"Reduced the amount of overtime by 20 times," said Alexander Lyubchenko from Kosmos Games about the results of 2024

We continue to review the results of 2024 alongside top managers and experts in the gaming industry (and related sectors). Up next is an interview with Alexander Lubchenko, CMO at Kosmos Games.

How was the year for your company? What achievements would you like to highlight?

The year 2024 was particularly successful for our company. We developed a strategy that allowed us to grow during this challenging time for the industry. As a result, we achieved new heights across various areas.

Firstly, we launched two new games on the market, which quickly secured leading positions on the Facebook Gaming* platform. Yes, yes, on social networks that many have forgotten and written off. They are alive, well, and developing. Now, in our Facebook Gaming* portfolio, we have three top-grossing leaders in their genres—Solitaire Social, Mahjong Social, and Yatzy Social. All three games occupy the 8th, 19th, and 49th positions in the grossing ranking of the entire platform. Notably, the last two were released only this year and have outperformed long-standing competitors in terms of revenue.

Secondly, our product teams have incredibly enhanced the monetization layer through advertising. The high retention of our products significantly boosted advertising revenue and overall LTV.

Yatzy Social

Launching a publishing direction on Facebook Gaming* opened new opportunities for collaboration with other developers and expanded our product portfolio, also providing our partners with opportunities for additional monetization of their products. Having worked in this market for a long time, we have developed our unique technologies and processes, allowing us to strategically lead products to become genre leaders. Currently, we are publishing three new third-party games, refreshing our game catalog with new high-quality products.

Moreover, for the first time at the strategic level, we included well-being as an important development focus throughout the company. And this isn't about virtual and hype-driven work-life balance and the like, but about real actions. We understand that to achieve ambitious goals, it's important to maintain productivity and team spirit. We managed to achieve two very cool results.

Firstly, we increased planning accuracy by 73%.

Secondly, the amount of overtime reduced by almost 20 times!

And all of this while the teams' productivity grew over the year!

By the way, there used to be an issue with accumulated leave, with some team members not taking their vacations. As a result, we managed to reduce unused vacations and their accumulation by 1.5 times. This was all thanks to improved planning and emphasizing the importance of timely rest for the physical and mental well-being of the entire team.

Mahjong Social

How has the gaming market situation changed from your perspective?

In 2024, some growth was anticipated in the global gaming market.

Newzoo forecasts a revenue of $189.3 billion, which is 2.9% higher than last year’s figures. That's much more positive than the 0.6% the year before. But the factors for this increase are barely related to our usual growth driver—the mobile market. It is expected to grow to just $78 billion (+1.6%). The main reasons for growth are:

• the rise in sales of console and PC games;
• the continuation of post-COVID recovery;
• further development of Game-as-a-Service and a strong focus on LiveOps for existing games;
• expansion of the gamer audience, especially in developing regions (this contributed more to overall market growth than revenue growth).

It's worth separately highlighting the growing interest in the iGaming niche, which has become a distinct and noticeable segment of the market.

Mahjong Social

Many companies encountered challenges related to the declining effectiveness of their marketing. To me, it looks like almost a horizontal revenue line, yet with constantly increasing marketing expenses. This led to reduced interest in M&A deals, as companies in weaker positions found selling less attractive, with many still recalling the multipliers from the COVID era.

We also see that major studios have been choosing safer strategies, avoiding the release of new games, preferring sequels of already successful titles in the market. Franchises are accommodating, as it expands interaction points with their audience, attracting new gamer audiences.

Nonetheless, there were significant deals in 2024. Besides the acquisition of Scopely for $4.9 billion, the purchase of Activision Blizzard by Microsoft is noteworthy. The deal, worth $68.7 billion, initiated in 2022, was finally completed in 2024, marking the largest in gaming industry history. Another highlight was Sony Interactive Entertainment's acquisition of studio Bungie for $3.6 billion.

These events indicate ongoing market consolidation, where major companies aim to strengthen their positions. Unfortunately, restructuring and layoffs will inevitably be part of such events.

Mahjong Social

How was the year for the genre in which you work?

We work in very popular and established genres of casual games. Nevertheless, we have intentionally entered instant and web games, where the ocean isn't as red as in mobile. We notice other developers also bringing their products outside of mobile, expanding their distribution channels. This is generally good, as it enhances the appeal of catalogs with new quality products, which in turn grows the player audience beyond traditional mobile platforms. This is also facilitated by the recently introduced iOS payments on Facebook Gaming*.

However, looking at solitaire and mahjong genres in Google Play and App Store, nothing new has happened—rather the opposite. Many, even large companies, couldn't withstand competition with long-time genre leaders and froze projects. For instance, the popular and well-revenue-generating solitaire Tri Peaks yielded to the long-time genre leader Solitaire Grand Harvest by Playtika. This is clearly visible in the numbers and the sharp shift from growth to decline in other solitaires.

Solitaire Grand Harvest, back in 2020, out of solitaire's $238 million IAP revenue earned $168 million, i.e., 70%. Similarly, for the 11 months of 2024, out of a total box office of $280 million, it bagged $197 million, again 70%, yet the remainder was split among a much larger number of games than in 2020. We observe a similar situation in all established genres with clearly defined leaders. This isn't necessarily bad, as it forces other developers to come up with new hybrid genres, thereby advancing the industry.

Solitaire Social

What trends in your niche do you expect to strengthen or emerge in 2025?

We anticipate the strengthening of several key trends that will shape the development of the gaming industry.

Continued growth of cross-platform games

Players continue to venture beyond a single platform, valuing the ability to play on different devices without losing progress. This will positively impact web and social network games as well.

Increasing focus on content personalization

Games will offer deeper customization options tailored to individual preferences and user behavior. This includes visuals and adaptive game mechanics that adjust to each player's style. The development of AI and intensified competition push developers in this direction.

Growing popularity of cloud gaming

Cloud technology will allow players to access games without the need for powerful hardware, further expanding the audience and simplifying access to quality products from anywhere in the world. Given the growth of the gaming market primarily through console and PC games, this is an extremely important lever in their development, allowing them to break free from the constraints of having a particular console at home.

Mahjong Social

What are the company's plans for the upcoming year?

The plans for the next year are ambitious. They are aimed at further strengthening our position in the web and social gaming market:

Expanding the game portfolio

We plan to release several new projects.

Developing the publishing direction

We aim to attract even more new partners and developers with great quality games to offer diverse and quality games to our users.

Investments in technology

The development of our technology solutions will allow us to create more innovative and competitive products and reduce dependence on sometimes unpredictable external solutions. We continuously implement AI to enhance the gaming experience and increase the efficiency of all our teams, from the back office to marketing.

Increasing revenue

Working with the existing company game portfolio and expanding it is yielding results. We will continue actively pursuing this in the new year, including developing the publishing direction.

Conclusion

The year 2024 has been a year of significant changes, achievements, and growth for our company. We are grateful to our wonderful team, partners, and users for their support and trust. May the force be with us.

Solitaire Social

*The social network is banned in Russia.