Hot Five: Loom Games' $1bn exit, Scopely’s 15th anniversary, and Kingshot’s $800m first year

To help get you primed and ready for another week in mobile gaming, we’ve curated the biggest stories you need to know from the last seven days.

1) What Loom Games' $1bn exit with 20 people tells us about the future of game studio hiring

Values Value founder Tanja Loktionova analysed Scopely’s acquisition of a majority stake in Loom Games and what this says for the future of games studio hiring.

The studio behind Pixel Flow! drew in more than 10 million players in its first few months with a team size of only around 20 people.

2) Google Play rolls out Game Trials so players can try full paid games before purchasing

Google Play announced a new set of features at GDC, aimed at improving how players discover, purchase and play games on mobile and PC.

This includes the launch of Game Trials, allowing players to try the full version of certain paid games before committing to a purchase. If they do go ahead with a purchase, in-game progress will carry over.

3) Kingshot’s first year: $800m, 11 months of growth, but backlash from whales

Century Games’ Kingshot celebrated its first anniversary with over $800 million in player spending between Google Play and the App Store.

The title saw 11 consecutive months of growth and has earned over $1m every day since May 15th, 2025. However, the final month of its first year saw Kingshot’s first monthly decline, which coincided with some backlash from fans.

4) Squid Game: Unleashed dev Boss Fight Entertainment relaunches as indie studio Bossfight

After Netflix shut down Boss Fight Entertainment in 2025, its original founders have relaunched as an independent studio called Bossfight.

The studio is led by CEO David Rippy, chief product officer Bill Jackson and COO Scott Winsett.

5) Scopely celebrates 15 years with more than $15bn in lifetime revenue

Scopely revealed various internal metrics to celebrate its 15th anniversary.

The publishing giant has generated over $15 billion in lifetime revenue, 2bn downloads and more than 150bn hours played, with 55% of Scopely’s player base playing every single day.