This is the first R&D report. Future reports will focus on specific questions commissioned by the CEO or CVO. This one establishes the baseline.
Market Overview
Simulation genre: 16.78% CAGR. Lowest CPI in mobile at $0.59 (avg across casual). Accounts for ~8% of casual mobile revenue. High-volume, moderate-LTV. The growth rate is real; the competition is arriving.
Strategy genre: 21.4% of mobile gaming revenue from ~4% of downloads. Strongly midcore-skewed. High-LTV, low-volume. The correct audience for premium mechanics and IAP depth.
Encubed’s target sits at the intersection: simulation depth, strategy complexity, midcore accessibility. That’s an underserved position.
Competitive Landscape — Startup Simulation
Direct competitors for The Unicorn Race:
| Title | Platform | Core Mechanic | Weakness |
|---|---|---|---|
| Idle Startup Tycoon | Mobile | Incremental numbers | No decisions, no consequence |
| My AI Company | Mobile | Idle with skin | Simulation depth: none |
| The Startup (RPG) | Mobile | Narrative, RPG-lite | Limited replayability, no prestige |
| Game Dev Tycoon | PC/Mobile | Tycoon, resource management | Domain is game dev, not startup broadly |
Gap: No mobile title offers decision-driven consequence as a core mechanic with a prestige loop. The closest analogue to what TUR is building doesn’t exist on mobile.
That’s either a greenfield opportunity or a signal that it doesn’t work. The Alpha will tell us which.
Signals by Genre Element
Prestige / Roguelike loops: Growing strongly. Slay the Spire, Hades, Into the Breach have demonstrated that failure-with-progress is a commercially proven structure. Mobile adoption is lagging PC but accelerating.
Narrative in casual: Merge Mansion, Lily’s Garden, and others have proven that narrative integration drives retention in games that wouldn’t classically be considered “story games.” Implication: events with genuine flavour text (what Fund and TUR are building) are commercially validated.
Anti-hero / villain protagonists: Papers Please ($3M+ on itch.io and Steam), Plague Inc. (mobile top-grosser), Tropico (PC) all demonstrate that moral complexity sells. The audience for The Algorithm and MegaMerger exists.
Merge mechanics: Merge Mansion’s success and subsequent imitators have validated the mechanic’s commercial viability. The R&D note for MegaMerger: the loop needs to transcend “combine things to make bigger things” to avoid competing with a crowded genre. The M&A angle does that — if the design can make it work.
Platform Economics
itch.io (browser launch): Low friction, developer-friendly audience, no review process. Ideal for Blazor WASM testing. Revenue split is 80/20 or better. Audience is indie-game-literate — useful for feedback, not necessarily representative of mainstream mobile market.
iOS App Store: 30% cut. Avg review time 24-48 hours. Freemium games reviewed differently from premium. No adult content restrictions apply to TUR’s current design.
Google Play: 15% cut for first $1M revenue. Faster review. More permissive on content. Relevant for The Algorithm — less regulatory surface than iOS.
CPI benchmarks (simulation): $0.59 average. Tier-1 markets (US, UK, DE, AU) run $1.20-$2.80. For a decision-driven simulation with strong narrative, expected above-average CPI but above-average LTV. Targeting 3:1 LTV:CAC at scale.
Implications for the Pipeline
| Concept | Signal | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| The Unicorn Race | Strong market gap | Decision-driven sim with prestige loop has no direct mobile competitor |
| Fund | Valid thesis | VC simulation untouched. Audience is smaller but high-LTV |
| The Algorithm | Timely, risky | Cultural moment is real. Regulatory risk on app stores is real. |
| Vesting | Unclear market | Employee POV games are rare — unclear if gap or signal |
| MegaMerger | Strong midcore angle | 21.4% strategy revenue, anti-hero proven. Loop definition needed |
Next R&D Briefs (Commissioned)
- Premium vs hybrid for narrative-led simulation — For The Algorithm greenlight decision
- Employee POV games audit — Does anything exist? What’s the ceiling?
- Blazor WASM performance on itch.io — Technical validation for TUR browser launch
Reports will be published here as completed.
— R&D Department, Encubed Games