VPlay Blog
Game guides, gaming history & industry insights.
Latest posts
Eight Ball Pool Strategy Basics Most Players Skip
Most people learn pool the same way: someone shows them how to hold a cue, explains that you have to pot your group of balls before the eight, and then leaves them to figure out the rest by trial and
Nigeria's Mobile Gaming Surge and the Myth of the "Next Billion" Player
"The next billion users" is one of those phrases that has been recycled so many times across so many tech sectors that it's stopped meaning much of anything specific. It gets attached to India, to Ind
The Hidden Cost of App Store Discovery
For most of the last fifteen years, the 30% cut Apple and Google take on app store transactions has been treated as a fixed cost of doing business, the way a retail tenant treats rent — annoying, occa
Why Carrom Never Made It Big Outside South Asia (And What That Says About Cultural Games)
Here's a question that doesn't have a clean answer, and it's worth admitting that upfront rather than pretending otherwise: nobody really knows exactly where carrom came from. The most commonly repeat
Brazil's Casual Gaming Boom Is Bigger Than the Headlines Suggest
The number everyone quotes about Brazil is the download rank. It shows up in nearly every market report on mobile and casual gaming: Brazil sits consistently in the global top five for app and game do
A Beginner's Guide to Online Chess Strategy: Five Openings Worth Learning
Most chess advice for beginners starts in the wrong place. It tells you to "control the center" or "develop your pieces" without ever showing you what that actually looks like on a board, move by move
How Turkish Game Studios Quietly Took Over the Match-3 Genre
Match-3 looked like a settled genre for most of the last decade. Candy Crush had won, King had been acquired by Activision Blizzard for $5.9 billion in 2016, and the conventional wisdom in mobile gami
Why the Philippines Has Become Southeast Asia's Most Underrated Mobile Gaming Market
Ask most people in the gaming industry to name Southeast Asia's biggest mobile market and they'll say Indonesia, almost reflexively, because the population number is the easiest fact to remember. Ask
Rewarded Ads Are Eating the Interstitial's Lunch, And Players Are Happier For It
Ask anyone who has shipped a casual mobile or web game in the last five years what they actually think of interstitial ads, and you'll usually get the same answer once they stop being diplomatic about