Industry Trends
2 min read
By
Phil Mohr
CEO and Co-founder
Mar 25, 2025
Quieter Than Normal, But Powerful
We just got back from a packed week at GDC in San Francisco — Puli and I had nearly 50 meetings between us over the five days, I spoke on a panel with Amazon, and we co-hosted an extremely lively brunch with our friends from Deconstructor of Fun, Appcharge, and Solston, so we have a lot to tell you.
GDC felt quieter this year. Fewer crowds, less noise, but more focus. Maybe it’s because times are tough, including a lot of layoffs, and more competing conferences out there, or maybe in the boom years, too many folks came just to soak up the hype. This year, the energy felt different: grounded, purposeful. And in our case, the quality of meetings was better than ever.
Plus, it’s always a joy to go back to San Fran, where we meet our old Apple colleagues, get to know new games, and get a real sense of what’s happening in the gaming industry.
Here are our four key takeaways:
1. The Growth Loop Resonates
Across dozens of meetings, one idea kept landing with the teams we spoke to again and again. Growth isn’t driven by taking a myopic vantage point on one slice of the ecosystem, such as ‘first 30-day funnel optimization,’ ‘IAP personalization,’ ‘optimization of in-game ads,’ or the UA side of things. To deliver real growth, the vantage point needs a holistic, omniscient solution that can not only see, but optimize multiple variables at once. The Growth Loop.
At Metica, we talk a lot about connecting UA with what’s happening inside the game — and then using in-game behavior to predict LTV and feed it right back into your ad network decisions. That full feedback loop is what actually drives profitable scale. And the only way it’s truly possible is with AI.
Developers we spoke to aren’t just nodding along anymore — they get it and want to understand what they need to adapt or adopt to incorporate the Growth Loop. The industry is waking up to the idea that LTV is shaped by every decision: onboarding, monetization design, LiveOps, and creative strategy. Only optimizing one part, and you’re still leaving a lot on the table.
2. AI Chat Is More Sane At Last
Yes, the AI debate is still alive. But in person, it’s refreshingly sane, with less hype and more realistic thinking.
Online, it can feel like whiplash between hype and doomsday. At GDC, the tone was different: AI as a tool — a practical tool. One that helps solve real problems, whether that’s content generation, personalization, making sense of messy player data, or how we use it to deliver the Growth Loop.
Not everyone’s on board the AI train yet. But many teams are. The conversation is shifting from “Should we use AI?” to “How can we use it well?”
3. 4X Is Having a Moment
It was just striking to me the sheer number of exciting new 4x games. Something is clearly brewing. Maybe it’s a genre poised for a modern reinvention, or maybe it’s just a signal that strategy devs are rethinking proven formats in bold new ways. Either way, we’re watching closely.
4. The UA And Growth Environments Are Still Tough
Despite all the creativity on display, the underlying challenge remains: user acquisition is still hard. Funding growth is still hard. Applovin came up less than expected, and many teams are still figuring out how to scale efficiently.
From the conversations we had, explaining the positive benefits of feeding the pLTV signals back into the ad networks to gain better and broader audiences resonated very well.
To Wrap It Up
In conclusion, GDC is still a high quality event that’s definitely worth going to. It showed us that the industry is shifting gears.
We saw a deeper openness to AI — not as a magic bullet, but as a tool to make smarter, faster, and more adaptive decisions across the whole player journey. We heard teams grappling with how to unify insights across UA, gameplay, and monetization. And we saw real appetite for holistic approaches that break down the silos between game design and growth.
At Metica, that’s exactly the world we’re building for. The Growth Loop is more than a framework — it’s a recognition that the future of game growth won’t come from one lever, but from continuous, intelligent optimisation across many.
If you’re a studio pushing toward that future — if you’re done with guesswork and ready to grow with insight — we’d love to work with you.
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