Mobile Game Deconstructions

Since 2012, I have been taking apart the games and companies that shape our industry to understand why they win, where they stumble and what the rest of us can learn from them. Every mobile game deconstruction on Deconstructor of Fun is written by people who build and run games, including operators from Supercell, Zynga and Rovio, so the focus is on the systems, economies and business decisions behind the numbers. Pick a genre below, with the newest teardowns at the top of each section.

Match-3, Puzzle and Merge

Just Dessert vs. Gossip Harbor: Who Merged It Better? (2026)
How Toon Blast Became the Best Business in Puzzle (2026)
Does Merge-2 Monetize Better Than Match-3? (2026)
Supercell's Puzzling Gamble, Scopely’s War on Clones, and the Royal Kingdom Problem (2026)
The Making of Match 3D (2026)
Pixel Flow and the Rise of Sort Puzzles (2026)
The Screw Puzzle Gold Rush (2026)
Pixel Flow: The Publisher's Dream (2026)
Sort Puzzles: How a New Subgenre is Born (2026)
The Post-Block Blast Playbook (2026)
Mobile Dreams of Hollywood: Inside Royal Kingdom’s Celebrity Blitz (2025)
Why Some Puzzle Games are More Addicting Than Others? (2025)
The Sweet Art of Feature Adaptation (2024)
Daily Missions in Puzzles: Why should we see them more often? (2024)
Time Blast: Will it revive the Rest of the Genre? (2024)
Finding Genre Success: the Case of Gossip Harbor (2024)
Win Streak: the Gift That Keeps on Giving (2024)
Royal Kingdom: Will It Outgrow Its Big Brother’s Influence? (2024)
AppLovin's Modern Community and The Power of Game Narrative (2024)
7 Ways to Drastically Improve Your LiveOps: Learning from Clockmaker (2024)
Tile Busters: Leaving The Reddest Ocean To Find A Blue Spot (2023)
How To Overcome Post-Launch Slump - The Case of Merge Garden (2023)
The Zen Match Case: How a First Mover Fell Behind (2023)
Tile Match: The new Match-3 or the new Merge? (2023)
Chrome Valley Customs - Can a Male Audience and a Puzzle Game Be a Match? (2023)
Iteration over Innovation? Case: Makeover Match (2023)
Royal Kingdom: Will it Usurp the Throne or Just be a Royal Relative? (2023)
How Wooga's Switchcraft Aced the Soft Launch! (2022)
Royal Match - The New King from Turkey? (2021)
How EverMerge Made $50M in just 7 Months (2020)
Can Hay Day Pop Solve the Puzzle? (2020)
Matchington Mansion - You Won't Believe the Truth (2019)
How Disney Tsum Tsum Made over a Billion Dollars (2018)
Toon Blast and the Death of Saga (2017)
Can Capcom's Puzzle Fighter Deliver a K.O? (2017)
Gardenscapes : One Big Pivot to Success (2017)
Supercell's Spooky Pop and the Six Rules of a Hit Puzzle Game (2015)
How Jelly Splash beats Candy Crush Saga in monetization (2013)
Growth Hacking Criminal Case (2013)
6 Reasons why Pet Rescue Saga isn't the next Candy Crush Saga (2013)
Beating Candy Crush Saga (2013)
Deconstructing Bubble Safari (2012)

Casual, Hybrid-casual and Simulation

HABBY’s Hybridcasual Empire: The Template That Built a Powerhouse (2025)
The Magic Behind Magicabin’s ARPDAU (2025)
Supercell's Everdale: a Genre Definer or a Pretty-Looking Social Appointment System? (2021)
How Playrix' Township Became a Billion Dollar Game (2020)
How Archero Shot to the Top, and How You Can Do Better (2019)
5 Ways Voodoo Dominates the Hyper-Casual Market (2018)
What Pokemon GO Can Learn from Jurassic World Alive (2018)
3 Reasons Why Sims Mobile Misses the Mark: In-depth Analysis (2018)
Love Nikki - a Dress-Up Game to Rule Them All (2018)
Design Home and the Art of Monopoly (2017)
Animal Crossing Pocket Camp - Can an Old Dog Learn New Tricks? (2017)
Merge Town: Rise of Hyper Casual (2017)
How Angry Birds 2 Multiplied Revenues in a Year (2017)
Paid or Freemium: The Case of Super Mario Run (2017)
Why Fallout Shelter Popped and Dropped (2015)
SimCity BuildIt: A Nice Town, But Would You Want to Move In? (2015)
How Kim Kardashian: Hollywood Made the A-List (2015)
Why Plants vs. Zombies 2 Can't Make It To the Top (2013)
Behind the Success of Hay Day (2013)
Where's My Water and the Art of Selling Paid Content (2012)

