🚨📢 BREAKING NEWS: Google's Antitrust Blow, AppLovin's Hidden Strength & Smash Fest's Copycat Army

The EU just fined Google €890M for making it hard to steer users to cheaper web stores — another crack in the 30% wall, and genuinely good news for every developer. That's the lead of a quieter, summer-holiday news week, with Felix flying solo while Matej and Jakub are at ChinaJoy.Felix Braberg walks two stories and a charts tour. First, the European Commission fined Google €890M (split €460M + €430M) under the Digital Markets Act for antitrust practices — preventing developers from freely informing users about cheaper offers and steering them to web stores or third-party channels. Google has 60 days to comply or face periodic penalties of up to 5% of worldwide turnover (~$403B), and it's another blow in the slow unwinding of the 30% app-store tax that companies like FastSpring exist to route around. Second, a Seeking Alpha analysis argues the market keeps underestimating AppLovin: the stock came under pressure in 2026 (swept up in the "SaaS apocalypse" sell-off after the CloudX agentic-buying launch), but the fundamentals are strong, the gaming runway is bigger than assumed, and as the dominant mediation player (AppLovin Max), it holds a structural advantage. Then the US charts: Smash Fest (Flow Games, Turkey) is now #1 in free downloads — beating Roblox — followed by Meow Doku and Vita Mahjong (same studio), with the standout story being that a copycat of Smash Fest (Royal Smash by Cypher Games) has itself cracked the top six out of ~70 clones. Plus Level Devil sold and scaling under new ownership, EA Sports FC still strong post-World Cup, and Turkey vs China duking it out for chart dominance.The through-line of a quiet week: the 30% tax keeps cracking, AppLovin keeps winning, and the copycat economy is faster and more brutal than ever.━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━⏱️ TIMESTAMPS00:00 Solo news week — Matej and Jakub at ChinaJoy00:40 Google fined €890M under the Digital Markets Act04:00 Why it's another crack in the 30% wall05:00 AppLovin: why the market keeps underestimating it07:30 US charts — Smash Fest beats Roblox08:30 The copycat that cracked the top six10:00 Level Devil sold, EA Sports FC, and Turkey vs China---------------------------------------This is no BS gaming podcast 2.5 gamers session. Sharing actionable insights, dropping knowledge from our day-to-day User Acquisition, Game Design, and Ad monetization jobs. We are definitely not discussing the latest industry news, but having so much fun! Let’s not forget this is a 4 a.m. conference discussion vibe, so let's not take it too seriously.Panelists: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Jakub Remia⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠r,⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Felix Braberg, Matej Lancaric⁠Join our slack channel here: https://join.slack.com/t/two-and-half-gamers/shared_invite/zt-3bckldvr8-8PXvzciMWdheOzED9hq0SA---------------------------------------Matej LancaricUser Acquisition & Creatives Consultant⁠https://lancaric.meFelix BrabergAd monetization consultant⁠https://www.felixbraberg.comJakub RemiarGame design consultant⁠https://www.linkedin.com/in/jakubremiar---------------------------------------Please share the podcast with your industry friends, dogs & cats. Especially cats! They love it!Hit the Subscribe button on YouTube, Spotify, and Apple!Please share feedback and comments - [email protected] you are interested in getting UA tips every week on Monday, visit ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠lancaric.substack.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ & sign up for the Brutally Honest newsletter by Matej LancaricDo you have UA questions nobody can answer? Ask ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Matej AI⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ - the First UA AI in the gaming industry! https://lancaric.me/matej-ai