By now, we’ve built strong internal expertise, especially in idle games and adjacent genres, but it’s not always been this way. When we were just getting started, we didn’t have a sharp focus. We tried everything, from 2D racing to farming sims. That experience gave us a solid foundation: we got to know the market from the inside and tried every trick it had to offer.

Over time, though, we figured out what really moves the needle.

Our logic

If you want to grow real value, you can’t just stick to publishing. You need to back studios, explore different genres, build up your in-house know-how — and make sure you’re not spreading yourself too thin.

We take it one step at a time, not with sweeping decisions. Idle games with a mostly male audience are where we’ve built up real expertise. Merge-2 targets a very different crowd, so it’s not our key focus just yet.

Right now, our portfolio includes idle-merge (Gold & Goblins), idle-tycoon (Lumber Empire), idle-RPG (Idle Outpost), and more. We keep an open mind, but only if we can bring real value to the table for both the studio and the publisher.

The idea is simple: we apply what we know. If a project is close to our area of expertise, we can help it go further. But that doesn’t mean making copy-paste idle games over and over. We know where the market ceiling is.

How to build synergy

If a studio comes to us with deep knowledge of a different genre — say, tower defense — and there’s potential for synergy, that’s where new success stories begin. Genre-mixing is so exciting to us, and we’d love to work on something that would combine idle with TD. We’ve already seen this work in our own games, like Idle Outpost and Gold & Goblins, where we layered different-genre mechanics and saw strong market response. There’s real potential there.

Of course, not all genres mix well. Some combos are just too much of a stretch. A team that’s only worked on Match-3 games probably isn’t the best fit for building a hybrid idle game — not because they lack talent, but because the design mindset is too different. In that case, we’d rather both sides stick to what they do best.

Why we experiment with genres

There are many teams who still believe that cloning a hit game guarantees at least a slice of the original’s success.

But in reality, it usually plays out the opposite way.

The more popular the original, the harder it is to replicate its results, because players aren’t looking to have the same experience twice. They want something new. Something that feels fresh. Something they’ve never seen or played before. And that rule applies across the board, whether it’s games, movies, restaurants, or music.

Sure, you can operate within the same genre, that makes sense. But you still need a hook, a twist, something that sets you apart. Think about Avatar. It made billions. If it were that easy, studios would just re-shoot the same story with different creatures and cash in. But they don’t, because copycats don’t perform like originals. The first few clones might break even, but most end up forgotten.

Successful cloning is never about blind copying. It’s about breaking a game down, understanding why players loved it, how its balance works, and what actually made it engaging, and then giving players a clear reason to choose your version instead. From there, the goal is to rebuild the experience with stronger execution: better look and feel, smoother UX, and a more modern, polished presentation. 

The broader your market awareness and exposure, the easier it becomes to spot strong cores — and combine mechanics in smart, organic ways.

When to let go of the project

On the other end of the spectrum are studios that polish the same project for years — rewriting systems, rebuilding balance, adding features, changing themes — chasing a breakthrough in metrics that never comes. 

And that’s the trap: teams double down on a game that just won’t scale, burning time, energy, and money. We’ve seen it lead to studio closures — not because of a bad idea, but because no one wanted to let go of it. Sometimes it’s better to stop and shift focus. But it’s hard to admit the horse you’re riding won’t finish the race.

That’s why real progress comes from taking smart risks. From building things that haven’t been done before, but doing it with the right foundation. That’s the bravery every studio and publisher should have if they want to hit it big.

And when something doesn’t work, the key is to treat it as what it is: experience, and it never comes without mistakes. If you can actually learn from it, then you’re already ahead. Because success in games isn’t luck. It’s persistence plus iteration.