Moon Active takes aim at Scopely, Roblox opens doors to Major IPs, and Rollic’s $100m hit | Week in Views

• Moon Active soft launched Coin Master – Board Adventure challenging Scopely’s Monopoly Go.
• Roblox’s License Manager grants easier access to Major IPs such as Stranger Things.
• Rollic tests over 1000 ideas a month leading to polished hits like Color Block Jam.

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The games industry moves quickly and while stories may come and go there are some that we just can’t let go of…

So, to give those particularly thorny topics a further going over we’ve created a weekly digest where the members of the PocketGamer.biz team share their thoughts and go that little bit deeper on some of the more interesting things that have happened in mobile gaming in the past week.

Moon Active takes on Scopely with Monopoly Go-like Coin Master – Board Adventure

I love a good games industry rivalry and this week Moon Active stepped up to the plate. And it has Scopely square in its sights.

As PocketGamer.biz spotted this week on AppMagic, the developer has soft-launched Coin Master – Board Adventure on Google Play in the Philippines.

The title marks the first expansion of the multi-billion dollar blockbuster that is Coin Master (not counting Zoo Master). But even more interesting is how Moon Active is taking the fight to Scopely.

Monopoly Go has been the biggest mobile launch of the past few years, racking up more than $5 billion as of May 2025. The title, which went through years in development and a reboot, stripped core gameplay elements of Coin Master – the raid mechanics and village building – and added the classic board game on top of it.

Monopoly Go then ate Coin Master’s lunch. Don’t worry, both games still make a lot of money.

Now Moon Active is returning the favour – it’s ripping the board game and dice roll style from Scopely for its own title.

Who knows how successful this will be. For all its enormous success, Coin Master is not the Monopoly IP. But Moon Active knows how to scale hits – it now has a few in its locker, including Travel Town, last year’s most lucrative merge game.

I’ll be grabbing the popcorn for this clash of titans.

Roblox License Manager hands creators major IP for games

Roblox’s License Manager removes a big hurdle for smaller creators to work with some major IPs, making the whole thing far less time consuming.

Rather than needing to learn all the aspects of working with an IP, potentially getting lawyers involved that then spend months of back-and-forth to work out an agreement, Roblox creators now have a more streamlined way to gain the rights to work with select IPs.

This isn’t to say it won’t still have its challenges, but it’s an exciting prospect for indies and smaller teams, who perhaps wouldn’t have thought to try and gain the rights to these IPs before or did try but at great expense of time and effort. 

The License Manager is in its early stages and is currently with just a few IPs to work with. I do also wonder how the revenue split works if you get access with one of the selected IPs and how much freedom you have with what you get to create. 

While there may still be some uncertainty around how everything will fall into place, a system that simplifies the process of working with big names presents a unique opportunity for both creators and IP holders. 

Essentially, they gain a whole host of people wanting to create with their IP, requiring minimal direct involvement. I’ll be watching how the License Manager evolves over time and I’d be intrigued to hear what creators make of actually using it.

If you’re looking for a broader look at the UGC space and its place in the industry, check out our recent newsletter and test yourself to see if you can name the top five games on Roblox and Fortnite right now.

How Rollic scored a $100m hybridcasual hit by ideating 1,000 games a month

Rollic’s Color Block Jam has achieved record-breaking player spending for the studio, making $100 million plus ad revenue and proving the payoff of its shift from hypercasual to hybridcasual.

I spoke with Rollic’s vice president of gaming Utku Erdinç to learn more about the company’s evolving strategy, how it defines hybridcasual, and to gain deeper insight into what’s made Color Block Jam such a hit.

In the process, I also learned about the game’s strong D90 retention and how it fulfills a niche for veteran gamers of the puzzle genre, with its difficulty intrinsically linked to its fun factor for many.

Apparently, Rollic ideates more than a thousand games per month and tests hundreds of prototypes over that same period. At this pace, it’s little surprise that the games that reach full launch are so fine-tuned.

And, it’s also no surprise that there are more titles in the pipeline, including a tease of projects with licenced IP.