Today I’m joined by Adam Jaffe, a mobile gaming marketer with nearly two decades in the industry. He was Playtika’s 10th employee and Head of User Acquisition, and later served as VP of Marketing at Social Point.

We talked about why organic growth in mobile gaming has become so much harder, where studios should be looking for new users now, and why pouring more money into marketing won’t save a product that isn’t ready to scale.

If you’re building, marketing or running a mobile game business and want a clearer picture of where the market is heading, this episode is for you.

Connect with Adam:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/adjaffe/
Website: www.trofeo.io
Live Trofeo demo: play.trofeo.io/play

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LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/phokou/
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@HivemindWorld
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/hphokou/

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Chapters:00:00 Intro
04:14 How mobile gaming changed from the early days
08:14 How ATT and IDFA changed mobile user acquisition
13:32 Why organic growth and virality disappeared
19:30 Why media platforms now hold the power
23:25 Why mobile game studios have less room to fail
29:19 Risk aversion, layoffs and the cost of playing safe
32:25 Where mobile games get users in 2026
35:33 How rewarded traffic actually works
41:26 How to make rewarded user acquisition work
44:54 CTV as the next mobile marketing frontier
46:37 Mobile game monetization beyond traditional ads
56:53 Premium vs free-to-play mobile games
59:43 Why marketers need to understand the game itself
01:01:29 Aligning product and marketing around ROAS
01:05:16 Don’t let marketing get ahead of your product