RPG, Gacha and Card Battlers

The Magic of ‘Legend Of Mushroom’ (2024)
Marvel Snap - The Definitive Deconstruction (2023)
Why Marvel Snap became a hit and for how long will it remain one? (2022)
Will Dislyte become Lilith’s third billion Dollar hit? (2022)
The Lost Ark Has Found its Way (2022)
How Cookie Run Bakes its Monster Revenue (2022)
Can Playrix' Puzzle Breakers Crack Zynga's Empires & Puzzles? (2020)
Riot's Runeterra Declares War Against Blizzard's Hearthstone (2019)
AFK Arena - Hail to the New King of RPGs (2019)
Empires & Puzzles - From a Failing Company to a $700M Acquisition in a Year (2019)
Disney Heroes - A Solid RPG That Tests the Limits of an IP (2018)
Dragalia Lost - Meet Nintendo's New Cash Dragon (2018)
How Idle Heroes made $100M in a Year (2018)
LEGENDARY: Game of Heroes - a Master Class in Live Operations (2018)
How Fire Emblem Heroes Made $100M from 10M Installs (2017)
TRANSFORMERS: Forged to Fight - A Game Worth Paying $750M For? (2017)
4 Reasons Why You Want To Quit Playing Hearthstone (2017)
How One Event Shot Dokkan Battle into #1 Top Grossing (2017)
Galaxy of Heroes - Full Deconstruction of EA's Death Star (2016)
How Kabam's Contest of Champions Made $100 Million in Seven Months (2015)
How Puzzle & Dragons Does It (2013)
How Rage of Bahamut Monetizes (2012)

Strategy, 4X and Mid-core

Shooters, Battle Royale, MOBA and Action

Social Casino and Board Games

Sports, Racing and Music

Platforms, UGC and Console

Apps and Gamification

Web3 and Blockchain Games

Game Systems and Monetization Case Studies

Company Deconstructions

How Playtika's best game became its biggest headache (2026)
Supercell: Still Shipping, Still Learning, Still Compounding (2026)
How Voodoo Builds Hits: Four Product Lessons from a 2000-Prototypes-a-Year Machine (2025)
AppLovin: The Apex Predator (2025)
Supercell's Record Year: Crushing It, But At What Cost? (2025)
From $1B to $10B in 5 Years - Scopely’s Journey to Mobile Game Success (2024)
Voodoo’s Secret Sauce: From 0 to 250M Hybridcasual Revenue in 3 Years (2024)
The Uncomfortably Comfortable Supercell Talk (2024)
What’s next for Rovio? 7 Questions that Paint the Picture (2023)
The 8 Things Supercell is Doing to Level Up (2023)
The Case of Playrix and why Product-Market fit is a Moving Target (2023)
Why Rovio is Such a Juicy Catch (2023)
Playtika goes from social casino to casual - and that’s not good (2022)
What is Valve’s strategy? (2022)
Deconstructing Unity (2020)
Epic's $18B Valuation: Too High or Too Low? (2020)
Zynga vs. Supercell - How One Ascended and the Other Declined (2020)
Does Tencent Hate Riot? (2020)
AppLovin - Poster Boy of Vertical Integration (2020)
10 Years of Excellence - Deconstruction of Supercell (2020)
Mobile Publishing #1: Deconstructing Scopely's path to $1B (2019)
EA Mobile: Can the Giant Climb to the Top? (2017)
Has King Peaked? (2017)