two & a half gamers How Malpa Games scaled “Boring” puzzle games to millions!
What if you built a puzzle game in the most crowded genre on earth…
…and scaled it to 5M downloads per month?
In this episode, we sit down with Vlad from Malpa Games and Ritzki from PVX Partners to unpack:
Why Malpa focused on production before ideas
90%+ ad revenue strategy
Why is ad tolerance in puzzles insanely high
How Cardscapes grew 200% month over month
Why AppLovin ROAS campaigns are the scaling engine
How UA cohort financing unlocked aggressive growth
The truth about incentivized traffic in ad-heavy games
Why retention beats everything in ad monetized scaling
This is not a flashy hybrid casual story.
This is disciplined production, AB testing, and pure operational excellence.
🔥 Key Takeaways
Production is more than a “Brilliant Idea”
1% retention lift = huge win
Scale increases ad margins
Incent traffic works if you tune your game
Cohort financing removes cashflow ceiling
AppLovin ROAS = main growth engine
Evergreen puzzles can still explode
Get our MERCH NOW: 25gamers.com/shop
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PVX Partners offers non-dilutive funding for game developers.
Go to: https://pvxpartners.com/
They can help you access the most effective form of growth capital once you have the metrics to back it.
- Scale fast
- Keep your shares
- Drawdown only as needed
- Have PvX take downside risk alongside you
+ Work with a team entirely made up of ex-gaming operators and investors
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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 Lancaric
Special guests: Uladzimir Tsimashkou & Ridzki Syahputera
https://www.linkedin.com/in/ridzkisyahputera/
[Malpa Games Website] https://malpagames.com/
[Uladzimir Tsimashkou] https://www.linkedin.com/in/tsimox/
[Malpa Games LD] https://www.linkedin.com/company/malpagames/
Join our slack channel here: https://join.slack.com/t/two-and-half-gamers/shared_invite/zt-2um8eguhf-c~H9idcxM271mnPzdWbipg
Chapters
00:00 – Why Cardscapes Is Exploding
02:00 – Malpa’s 10-Year Production Philosophy
06:00 – 90%+ Ad Monetization Strategy
10:00 – Why Puzzle Ad Tolerance Is So High
14:00 – Scaling with AppLovin ROAS
18:00 – Why Facebook Doesn’t Work Here
21:00 – Incentivized Traffic & Ad Tuning
26:00 – Cohort Financing with PVX Partners
30:00 – Why Scale Increases Ad Margins
34:00 – Retention vs Monetization Tradeoffs
38:00 – Final Lessons for Founders
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Matej Lancaric
User Acquisition & Creatives Consultant
https://lancaric.me
Felix Braberg
Ad monetization consultant
https://www.felixbraberg.com
Jakub Remiar
Game design consultant
https://www.linkedin.com/in/jakubremiar
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Please share feedback and comments - matej@lancaric.me
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