Brutally Honest #169 by Matej Lancaric

No 💩​ BS newsletter with useful stuff about UA in the post IDFA world

Hey, FAM! What’s up?

🥃 Drink talk

The second week of the sailing boat trip in Croatia with Katarina & Captain Tuna: Mr. Michal Bubernik is happening now.

and btw 𝗠𝗶𝗹𝗲𝘀𝘁𝗼𝗻𝗲 𝗨𝗻𝗹𝗼𝗰𝗸𝗲𝗱: 𝟭𝟲,𝟬𝟬𝟬+ 𝗦𝘂𝗯𝘀𝗰𝗿𝗶𝗯𝗲𝗿𝘀! We are officially big enough to start getting 𝗺𝗲𝗮𝗻 𝗰𝗼𝗺𝗺𝗲𝗻𝘁𝘀 on YouTube.

Join now!

🦩Tip of the week

Everyone’s hunting for the lowest possible CPI, pulling every trick in the book to get there. The latest Two and a Half Gamers episode dives right in, so let’s break it down:

Social casino games dressed up as idle games.

No casino hints in the app store.
Ad creatives blend right in with the crowd, no obvious social casino vibes.

What’s the secret?
It’s all in the onboarding.

Players start with a “fake” idle or sim experience, nowhere near the real core gameplay.

Other examples:
Idle + social casino.
Idle + 4X.
Idle vs simulation.
Match3 + “fake” levels.

Onboarding has become the new creative cheat code.

So, what’s your secret sauce?

---

This newsletter is brought to you by FastSpring:

• Has delivered D2C at scale for over 20 years

• They power top mobile publishers around the world

• And are reliably fast growing, profitable, and very financially secure.

• As a no-drama D2C partner with real-world experience at scale, FastSpring is a partner you can trust with your players.

Quickly launch a new webstore, replace an existing D2C vendor, or add a redundant D2C vendor at fastspring.gg.

---

🐊​ Cornelius: The Suspicious Investi-gator

True detective-like exploration of creative trends and historical influences. Delving deep into the world of creatives to uncover hidden patterns and inspirations:

🤮 𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗦𝗲𝗰𝗿𝗲𝘁 𝗦𝗮𝘂𝗰𝗲 𝗕𝗲𝗵𝗶𝗻𝗱 “𝗙𝗮𝗸𝗲” 𝗠𝗼𝗯𝗶𝗹𝗲 𝗔𝗱𝘀. Why do these “fake gameplay” ads work so well? 👇

Simple. They’re not selling the real game; they’re selling pure dopamine.

This video breaks the rules and creates impossible, wild levels you’ll never see in the actual app.

𝗘𝘃𝗲𝗿𝘆 𝗳𝗮𝗶𝗹 𝗶𝘀 𝗱𝗶𝗮𝗹𝗲𝗱 𝘂𝗽 𝗳𝗼𝗿 𝗱𝗿𝗮𝗺𝗮.

The player almost makes it, then crashes spectacularly.

Rage. Suspense. FOMO.
It’s not about honesty, it’s about getting you to stop scrolling and think, “I could do better.”

Notice the exaggerated UI, fake rewards, and cartoonish obstacles. The pacing is relentless, and the sound effects hit hard.

𝗜𝘁’𝘀 𝗲𝗻𝗴𝗶𝗻𝗲𝗲𝗿𝗲𝗱 𝗳𝗼𝗿 𝗮𝘁𝘁𝗲𝗻𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻, 𝗻𝗼𝘁 𝗮𝗰𝗰𝘂𝗿𝗮𝗰𝘆.

Why does it convert? Curiosity, frustration, and a little bit of trickery.

The audience has to see if the game is really this wild.

They download just to prove they can beat it.

Love it or hate it, this is the creative meta in mobile right now. Unfortunately! 🤮

Fake it until they click it. Or not 🤷‍♂️

Yours truly, Cornelius.

💀 Dr. Doom is not amused

One of my industry friends amused me with his direct and honest TL;DRs, so we agreed to share it here, too! My friend remains anonymous as Dr.Doom!

