PODCAST · leisure
Deconstructor of Fun
by Deconstructor of Fun
Deconstructor of Fun podcast is created by games professionals for games professionals. We explore the business side of the games industry with the goal of bringing listeners content that is relevant, insightful, and entertaining on a weekly basis.Hosts:Michail Katkoff www.linkedin.com/in/michailkatkoff/Eric Kress www.linkedin.com/in/erickress/Phillip Black www.linkedin.com/in/phillip-black-economist/Jen Donahoe www.linkedin.com/in/jenniferdonahoe
Episodes
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353. How Riot Went From One Game to Five Hits | Mark Sottosanti, Riot Games
Riot shipped one game in ten years, then four in the next two. Mark Sottosanti, CFO of Riot Games, was there for all of it. He joined in 2012 as head of monetization after running a hedge fund, and has been at Riot ever since.We start with how Riot went from League of Legends to a multi-game...
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TWIG #405: Gears of War E-Day Flops, EU Comes for Virtual Currency and Turkey Wins the Puzzle Race
Xbox has a franchise problem, and Gears of War E-Day just made it obvious.This week we look back on Mobidictum in Istanbul and argue about why Turkey became the puzzle capital while Sweden didn’t. Then we pull apart Aream’s Q3 report: the M&A number is inflated by the EA deal, the IPO window…
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352. AI Made Every Team Faster. Then It Got Messy.
Retrofitting AI into a 1,300-person company and building one around it from day one are different problems. Mishka Katkoff sits down with Liaz Kamper, AI Experience Architect at AppsFlyer, and Maor Cohen, CTO of Vibes, to compare the two.00:00 — AI-first vs. AI-native companies06:19 —…
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TWIG #404: AI Game Mashups Go Viral, Google Launches Playground and Mobile Studios Are Cheap Again
AI-made mashups of games like Skate 3 and Modern Warfare II took over social media, and publishers responded with takedowns. Google launched Playground, joining Roblox and Meta in the race to build prompt-to-game platforms. New InvestGame data shows 2026 already has more deals than any year since...
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351. Why Great Hires Fail at Startups | Garry Hill, Makers Fund
Most startup hiring mistakes come down to two things: hiring too fast and hiring too narrow. Garry Hill, head of talent at Makers Fund, sees both across a portfolio of 130+ companies. Before Makers Fund, he recruited at SpaceX, Amazon, Blizzard, PlayStation and Reddit. We start with the hires who...
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TWIG #403: The Market Only Grew 2%, Friendslop Hits the PC Charts and China Drafts Off GTA VI
Strip out inflation and the games market has barely grown in a decade. This week we dig into Newzoo's latest numbers and what they say about where growth comes from: mature Western markets, existing players and five giant companies taking almost all of it. Then we look at how cheap social games...
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Shooter Monthly #10: War Dogs Sells 2.2M, Cash Economy Breakdown and the 1v1v1 Debate
War Dogs sold 2.2 million copies in four days and nobody saw it coming. This episode we break down Bulkhead's early access hit. A hardcore milsim with three teams, no matchmaking and a $40 price tag beat Helldivers 2's launch curve on Steam, and its peak concurrents grew every day of launch week....
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350. Zynga Founder Mark Pincus: Why Your Favourite Ideas Are Almost Always Wrong
Mark Pincus founded Zynga that was later acquired of $12.7B by TakeTwo and still thinks he misplayed the hand. On this episode he unpacks the playbook behind Life at the Speed of Play: why all new fails, how to run a company as a democratic dictatorship why anyone lecturing you about culture has…
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TWIG #402: Xbox Bets on Kojima, Halo Gets Handed to CoD and AppLovin Hits the Road
Xbox is cutting niche studios and signing a niche Kojima project in the same month. We try to make it make sense. Sony pulled funding on Physint after budget concerns, and Xbox picked it up as a franchise with film and TV rights attached. Meanwhile Microsoft keeps restructuring into clean...
