Golden TWIG 2025: My Nominations
Golden TWIG season is back, and it's time to make your voice heard! (As long as you vote for my nominations 😈).
Talk of the Year: Roblox’s continued growth.
Roblox is the most dynamic sector of gaming, bar none.
DAU growth at this scale, with T1 growth, and flat APRU is breathtaking. Likely 1 in 5 U.S. and Canadian kids play every day (26M DAU, ~15M U13 DAU, 80M U13 kids).
The success of Steal a Brainrot, Rivals, and Grow a Garden proves there's a ton of movement at the top of the charts, and you can build real, sustainable businesses on a platform. Roblox's share price reflects this, and there's still room to grow. In fact, growth is accelerating.
The aging-out question deserves a lot of scrutiny, and the new verified age will appear in the disclosed metrics, giving us a more accurate sense of whether players are growing out of the platform and graduating to platforms like UEFN.
Correction of the Year: InZOI.
I wanted this to work. I wanted a credible challenger to The Sims that proved there was room for a new life-Sims thesis at scale. I knew this would face many challenges, as EA has built a very special distribution network with its players, usually directly. The game lacked the localization and player empathy needed to win in such a specialized market.
I still believe in the thesis, and I hope a Western studio will take a shot at it. I think they misread the very particular female demo that supported the Sims in the West.
Most Damage Received: Lilith.
I covered this in a prior post, but ultimately, Lilith has fallen tremendously, even with accounting for webstores. 4x is at an all-time high, and Lilith hasn't been able to keep focus, instead wasting time on Fartlight 84, which got another relaunch, and AFK Journey, which was launched into a squad RPG market that's collapsed to the rise of 4x.
The most unfortunate part is that they have all the tools in their portfolio to refocus on their core 4x properties and innovate those instead. Start focusing on Palmon!
Most Disappointing Game: Rainbow Six Siege X.
A relaunch is supposed to reset the franchise, but Siege X seems to welcome a historic decline. It failed to meaningfully expand the audience, failed to re-energize the core, and ultimately felt like an expensive acknowledgement that the franchise is boxed in by its own legacy constraints. That’s not what a relaunch is for.
Mice Nuts: CloverPit.
CloverPit is certified Mice Nuts, pulling in under $10M. But ultimately, it is the roguelike take on Bellatro that slots should have gotten a decade ago. This is ripe for Habby or a more ambitious social casino company to continue pushing the genre forward by poaching another from Steam.
Skeptical Move: Royal Kingdom.
Dream is an innovative organization, and that’s precisely why this launch puzzled me. The sequel thesis assumed compounding benefits that the genre no longer guarantees, while the positioning felt misaligned with where real growth in puzzle was actually happening. This wasn’t a bad execution problem, and was instead a structural bet I don’t think the market wanted.
Brilliant Move: Scopely acquiring Niantic.
Scopely is now the Go company, and ultimately, Monopoly Go and Pokémon Go have helped cover up many weaknesses in the broader portfolio. I covered this earlier, but Stumbleguys hasn't materialized in a lot of the acquisitions. The flurry of them before Savvy's acquisition seemed largely to have stagnated.
The great part is that none of this matters anymore. With these two franchises composing more than 80% of revenue, it's all Scopely needs to succeed. Meaning that games like Star Trek: Fleet Command and Marvel Strike Force are okay to be pushed to the side.
If the rumors that an ambitious cross-platform game from Scopely is true, it feels like a distraction from what should be continuing to double down on these key franchises and cloning them instead.
You Crushed It: Grow a Garden.
Grow a Garden proved that new breakout hits can still emerge on UGC platforms, not just survive on legacy momentum. It's undoubtedly true that the game has declined quite a bit, but it's still remained on the top-grossing charts for a long time and has very few developers. It reached ceilings we didn't even know were possible on Roblox. And Steal a Brainrot's one-two punch solidifies Grow a Garden's success as more than just a flash in the pan.
Limping Donkey: Dreamhaven.
We can be direct and unrelenting on This Week in Games because we want to see great game companies succeed. When Blizzard spinoffs started occurring, I actually got more excited, as I would have loved to see the creativity trapped within the studios go wild. Second Dinner absolutely delivered on this, but every other studio has been a letdown. Dreamhaven seemed to be the biggest one directly managed by Mike Morhaime. But like Belichick at UNC, it feels like the game has passed them by, reminding everyone how hard this is.
Now it’s your turn. Vote, disagree loudly, and leave comments!