why the co...

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2026-04-22ai-in-gaming

AI UA Attention Problem

AI made it faster and cheaper to build games. More studios shipping more titles with more ad creatives than ever before...

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2026-04-21live-ops

LiveOps Event Timing

We ran a LiveOps event that should have worked. Good offer. Reasonable price. Decent creative. It underperformed. Firs...

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2026-04-20leadership

What DOTA Taught Me About Production

I co-founded Team Err0r in 2005. We became India's number one DOTA 1 team. I was maybe nineteen, managing five players ...

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2026-04-16live-ops

LiveOps Calendar vs Strategy

Most studios have a LiveOps calendar. Not many have a LiveOps strategy. And those two things are not the same. The cal...

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2026-03-31ai-in-gaming

Why NotebookLM Is My Most-Used AI Tool as a Game Producer

If you asked me which AI tool I actually open multiple times a day, the answer isn't Claude or ChatGPT. It's NotebookLM...

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2026-03-26live-ops

Community Management and LiveOps The Retention Layer Studios Undervalue

I've watched Community Management get treated like PR in too many studios. Post a few announcements, handle the angry o...

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2026-03-25live-ops

MAU Vegas 2023 to 2025 Myths and Predictions Reality Check

MAU Vegas is where bold predictions get made on stage, everyone nods, and then the industry moves on. Three editions la...

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2026-03-24live-ops

LiveOps Infrastructure AB Testing Cohorting and Dashboards

Most LiveOps conversations start with content. Events, passes, seasonal calendars. All of that matters. But before you...

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2026-03-19live-ops

Honor of Kings India First Impressions

The world's highest-grossing mobile game finally landed in India on March 11. And for a bunch of us at Moonfrog, it has...

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2025-04-14Game Production / Player Engagement

What Comic Con Bangalore Taught Us About Player Research

What Comic Con Bangalore Taught Us About Player Research January 18. Comic Con Bangalore. 18 of us on the floor. Ar...

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