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Puzzle Monthly #6: Disney Solitaire's Big Win, Playtika's Earn-Out Trap and Solitaire vs Puzzle
Disney Solitaire is one of the biggest launches of the year, and it might be too successful for its own parent company. This episode breaks down how SuperPlay turned a solitaire game into a Disney-powered hit, why Playtika's debt and earn-out deal could push it to sell, and how Disney Solitaire...
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349. From Zero Offers To Record Revenue I Michael Martinez, CEO of FunCraft
Michael Martinez, co-founder and CEO of FunCraft, tried to sell his mobile game studio in 2025. Trusted people said "don't do it yet". He chose otherwise. A banker pitched the company to 40 buyers. Zero offers. Then the company doubled to a $50M run rate with just 15 people. Rejection like that...
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TWIG #401: Blizzard Goes All In, Roblox Breaks Out of Its Own App and Aniimo Nails Launch Day
Gaming is back, and this week had a lot to talk about. BlizzCon delivered the biggest slate of announcements Blizzard has had in years, but the timelines and team sizes raise real questions about what Microsoft pressure is doing to the studio. Roblox used RDC to push standalone apps, browser play...
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348. Why None of Us Saw Cyberpunk Coming Apart I Michal Nowakowski. joint CEO, CD PROJEKT RED
Cyberpunk 2077 sold 13 million copies in ten days, then Sony pulled it from the PlayStation Store. CD Projekt Red joint CEO Michal Nowakowski was the one taking the calls. He walks through what actually broke, why the investors weren't the reason, and how the studio went from a Polish box...
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TWIG #400: Is the Game Industry Actually Crashing, OpenAI's Astra and 8 Years of Hot Takes
400 episodes in, and yes, we swear more than anyone will admit.This is the big one. Before the retrospective, we tear apart the latest "video game industry is crashing" clickbait using actual employment data, then get into what OpenAI's new Astra model means for teams already shipping with AI.…
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347. Questions Istanbul Founders Stopped Asking I Akin Babayigit, Arcadia Gaming Partners
McKinsey, the United Nations, Skype, Rocket Internet, Facebook, King. Then Akin Babayigit co-founded Tripledot, spun out Luna Labs, and now runs Arcadia Gaming Partners, a $100M fund he deploys alone.He left Türkiye at sixteen and never moved back, which makes him one of the few people who can…
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TWIG #399: GTA VI Breaks Netflix, EU Targets Roblox and Zero Company's Studio Implodes
GTA VI just proved it can break Netflix, the EU just put Roblox under its strictest rulebook, and one of the best reviewed games of the year is already falling apart behind the scenes.The crew breaks down the numbers behind GTA VI's Netflix trailer drop and what it means for pre-orders, why...
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Shooter Monthly #9: Battlefield's Hot Streak, Gears Goes Helldiving, and the Battle Pass Plateau
Shooters are having one of their best summers in years, and every major franchise still can't agree on what to do about it.The crew runs through the battle pass shakeup hitting Call of Duty, Battlefield and Overwatch, breaks down why Battlefield is quietly beating Call of Duty on Steam, and picks...
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346. Why Mattel Wants Studios to Pitch the Uncomfortable
Mattel owns Barbie, Hot Wheels, UNO, Masters of the Universe and Street Sharks. Marcus Liassides runs its digital business, which now Roblox, Fortnite, and a licensing program that puts Mattel IP in creators' hands without approving what they build with it. This episode is about how a studio...
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TWIG #398: Gaming's 2026 Reality Check, The GTA 6 Leak Nightmare and Why Jobs Are Still Vanishing
Rockstar is fighting a leak it cannot plug, and the leaker has turned the whole thing into a token economy.Episode 398 covers a week where the data says growth and the job market says something else. Newzoo puts 2026 at 214 billion, Makers Fund closes another 250 million that looks nothing like...
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345. The Good, The Bad and The Ugly of UA Financing
Everyone's telling you cohort financing is free money to scale. It's not, and the contract fine print is where that story falls apart.Josh Chandley (President & COO, Wildcard Games) sits down with Phil Mohr (CEO & Co-founder, Metica) and Martin Macmillan (Founder, Pollen Capital) to break down…
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344. The Truth About Taking Over A Company
In March 2025, Jon Bellamy became CEO of Jagex and Alexis Bonte became CEO of Stillfront. Both inherited companies with legacy, scale, and a long list of things that needed to go. This episode is about what actually happens in a games industry CEO's first 100 days.Timestamps00:00 - The first 100...