"Some sweet pristine doom as former GTA's producer new game releases to catastrophic reviews, which the CEO claimed was a bot conspiracy, duh! obviously. So, making a new GTA from scratch wasn't really the smartest idea? Shocker, who would have guessed, better luck next time, or there won't be next time😅? " Sincerely, Doom (https://www.pcgamer.com/gaming-industry/mindseyes-catastrophic-launch-to-be-followed-by-layoffs-at-former-gta-producers-studio/)

🎉  “Ha-ha” moment

Because life is too short to be serious.

🎮 two & a half gamers new episode

Idle game making $5 MIL/month! 💸Well, not exactly an idle game. Carnival Tycoon: The Social Casino Trojan Horse Copying Its Way to the Top

In our latest episode, we break down Carnival Tycoon, the game that starts as a cute idle builder and morphs into a full social casino: spin by spin, upgrade by upgrade.

Here’s the truth:

Every mechanic, from slot spins to collectible cards, is ripped straight from Coin Master and Monopoly Go

5 million a month in revenue, top five by size, but nowhere near the stingy, genius LiveOps of the market leaders

The creatives? Gross, shit, all the trends, flip the numbers, “borrow” the hooks, call it AI if you must. Its all there!

Store visuals? Only idle, top UA creatives, no social casino at all.

Idle features hook the casuals, but the real money comes from casino endgame and slot machine churn

Carnival Tycoon is the definition of a Trojan Horse onboarding: start light, end heavy, and always copy what works..

📺 Watch on YouTube

🎧 Listen on Spotify

👕 Get our Merch: 25gamers.com/shop

Drive measurable growth with the most intuitive Streaming TV Ad Platform—designed to maximize ROAS for apps of all sizes. Learn more!

---

🤑 Paid subs only

Sneak peek at what you get for your support:

🦄​ Diary of a Dancing Unicorn

Today was a good day.

Hey, I wanted to reach out after seeing your post about the game’s marketing success. Just to clarify, my team managed all paid UA and creative strategy from its early days through acquisition, and only recently transitioned things to the new team. Other teams tried handling UA a couple of times, but the results weren’t the same. We’re not after public credit, just want the record straight. Could you update your post to reflect that we handled the paid ads’ success, not the new marketing team?

Thanks for the message and for letting me know. I get your point. Next time, feel free to comment on the post, too.

I thought reaching out privately was a better way to handle it. I didn’t want it to seem confrontational right away. I appreciate you hearing me out.

hmmm.. Honestly, a quick “hey, can you update this, since our team did it” would have been enough.

Fair enough. So, could you please make the change?

Done, commented already.

But no, you should edit the original post.

Jesus fucking Christ.

Today was a good day.

🤺​ Quote of the week

"You are still on a boat? I feel like you are sailing already for a month” - Peter, DM

Carnival Tycoon review

🧞 The Song of the Week

We launched a music album. Yes, that's correct. We are putting a ton of energy into creating valuable (and crazy) content that I think you'll like. Check out the latest songs, and give us a like and subscribe. Play ehm. Listen now!

👾  THE AI (R)EVOLUTION

The AI revolution is here, and it’s transforming the way we approach mobile games marketing.

From creating scroll-stopping ad creatives to optimizing user acquisition strategies, AI is the game-changer we can’t ignore.

🥦​ Before you go

Ask Matej AI a question. It’s actually quite good!

We produced one more episode at 2.5 Gamers. Check it out now:

We are also starting a new segment. Give it a go:

🍿 Fun starts in two & a half gamers Slack! Join now

We are opening up a Slack channel for everybody. It is the most inclusive slack for the gaming industry. Female, male, non-binary, juniors, mid-level, seniors, vendors, developers = EVERYBODY! We are waiting for you ♥️

Feel free to join here!

---

🧙 Thanks for reading this week’s newsletter!

Please do me a favor and share this with someone in your network who you think would benefit from the insights and brutal honesty. It would mean a lot to me!

Take care, everyone! See you next Monday!

👇 Reach out for feedback, questions, or say hi!

Give me some love (or hate), & Subscribe everywhere! ♥️