🚨📢 BREAKING NEWS: Rotate Labs Raise + Rival App Store Returns + Gaming Revenue Drops 4.5%?!

Cube Land's studio just raised a seed round four months after launch, a rival app store returned to Google Play in the US for the first time in over a decade, and Sensor Tower says gaming revenue fell 4.5% in Q2 — except that last number is only half the truth. Three stories, and Turkey keeps winning.Felix Braberg flies solo for the Friday news. First, RotateLab — the Turkish studio behind Cube Land (a recent friends-of-the-pod deep-dive on the show) — raised a seed round co-led by Leighton Ventures and Arcadia Gaming Partners, with Cube Land past 2M downloads and into the US top-50 free games and top-80 grossing just four months post-launch. It underlines a bigger trend: right now Turkey and Vietnam are where gaming funding and talent are concentrating, with VCs literally opening Turkish offices. Second, Aptoide became the first rival app store to return to Google Play in the US (after the loosening of restrictions long criticized as anti-competitive) — a Portugal-based store with ~40,000 apps and ~25M users that previously had to be sideloaded. It's a genuine milestone for app-market competition, and the draw is the same one powering the whole D2C wave: dodging the 30% Google fee. Third, a Sensor Tower Q2 report shows non-gaming revenue up 14.6% (led by AI apps) while gaming revenue fell 4.5% year-over-year — but Felix flags the missing piece: on the upcoming FastSpring episode, Chip estimates $9-12B of D2C gaming revenue sits on top of last year's $52B iOS figure (15-20% earned outside the stores), which Sensor Tower can't yet see. So the "decline" is only half the picture. Plus the US charts, where Turkish games (Block Out, Smash Fest, Bus Traffic Fever, Magic Sword) plus Meow Doku are dominating.The through-line: the money and talent are flowing to Turkey, the app stores are cracking open, and gaming's "decline" mostly disappears once you count the D2C revenue nobody can see yet.━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━⏱️ TIMESTAMPS00:00 Three stories that matter this week00:40 RotateLab (Cube Land) raises a seed round03:00 Why Turkey and Vietnam are getting the funding04:30 Aptoide returns to Google Play — the first rival store07:00 Why it matters: dodging the 30% fee09:00 Gaming revenue down 4.5% — but it's half the truth11:00 The charts — Turkish games and Meow Doku dominate---------------------------------------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