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TWIG #397: Roblox Under Fire, Apple’s EU App Store Shake-Up and Netflix Games’ Studio Retreat
Crew breaks down another packed week in games. Roblox faces mounting pressure over child safety as Congress launches an investigation, Apple rewrites its EU App Store economics while Germany forces changes to ATT, and Netflix Games keeps shrinking with two more studio closures. Meanwhile, Webtoon...
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343. WEBTOON Is Bigger Than Monopoly Go: Inside a New Game Marketing Channel
Jen sits down with WEBTOON and Square Enix to break down a channel that reaches mobile, PC, and console at once.UA is saturated and everyone is hunting for new reach. WEBTOON has 160 million MAU, about 90% under 34, and roughly 69% of its readers play games across all three platforms. Christine…
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342. The Man Behind Most Gaming Deals | Affan Butt, Aream & Co.
Affan Butt has advised on 110+ gaming M&A deals worth $40 billion. He breaks down how game studios actually get sold, what acquirers pay for, and why earnouts wreck founders. We go through a studio acquisition from the founder's side of the table. How M&A processes really start, what due…
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TWIG #396: AppLovin's Q2, Unity's Supersonic Fire Sale and GTA VI's Netflix Trailer Drama
Crew breaks down a packed week in mobile and games. AppLovin's stock craters despite the SEC closing its inquiry with no action, Unity sells Supersonic to Tripledot for a shockingly low $40 million, and Take-Two's GTA VI presales are on fire even as its mobile business slows. Topics Covered:•...
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341. Why the Best Founders Are Neither American nor European
Emmanuel De Maistre didn’t build Scenario by choosing between Silicon Valley ambition and European pragmatism. He learned to use both.In this conversation, the Scenario founder breaks down what years of building in the US taught him about ambition, failure, and venture-scale thinking, and why...
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TWIG #395: Xbox Prices Explode, Roblox's Worst Day Ever, and Merge Eats Puzzle
Xbox prices in Europe jumped as much as 50%, and the console math now writes itself.The crew digs into a rough week for hardware and a strange one for puzzle. PS5 is suddenly the obvious pick while a global RAM crunch threatens the entire next console cycle. Capcom is printing money off...
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340. The $12B+ Mobile Ad Market: Sensor Tower's First-Ever Deep Dive
After years of saying not yet, Sensor Tower finally estimated mobile ad revenue, and the number is $12 billion for 2025.Josh Chandley and Sensor Tower's lead gaming insights analyst Sam walk through how the estimates were built and why $12 billion is a conservative floor. We get into why puzzle...
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TWIG #394: Playtika's Solitaire Meltdown, the AppLovin-AdMob Duopoly and Why Nobody Wants New Games
The crew breaks down Sensor Tower's big H1 2026 report, digs into why downloads keep falling while nobody seems to want new games, and asks whether ad revenue was ever going to save anyone. Plus a Warframe live service masterclass and the arrow craze that Kress would very much like everyone to…
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Puzzle Monthly #5: The Secret Behind Toon Blast's Success
Why is Toon Blast still growing while every other Blast game is fading away?In this episode of Puzzle Monthly, we break down Toon Blast's remarkable resurgence, from its early days challenging Toy Blast to its recent revenue explosion fueled by Super Light Ball, LiveOps innovation, and relentless...
