LAGOS, December 2025 In a strategic move to expand its global footprint, mobile gaming giant Supercell announced a new developer grant program specifically for African studios during the recent MaliyoCon conference in Nigeria. This initiative aims to provide non-dilutive funding ranging from $20,000 to $200,000 to support the continent’s emerging talent, marking a significant investment in what many see as the world’s fastest-growing gaming market.

The announcement reflects a broader shift in Supercell’s strategy to cultivate long-term partnerships worldwide. While specific details of the African grants are new, they align with the company’s recently re-launched “Supercell Investments” arm, which focuses on backing creative, independent teams globally.

A Focus on Founders and Long-Term Vision

At the heart of Supercell’s investment philosophy is a focus on empowering founders who share their core values: high ambition, creative independence, and a dedication to building “forever games”. This approach is designed to foster long-term success over quick financial returns.

The African grants program extends this ethos. By offering flexible, non-dilutive capital, Supercell aims to help local studios scale operations, acquire talent, or fund marketing without demanding equity or immediate strategic alignment in return.

Strengthening Ties with Africa’s Gaming Ecosystem

The grant program is not Supercell’s first engagement with Africa, signaling a deeper commitment to the region:

• Partnerships for Access: Supercell partnered with African publisher Carry1st to support local in-game payments, making its hit titles more accessible across the continent.
• Building Community Ties: In 2024, the company invited studios from Ghana, Nigeria, Senegal, and Kenya to its annual “Games First” developer gathering in Helsinki.
• Expert Leadership: The appointment of industry veteran Lasse Seppänen as General Manager of its London studio in late 2025 is seen as strengthening its leadership for global and emerging market operations.

A Strategic, Long-Game Approach

Industry analysis suggests that while Supercell’s investment style differs from aggressive corporate venture capital, it is a deliberate long-term strategy.

The company has historically prioritized finding and nurturing exceptional creative teams that align with its culture of small, independent “cells.” Critics argue this approach caused them to miss acquiring major studios during the mobile gaming boom of 2016-2022. However, supporters see it as a principled bet on organic creativity rather than financial engineering.

By launching a grant program for Africa, Supercell is applying this patient, founder-focused philosophy to a high-potential market early in its growth cycle. The goal appears to be community building and discovering the next generation of gaming talent, rather than seeking immediate strategic control.

Looking Ahead

This grant initiative arrives as Supercell celebrates historic success with its live game Brawl Stars and navigates the challenges of launching new titles like Squad Busters. By investing in Africa’s burgeoning developer scene, the company is not just funding games—it is investing in the future players and creators of the global gaming community.

For African studios, Supercell’s grants represent a major validation and a crucial source of risk capital. For the global industry, it is a signal that one of mobile gaming’s most influential players is doubling down on a truly worldwide vision for the next generation of games.

Potential Benefits for African Studios:

• Non-Dilutive Capital: Funding without giving up company equity.
• Strategic Flexibility: Grants can be used for talent, operations, or marketing as the studio sees fit.
• Validation & Profile: Association with a global industry leader.
• Network Access: Potential connection to a community of over 1,000 game professionals.

Supercell’s Strategic Goals:

• Early Market Access: Establish a presence in the world’s fastest-growing gaming market.
• Cultural Insight: Gain understanding of diverse player preferences and new design trends.
• Long-Term Pipeline: Identify and nurture future partner studios or acquisition targets.
• Brand Leadership: Strengthen its position as a supporter of global game development.

Source: Lucio Im, Head of Publishing at Supercent, Pocket Gamer Connects (PGC) Korea Summit 2025.

At PGC Korea 2025, Supercent unveiled a new paradigm in mobile game publishing, shifting from a data-driven to an AI-driven operational model. This approach systemizes game development and scaling, achieving a documented 5% hit rate (10x the industry average of 0.5%) by leveraging AI across the entire lifecycle from core loop validation to global user acquisition. This represents a fundamental evolution in capital efficiency and de-risking for game investments.

