When we rolled out a custom-built company GPT to our 14,000 teammates several years ago, we saw three clear groups emerge. First, there was the 'jump-in-with-both-feet' crowd. These are the early adopters who treat anything new like a shiny toy. Next were the skeptics who wondered how much of an impact AI would have on their daily work lives. And finally, there was a big group that genuinely wanted to learn but didn't know where to start.
Mobile game developers have largely been locked into app store distribution as the primary way to reach players. RCS games live in the messaging inbox, the stickiest surface on mobile, where people are already spending huge amounts of time talking to friends and family. We're building on an interaction pattern people already use every day.
Scott Rogowsky is a comedian - he knows how to make fun of himself. That's how he ended up roaming New York City Comic Con with his own photo printed out like a "Wanted" poster, filming himself asking strangers, "Have you seen this man?" These passersby showed a flicker of recognition, looking at the tall, bearded man like someone they had known in a past life, but couldn't quite place.
The trial is taking place in the Los Angeles County Superior Court, where jury selection started on January 27. It's testing out a new legal theory intended to spur greater regulation of social media platforms like TikTok, Snap, YouTube, and Meta's Facebook and Instagram: Lawyers are gearing up to argue that the companies behind these platforms are designing their sites to be deliberately addictive, resulting in direct personal injury to users, especially children.
During my week-long binge, I played games that paused their own tutorials to run ads. I saw endless fake X icons and banners that hid the close button under the iPhone's Dynamic Island. Now, I'm not against ads, but I hate it when they feel like a penalty. I'm a gamer, and from what I've seen, PC and console games integrate ads much better. If mobile devs followed suit, mobile games might finally climb out of the mess they're in.
After launching almost three years ago, Meta's Threads is now reportedly attracting more daily mobile users than rival platform X. According to Similarweb data shared by TechCrunch, Threads has 141.5 million daily active iOS and Android global app users as of January 7th, compared to 125 million users for Elon Musk's mobile platform. Similarweb reports that Threads actually overtook X sometime between late October and early November after a consistent period of growth, meaning this milestone wasn't suddenly achieved in reaction to recent Grok-related controversies.
In-app is far from a lawless, unpopulated no man's land of advertising. In fact, the latest stats show it's actually where audiences are spending most of their time. In the UK for example, just over two and a half hours a day are spent in the in-app environment, compared with only 20 minutes on the mobile web. That's a staggering 90% of the time on mobile spent in apps - whether messaging, social media, music, or gaming. It's a huge opportunity.
MicroMacro: The Home Game Jigsaw Puzzle is a 500-piece puzzle that utilizes the same art style as all other MicroMacro titles. The puzzle depicts a socc....errrrr, a football game, as well as the neighborhood surrounding the stadium. It is "just" a puzzle; however, there is more to it after you complete it. There are forty-two hidden objects to find (think Where's Waldo?), as well as two cases to solve, like other MicroMacro games.
In the fintech vertical, where growth depends on trust, the decision to monetise through in-app advertising is a bold bet, one that could backfire if a bad ad experience undermines user confidence. But Toss, South Korea's leading fintech super app with over 25 million users, turned that risk into a major revenue win by implementing filters based on user-level relevance and using behavioural signals and first-party data to block disruptive or inappropriate ad categories.
Welcome to this week's batch of crowdfunding campaigns. We have a variety of offerings here, so we hope you will find something that catches your eye. Also, if you want to chat with the BGQ team, join our Discord Server where we talk about games, movies, sports, and other fun stuff. Or, if Facebook is more of your speed, join our BGQ Gamers Facebook Group. Check it out and come chat about board games with us!
More ads are coming to App Store search results starting in March, Apple shared on an advertising help page. The company first said that it would increase the number of App Store ads last month, and this new rollout of search ads will begin on Tuesday, March 3, according to a developer email viewed by MacRumors. "Search is the way most people find and download apps on the App Store, with nearly 65 percent of downloads happening directly after a search," Apple says.
After rolling out age verification last year, Roblox is aiming to grow the number of players over 18 on its platform. As noted in its 2025 year-end earnings report, 45 percent of Roblox's daily active users have completed an age check as of January 31st. Of those who have verified their age, 27 percent are adults. Roblox also reported that this age category is spending more money on its platform than users under 18.
The best new co-op games are those that do something a bit different, offering more than a single-player experience with another player thoughtlessly tacked on. These multiplayer games account for groups of friends all wanting their own role, with a shared goal in sight and plenty of chaos on the path to getting there.