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TWIG #393: GTA 6's Impossible Attach Rate, Playtika's Earn-Out Disaster, and Unity 7's Big Swing
Convoy says 85 million copies in 60 days. That means 63% of every console owner alive buys GTA 6, and the closest anyone has come without a bundle is half that.The crew digs into the Newzoo and Convoy numbers behind GTA 6 and finds projections that would require almost every active console owner…
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Shooter Monthly #8: The Bungie Eulogy, Why Destiny Fell Off, and Can Marathon Save the Studio
Bungie built the defining live shooter of the decade, then spent ten years surviving its own crises. This one plays like the eulogy.The crew runs the full ups and downs of Bungie from Myth to Marathon, with an ex-Bungie insider walking through every near-death moment, why Destiny endured far…
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339. The Most Honest AI Adoption Story in Gaming
InnoGames didn't reach for AI to chase a trend. They reached for it because the alternative was shutting down a game people love.Thomas Lehr walks through how InnoGames kept Sunrise Village alive after the business case stopped working, taking the team from 25 people down to 3 and stabilizing a...
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TWIG #392: Pokémon’s Gamble, World Cup WHAT & the Monetization Debate
Jen, Eric, and Phil break down a week where EA torched a premium launch, Sony declared the disc dead, and Riot reminded everyone that nostalgia is still the most reliable growth lever in games. Monetization is the throughline all the way down: who actually has a lever left to pull, and how badly...
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338. The Mobile vs Web User Acquisition: What Nobody's Talking About
AppsFlyer just took attribution off mobile and put it on the open web, and it might be the biggest unlock D2C web shops have seen yet.Josh Chandley talks with Adam Smart, Global Director of Product for Gaming at AppsFlyer, about the company's new web attribution product and its bigger bet on...
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TWIG #391: Xbox's 4,800 Cuts, Apex Predator Playbook, and the 6% Problem Killing New Games
Xbox just got torched, and the math says new games can't win.Jen and Eric (two for TWIG this week) break down the biggest restructuring in Xbox history: 4,800 jobs cut, Asha Sharma unwinding Phil Spencer's entire studio buying spree, and King and Minecraft pulled in to report directly to her. Is...
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337. Inside New York Times Games: Why Killing 96% of New Ideas Is the Win
Zoe Bell is the Executive Producer of Games at The New York Times. If you've played Wordle, Connections, Spelling Bee, Strands, Letter Boxed, the Mini, or the Crossword, you've played something she helped build or bring to life. NYT has nearly 13 million subscribers, which includes the game...
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TWIG #390: Destiny Ends, Xbox's Biggest Layoff Ever, and Google Play's New Fee Chaos
Destiny is dead, Xbox is about to make the largest layoff in gaming history, and Google Play just completely changed how it charges developers.In this episode, we break down:• Why Sony's $3.6B Bungie acquisition was doomed from the start• What Destiny's gradual player decline actually looked like...
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Puzzle Monthly #4: $60M Marketing, $65M Revenue, What Happened to Good Job Games?
In this episode of Puzzle Monthly, we trace Good Job Games' path from two clean exits to a struggling Match 3 launch, and break down why the studio that built Zen Match and sold its hypercasual portfolio for billions in downloads can't get Match Villains to monetize like Royal Match. Topics...
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TWIG #389: GTA 6 Pricing, Tencent Pulls Back from Japan, and Steam Machine Flops at Launch
GTA 6 finally has a price tag, Steam Machine lands with a $1,000+, and Tencent is quietly pulling out of Japan. In this episode, we break down: ● Why GTA 6's $80/$100 pricing is good news for the industry ● What the deluxe edition actually includes (and what it's missing) ● The attach rate debate...
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336. Why Most Game Engines Die, and How AI Builds "Living Worlds"
Andrew Bowell, CEO of Iconic, who spent 15 years at Havok and a decade at Unity, discusses the future of game development, AI integration, and the challenges of building new game engines. He shares insights on technological shifts, AI's role in creating immersive worlds, and why his company is...
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335. My Wife Uninstalled Roblox. Then I Talked to Their Safety Team.
Roblox's Chief Safety Officer and VP of Safety Products join the podcast to answer the question every parent is asking: Is it actually safe?What's covered:● Why Roblox's safety chief uninstalled the app for his own daughter● The new Roblox Kids and Select accounts launching in June● How facial…
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TWIG #388: Xbox's Spinout Plan, Metacore's Mass Layoffs and Netflix's FIFA Flop
Microsoft is laying the groundwork to spin Xbox off, Supercell just cut 70% of Metacore's staff after burning through $180M. Meanwhile, EA just launched a real ad platform for sports games. In this episode, we break down: ● Why Xbox keeps losing its top studio leadership ● Whether Microsoft is...
