🚨📢 BREAKING NEWS: Record Revenue, Record Layoffs, Why Only 2 Genres Are Actually Winning in 2026

The mobile gaming industry just posted record revenue ($195.6B) while simultaneously firing 44,000 developers. Here's what's actually going on.Matej Lančarič flies solo this week to break down the five stories that matter most: NTE's massive global launch, IronSource's official shutdown after one of the worst acquisitions in mobile gaming history, the State of Mobile Gaming 2026 report and what its genre data really tells us, Adam Foroughi's spicy 20VC interview, and Google's ad tech antitrust ruling that's about to reshape programmatic advertising.Five stories, one signal: the market growth is real but extremely concentrated. If you're not in the right two genres or one of the live-service giants, you're competing for table scraps.━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━⏱️ TIMESTAMPS00:00 Record revenue, record layoffs paradox00:50 NTE / Neverness to Everness global launch02:30 IronSource is officially dead — RIP $4.4B acquisition03:45 $195.6B revenue + 44K layoffs — the concentration story05:15 Adam Foroughi on 20VC — $83M payday, AI, layoffs05:45 Google ad tech antitrust ruling — what comes next06:30 Closing — the week ahead━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━📌 KEY TAKEAWAYS— Global gaming hit $195.6B in revenue in 2025, the highest annual total on record. Meanwhile 44,000+ dev jobs have been cut since 2022, with another 2-3K already gone in 2026. One in three US developers laid off, 48% still jobless.— IronSource is dead. The $4.4B Unity acquisition is one of the most controversial deals in mobile gaming history — Supersonic is being sold off, and three and a half years later there's almost nothing left of IronSource inside Unity. Unity Vector grew 48% YoY though, so the ad business itself isn't dying.— NTE (Neverness to Everness) launched globally April 29 on PC, Android, iOS, PS5, and Mac with cross-platform progression. Same team behind Tower of Fantasy. Massive IP, production values, and gacha — benchmark is Genshin and Zenless Zone Zero.— Adam Foroughi's 20VC interview is required listening. $83M CEO payday after a 92% stock drop, AI vs layoffs, AppLovin's run as one of the best-performing tech businesses right now.---------------------------------------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 Lancaric⁠Podcast: Join 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