two & a half gamers – 🚨📢 BREAKING NEWS: Record Revenue, Record Layoffs, Why Only 2 Genres Are Actually Winning in 2026

Summary

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.

📌 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.

— The growth is not distributed — it’s concentrated.
Roblox alone captured 67% of net market growth last year.
4X strategy is the only genre growing in revenue,
downloads, and time spent simultaneously, led by Last
War, Whiteout Survival, and Kingshot.

— 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.

— Google’s ad tech ruling could be the biggest forced
breakup since AT&T 1984. Judge Brinkema missed her March
31 deadline, no buyer identified for AdX, hard conduct
remedies likely. Anything that destabilizes Google’s
dominance shifts budgets toward independent DSPs.

— The studios winning are mobile-native, lean, data-driven,
and AI-first in UA and creative. The studios losing
built for a market that no longer exists.