Market Problem & Performance Data

Lucio Im highlighted that the mobile gaming market is notoriously winner-take-all, with only 0.5% of games achieving over 10 million downloads. This high failure rate is driven by gut-driven development, inefficient UA spend, and an inability to predict player retention and LTV pre-launch.

Supercent’s AI-driven system demonstrably shatters this norm:

• Hit Rate: A 5% success rate for games discovered and scaled under their direction, a 10x improvement over the industry standard.
• Performance Metrics: Proven ability to drastically improve key game health indicators:

The AI-Driven System: A Scalable Framework for Success

According to the presentation, Supercent’s competitive edge is a structured, five-stage publishing system (PSL) that is now fully integrated with AI. This system moves beyond simple A/B testing to predictive optimization.

Core Pillars of the AI Integration:

1. Market Potential & Gamification: AI analyzes global trends and uses Supercent’s vast repository of internal test data to predict market opportunities and validate core game loops before full production.
2. Profitability & Meta-Loop Optimization: The system is fundamentally data-first. AI continuously refines meta-progression systems (e.g., talent trees, skins, boss fights) and runs automated A/B tests to maximize player engagement and LTV.
3. Scalability & UA Automation: The model leverages ROAS-based global UA expertise. AI is used to automate campaign management and optimize creative-to-game matching, dramatically improving UA efficiency and allowing human strategists to focus on high-level planning.

Direct Impact on User Acquisition & Monetization

• Lower Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC): By using AI to identify and target players who exhibit behaviors associated with high LTV, Supercent acquires higher-quality users at a lower cost.
• Higher Lifetime Value (LTV): The documented 5-10x LTV increase is a direct result of AI-optimized meta-systems and retention mechanics. This creates a powerful virtuous cycle where higher LTV allows for more aggressive and profitable UA spending.
• Fully Automated Scaling: Lucio Im’s vision for 2026-2028 is a “hands-off” UA engine where AI manages campaign execution. This shifts human capital from operational tasks to strategic innovation, creating a scalable and defensible moat.

Conclusion & Strategic Imperative

As presented by Lucio Im at PGC Korea, Supercent is not merely a game publisher; it is a technology company that has productized game success. Their AI-driven publishing system represents a fundamental de-risking of game development and scaling.

For VCs, this presents a dual opportunity:

1. Direct Investment: Backing the platform itself offers exposure to a high-margin, scalable tech business that can be applied to a vast portfolio of games.
2. Portfolio Strategy: Investing in game studios that partner with or emulate this AI-driven, metrics-first approach is a bet on the future of capital-efficient game development.

The demonstrated 10x improvement in hit rate and the systematic amplification of LTV prove that the future of gaming growth is not just data-informed, but AI-optimized.

The mobile and PC gaming landscape is undergoing a foundational shift away from walled-garden platforms. Unity is positioning itself as the essential infrastructure for this new era, creating a vertically integrated ecosystem that empowers developers to develop, deploy, and grow with unprecedented control and efficiency. This transition unlocks new, high-margin revenue streams for developers and presents a massive opportunity for platforms that facilitate open discovery and commerce.

Market Dynamics: The Unbundling of App Stores

• Regulatory & Market-Led Change: The keynote highlights a pivotal shift: “Mobile, web, and PC platform app stores are no longer walled gardens.” This is driven by regulatory pressure (DMA in Europe, Epic vs. Apple rulings) and developer demand for better economics.
• The Platform Fee Problem: The 30% standard platform fee is now widely seen as unsustainable. The market is moving towards a multi-store, multi-payment provider future, creating fragmentation and complexity for developers.
• The Discovery Crisis: With an explosion of new games, user acquisition costs are soaring. Finding the right players, not just more players, is the critical challenge for profitability.

Unity’s Strategic Solution: An Integrated Growth Stack

Unity is no longer just an engine; it is building a full-stack solution to capture value across the entire game lifecycle.

