The Ledger #2: PGC London Wrap and the Lunar New Year Push

Four items from the past week worth a UA team's attention, starting with the Lunar New Year UA campaigns already ramping across APAC.

Lunar New Year UA campaigns are ramping into 29 January

Lunar New Year falls on 29 January. APAC-facing publishers are already ramping seasonal creative packages and pushing spend through China-origin networks, Mintegral among them, ahead of the holiday, so expect elevated CPMs across APAC inventory through the final week of January as budgets front-load before the market slows over the holiday itself. What it means for buyers: lock in APAC creative variants and network allocations this week, not the week of the holiday itself, when review queues slow down regionally and so does account support.

PGC London closes with AI scepticism, not hype

Pocket Gamer Connects London wrapped its two-day run, and the loudest recurring theme was scepticism: how much generative AI in ad production is genuinely operational, and how much is manual work with a new label on it. Hybrid-casual drew no argument at all; the room treated it as the default model rather than a debate. What it means for buyers: treat any AI-production vendor pitch that references "the conversation at PGC" with a grain of salt. Press for throughput numbers, not demo footage.

Google Play verification friction keeps surfacing

Google Play's tightened developer verification requirements, part of its wider anti-fraud push, were among the most-discussed operational irritants at PGC London this week, particularly among publishers managing multiple studio entities or white-label arrangements. Friction compounds with every additional legal entity in a portfolio. What it means for buyers: audit which of your published apps sit under entities that haven't yet completed verification.

Hybrid-casual consolidation chatter picks up

Hallway conversation at PGC London kept returning to rising CPIs squeezing hyper-casual economics, with several attendees describing consolidation pressure on studios that haven't already made the hybrid-casual pivot. What it means for buyers: if your studio still runs a pure hyper-casual model, budget for the monetisation-layer build we outlined in The Hyper-Casual to Hybrid-Casual Pivot, a Creative Playbook; do it before another CPI cycle forces the decision for you.

The Ledger returns in a fortnight. By then this week's Lunar New Year UA campaigns will have run their course and earnings season will be starting to land.