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Puzzle Monthly #3: Merge vs Match-3, Gossip Harbor's Rise, and the Future of Merge
Gossip Harbor is beating Candy Crush, Merge Mansion is going to Supercell, and the Merge genre is at an inflection point. In this episode of Puzzle Monthly, we break down the real state of Merge games in 2026, from the history of the genre to why Gossip Harbor succeeded where others failed, and...
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TWIG #387: LiftOff IPO, Xbox pulls out the bangers, and The Simpsons take over Monopoly GO!
Nintendo's stock is getting hammered without a new Mario, Monopoly GO is going all-in on The Simpsons, and Liftoff is back on the public markets. Meanwhile, Xbox finally seems to be doing what it should have done years ago.In this episode, we break down:● Liftoff's IPO and the AppLovin challenge●...
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334. $500M in 2 Years: Here's How Grand Games Did It!
Two mobile games with a $500M annual run rate in just two years, with a fivefold revenue increase in the last 12 months alone. If you're building in mobile gaming or just want to understand what a genuine rocket ship looks like from the inside, this one's worth your time.Grand Games' founder...
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333. The ESA's Essential Facts: Free Player Data Most Companies Pay For
Two thirds of Americans now play video games every week. That is more than 212 million people, the average player is 37, and among Boomers, more women play than men. These numbers come from the ESA's 2026 Essential Facts report, the kind of audience and demographic data most companies pay a lot…
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TWIG #386: CoD MW4 Revealed, Sony's State of Play, Bungie's End and 007 First Light
Call of Duty is getting back to basics, Sony is pulling the plug on PC ports, and Bungie is laying off staff after Destiny 2's final update. Meanwhile, Summer Game Fest is here, and everyone has something to announce. In this episode, we break down: ● Call of Duty Modern Warfare 4, kill blocks…
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332. Match Masters' Influencer Marketing Playbook: 8 Years of Always-On Growth
Most studios still treat influencer marketing as an experiment. Match Masters, a top 150 grossing game globally, has run it as a permanent growth pillar for 8 years. Jen Donahoe sits down with Candivore's Aviv Vidro and consultant Marion Balinoff to break down the playbook behind one of mobile...
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TWIG #385: $100M for Indies, Lilith Goes Casino, Google Play Changes and Toon Blast Breaks Bad
Griffin just handed $100M to indie developers, Lilith is back with a pachinko creature collector that's turning heads, and Toon Blast hired Gus Fring for reasons that actually make sense. In this episode, we break down: ● Griffin Gaming Partners' $100M indie fund and why project financing beats…
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ABOUT THIS SHOW
Deconstructor of Fun podcast is created by games professionals for games professionals. We explore the business side of the games industry with the goal of bringing listeners content that is relevant, insightful, and entertaining on a weekly basis.Hosts:Michail Katkoff www.linkedin.com/in/michailkatkoff/Eric Kress www.linkedin.com/in/erickress/Phillip Black www.linkedin.com/in/phillip-black-economist/Jen Donahoe www.linkedin.com/in/jenniferdonahoe
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Deconstructor of Fun
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How many episodes does Deconstructor of Fun have?
Deconstructor of Fun currently has 834 episodes available on PodParley. New episodes are automatically indexed when they're published to the podcast feed.
What is Deconstructor of Fun about?
Deconstructor of Fun podcast is created by games professionals for games professionals. We explore the business side of the games industry with the goal of bringing listeners content that is relevant, insightful, and entertaining on a weekly basis.Hosts:Michail Katkoff...
How often does Deconstructor of Fun release new episodes?
Deconstructor of Fun releases new episodes frequently with a large back catalog of 834 episodes. Check the episode list for recent publication dates.
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Who hosts Deconstructor of Fun?
Deconstructor of Fun is created and hosted by Deconstructor of Fun.
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