1. Develop: Production-Verified Speed & Stability
2. Deploy: Ubiquitous Distribution & Data Control
3. Grow: The Core of the New Business Model

Impact on User Acquisition & Monetization

• Lower CAC & Higher LTV: Unity Vector directly targets the quality-of-user problem. By leveraging Unity’s unique data across billions of gameplay sessions, it finds players more likely to engage and spend, thereby increasing LTV and improving ROAS.
• Margin Expansion: The open commerce model (Unity IAP) allows developers to bypass high platform fees. By using web shops and alternative payment providers, developers can reclaim a significant portion of the traditional 30% fee, directly boosting profitability.
• New Distribution Channels: The integration with Fortnite creates a powerful new UA channel that is inherently social and viral, reducing reliance on traditional paid advertising.

Conclusion & Strategic Imperative

Unity is strategically pivoting to become the operating system for the next generation of game development and distribution. By solving the critical pain points of discovery, multi-platform deployment, and monetization, they are creating a defensible and highly valuable ecosystem.

This signals that the highest-potential gaming startups will be those that leverage this new stack:

• Teams that prioritize rapid iteration and live-ops will win.
• Companies that master multi-platform, direct-to-consumer strategies using tools like Unity IAP will achieve superior unit economics.
• Access to high-fidelity, AI-driven discovery platforms like Vector will be a key competitive advantage in user acquisition.

Investing in studios and technologies aligned with this open, ecosystem-driven future is a bet on the next wave of profitable growth in the gaming industry.

Forget everything you knew about user acquisition. The rules have changed, and a new set of tools is creating winners and losers.

The message from AppsFlyer’s keynote was clear: the old playbook of optimizing for last-click and fighting over saturated channels is a fast track to burning budget. The future belongs to UA managers who can answer fundamental questions about true incrementality, cross-platform value, and AI-driven automation.

The innovations announced are foundational shifts that open a massive opportunity for sophisticated UA teams to dramatically outperform their competition. Here’s your strategic guide to the new UA landscape.

1. The Incrementality Revolution: Stop Funding “Credit-Stealers”

The single most powerful weapon for a UA manager today is Incrementality for User Acquisition.

The Problem: Your attribution dashboard shows installs, but it can’t distinguish between campaigns that drive new users and those that just take credit for them.

The Opportunity: AppsFlyer’s new product turns this unknown into a known variable.

· Real-World Impact: At FuboTV, testing revealed a campaign was not incremental at all, leading to a six-figure monthly budget cut. Conversely, they found winning campaigns to scale with confidence.

· The Bottom Line: AppsFlyer data shows 18% of campaigns generate zero incremental lift, while 30% are 10x more valuable than attributed. This is the most direct path to immediate ROAS improvement.

2. The Omni-Channel LTV Breakthrough: Your Most Valuable Users Are Hiding

The biggest myth is that a “mobile user” only exists on a phone. The reality is that your highest-value users are multi-platform.

The Problem: A user acquired via CTV who purchases on mobile is often misreported as “organic,” destroying the ROAS of your acquisition campaigns.

The Opportunity: Cross-Platform Journeys and LTV stitches this broken picture together.

· Real-World Impact: Early results are staggering:

· Entertainment Apps: 65% increase in attributed revenue.

· Multi-Platform Games: 27% increase in attributed revenue.

· Overall: Partners report a 48% increase in ROAS.

Your UA Takeaway: Justify higher CPAs on top-of-funnel channels like CTV by capturing the full LTV of the users they drive to any platform.

3. The Signal Advantage: The Mastercard Partnership and the End of “Walled Gardens”

In a signal-starved world, the ultimate competitive advantage is access to higher-quality data. This is where the Mastercard partnership and Signal Hub become a UA team’s secret weapon.

The Problem: You’re limited to the targeting options inside walled gardens (Meta, Google). You can’t easily leverage real-world purchase intent data to find high-value users.

The Opportunity: Signal Hub is a privacy-safe data marketplace. With Mastercard as the premier data provider, UA teams can now:

· Target by Real-World Behavior: Create audiences based on aggregated, anonymized purchase data. Think: “Households that spent over $1,000 on travel in the last 3 months” or “Users who made frequent purchases in a competitor’s category.”

· Activate Across Any Channel: These curated audiences are securely pushed to all your activation channels (social, programmatic, CTV), not just one walled garden.

· Measure True Lift: Run A/B tests to see the direct impact of using these premium signals on your campaign ROAS.

