two & a half gamers 💥 Creative THEFT era has begun. Direct 1:1 stolen ads perform 4-5x better. Would you run them?
This month’s creative trends episode exposes the real state of mobile UA:
We’ve officially entered the Era of Creative Theft 2.0 - not “heavily inspired,” but direct 1:1 stolen ads, chopped end cards, mirrored clips, watermarks still visible… and nobody cares because they convert 4-5× better.
Three mega-trends emerge:
1) The “Stolen but Performing” Era
• Social casino, idle, 4X… everyone is lifting creatives from other genres.
• Teams aren’t even recreating the concept - they’re copying the whole video, trimming it, mirroring it, or leaving the watermark.
• Networks don’t police it, platforms don’t care, and small studios can’t compete with the CPI gap.
2) The Golden Age of ASMR / Wood / Cleaning Satisfiers
• The “Idle Lumber” effect: anything with chopping, slicing, scrubbing, wood, logs, dust → crushing low CPI.
3) The King Shot → Royal Kingdom → Everyone Else Pipeline
• King Shot’s onboarding + mass battle + RTS-style transitions have reshaped the entire industry’s ads.
• Royal Kingdom straight-up used the formula for a match-3 playable.
• 4X games (Last War, Last Z, Total Battle) are adopting the mass-battle → puzzle fusion.
Key takeaway
The best-performing creatives aren’t the most original - they’re the most optimized. The industry now rewards speed, iteration, theft-based inspiration, and cross-genre pattern-breaking above everything else.
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This is no BS gaming podcast 2.5 gamers session. Sharing actionable insights, dropping knowledge from our day-to-day User Acquisition, Game Design, and Ad monetization jobs. We are definitely not discussing the latest industry news, but having so much fun! Let’s not forget this is a 4 a.m. conference discussion vibe, so let's not take it too seriously.
Panelists: Jakub Remiar, Felix Braberg, Matej Lancaric
Join our slack channel here: https://join.slack.com/t/two-and-half-gamers/shared_invite/zt-2um8eguhf-c~H9idcxM271mnPzdWbipg
Chapters
00:00 — Hook: The “Creative Theft Era” has arrived
01:30 — Missing a month & why trends feel different now
03:10 — ASMR cleaning & wood: why the motif is everywhere
05:20 — Exposed: 1:1 stolen creatives (no end cards, mirrored, trimmed)
08:40 — Why theft works: CPI vs LTV beats morals
11:50 — The ecosystem problem: no creative police, no consequences
14:30 — New industry rule: cross-genre stealing = normal
17:40 — King Shot → Royal Kingdom → Everyone copy
30:10 — The future: watermark creatives, mirror hacks, and AI hooks
43:00 — Wrap-up: where the creative meta goes next
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Matej Lancaric
User Acquisition & Creatives Consultant
https://lancaric.me
Felix Braberg
Ad monetization consultant
https://www.felixbraberg.com
Jakub Remiar
Game design consultant
https://www.linkedin.com/in/jakubremiar
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Please share feedback and comments - matej@lancaric.me