Your UA Takeaway: Move beyond basic demographic and interest targeting. You can now acquire users based on verified purchasing power and intent, reaching high-value prospects before they even search and giving you a targeting edge competitors cannot match without this partnership.

4. Creative at Scale: From Chaos to AI-Driven Assembly Line

Creative is the king of performance, but managing it is a nightmare. Marketers juggle thousands of creative variations across languages, placements, and campaigns.

The Opportunity: The Creative Management Suite automates the entire creative lifecycle.

· AI-Powered Auto-Tagging & Organization: The system automatically ingests creatives from your Google Drive, analyzes them with AI, and tags them by theme, app, and date. No more manual sorting.

· Pre-Flight Scoring: Before you spend a dollar, AI models analyze each creative and predict its performance potential, allowing you to prioritize winners and avoid losers.

· One-Click Distribution: Upload and deploy a batch of pre-scored creatives to channels like Meta in minutes, not hours.

Your UA Takeaway: This isn’t just an efficiency tool (though it saves dozens of hours). It’s a scale engine. By automating the logistics of creative management, your team can focus on strategy and ideation, testing more concepts, faster, and leveraging AI to ensure the best creatives get the most budget. This has already driven over 200% improvement in marketing efficiency for users.

The New UA Playbook: A Summary

1. Audit for Incrementality: Test your top campaigns. Cut the 18% that are frauds and scale the 30% that are hidden gems.

2. Unify Your LTV View: Integrate cross-platform data to reveal the true ROAS of CTV and web acquisition.

3. Leverage Premium Signals: Use Signal Hub with Mastercard data to target users by real-world purchase intent, breaking your dependence on walled gardens.

4. Automate Creative Scale: Deploy the Creative Suite to systemize testing, predict winners, and distribute creatives autonomously.

The tools for the next era of user acquisition are here. The gap between the UA teams who adopt this full-stack approach and those who don’t will be the defining story of the next growth cycle. The opportunity is to discover a new layer of profitable growth that was previously invisible.

It says “free”
But something happens the moment you tap play

You’re not buying a game
You’re buying a rhythm
A feeling
A little bit of control in a system designed to make you want more

Free-to-play isn’t the absence of a price
It’s the presence of design that knows exactly when you’ll say yes

Not right away
Later
When you’re tired
When you’ve almost won
When something inside you says
Just this once

🎯 It’s not about value. It’s about timing.

Example: Royal Match

You lose a level in Royal Match with one tile left
A banner appears: “Continue for 900 coins?”
It flashes softly
You have 860 coins
You need 40 more

What you’re paying for isn’t the win
You’re paying to avoid the re-do
To protect your momentum
To not feel like the last ten minutes were wasted

It’s friction design
Disguised as convenience

🧠 It’s not manipulation. It’s emotion.

Example: Merge Mansion

In Merge Mansion, your progress is based on waiting
Timers. Energy. Resource drops.
Right before you hit a block
You’re offered a bundle: energy, rare items, one-time price

It’s always just enough to finish what you started
It doesn’t feel like spending
It feels like solving a problem

You’re not buying items
You’re buying resolution

This is predictive monetization
Trained on real player behavior
It knows when you’re impatient
And it whispers, “Here, take the shortcut”

💅 Aesthetic is armor

Example: Zen Match

Soft colors
Daily calm challenges
Match-3 wrapped in meditation
But underneath the breathy UI, there are lives
Boosters
Bundles
Random drops

The monetization is gentle
But it’s still present
It just hides under the language of wellness

You’re not being sold coins
You’re being offered balance
For €2.99

It’s design therapy
With a checkout button

✊ So what’s next?

We don’t need to shame monetization
We need to ask what it’s asking from us

Can we build offers that feel like care
Not traps?

Can we sell with transparency
Not urgency?

Can we create paths where players feel respected
Even when they say no?

Let’s design in ways that feel human
Let’s write copy that feels like consent
Let’s remember the real price of play isn’t coins
It’s trust

Because what we’re really paying for
Is how a game makes us feel about ourselves
After we click