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Branded content in the mobile games industry has become an increasingly popular strategy, one that, when executed well, can yield benefits for both parties.

One title partnering with external IPs is Playtika’s Solitaire Grand Harvest, which aims to utilise these licences not only to drive user acquisition, but enhance audience engagement.

With the release of The Smurfs movie in 2025, the developer saw an opportunity to expand its IP strategy. Rather than a one-time campaign, the collaboration has become a deeper part of the game.

“Solitaire is a timeless and classic game, but we are constantly looking for new ways to keep our players engaged and excited while reaching them in new ways,” says Solitaire Grand Harvest GM Roi Glazer.

“Partnering with other IPs who have their own dedicated fan bases keeps Solitaire Grand Harvest and all of Playtika’s games at the forefront of gaming innovation.”

IP partnerships that fit

Mobile games, in particular, have proven a popular choice for IP collaborations, whether with other games, movies or series. Part of the appeal is that many mobile games are free-to-play and support long-term live ops, making them a natural fit. 

In today’s market, players expect more from the partnerships and collaborations introduced into the games they play. These additions need to feel natural and provide enough content to keep players engaged rather than feeling like noise. For Playtika, this means treating each IP as its own character. 

“Players now expect branded content to feel like a shameless extension of the game world, not just a skin or a logo slapped on,” says Glazer. “The robust integrations must be meaningful, interactive and rewarding.”

The Smurfs partnership features character-driven missions, themed locations, and exclusive rewards that align with the building progression seen in Solitaire Grand Harvest. 

Regarding the IP selection process, Playtika looks not just at a brand’s data but also at its emotional appeal and how that property may be able to connect with players to spark recognition and nostalgia.

Glazer expands on choosing an IP for the game and explains that any partner must align with the gameplay DNA. He states that the team thinks of it like a puzzle and that the IP has to align with the spirit of Solitaire Grand Harvest, suiting its themes of being “relaxing, uplifting, and rich with discovery”.

The Smurfs IP explores themes around community and exploration, something Glazer says is a natural fit for the game.

“It starts with resonance,” he states. “We look at IPs with emotional staying power. Listening to how brands resonate with our players is essential, and they’ve repeatedly been all in on what we’ve brought to the game.”

Glazer points to previous collaborations with the likes of celebrity Sarah Jessica Parker, which has consistently driven the “right type of results” out of a partnership for the studio.

Celebrity partnerships are another collaboration that has become a massive trend in the mobile games industry, with some of the biggest names in Hollywood engaging with mobile advertising campaigns. 

Long-term vision

A successful IP partnership can be seen through increased user acquisition, longer play sessions, and an overall sense of excitement within the community.

Glazer shares that Playtika’s collaborations have “historically rallied the fan base of our partner as well as our own audience” and claims that the results have “consistently been a great success”.

Bringing globally recognised brands, such as the Smurfs, into a live game means managing expectations from both the IP holder’s side and the studio’s.

“Working with major IP holders like the Smurfs means collaborating with brands with decades of legacy and a passionate fanbase. So the bar is high, and rightly so,” he says. Glazer goes on to explain that the challenge lies in striking the balance between staying true to the essence of the IP and giving it room to shine.

What’s next

Glazer believes that we are entering a new phase in IP partnerships, one where brands don’t just appear in games but are fully immersed in them. 

“We’re moving from moment-based marketing to world-building,” he says.

“The next wave of IP partnerships will be more narrative-driven, longer lasting and interactive. Games are becoming the new stage for storytelling, and brands want in. Not as cameos, but as part of the world players live in.”

Solitaire Grand Harvest is a leader for IAP revenue in the highly competitive Solitaire genre, while Disney Solitaire from the recently acquired SuperPlay is off to a strong start.

Playtika’s Wooga studio had also recently been developing a Solitaire title in Claire’s Chronicles, but was ultimately cancelled. The decision led to approximately 50 layoffs, followed by another round of company redundancies largely impacting the Best Fiends and Redecor teams.

While Glazer doesn’t reveal what’s next to come for Solitaire Grand Harvest, he does share the title won’t be slowing down its experimentation anytime soon.

“Solitaire Grand Harvest is always thinking about the next best thing, from new game innovations to partnerships,” he says.

Ativion’s collaboration with NASEF will make it easier for schools to join esports leagues and access games using school networks and devices.

NEW YORK, June 16, 2025–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Ativion® and the Network of Academic and Scholastic Esports Federations (NASEF) have signed a partnership agreement to explore programs that will promote esports while making it easier for K-12 schools to safely access games and online resources. Through this collaboration, Ativion will work closely with NASEF’s experts on several technical initiatives for StudentKeeper, powered by ContentKeeper, an all-in-one platform for content filtering, classroom management, and digital safety. The partnership aims to give schools easier, safer access to the games and communities that are important to academic esports leagues and clubs. Ativion and NASEF will also participate in joint scholastic esports promotion and training programs.

NASEF is the leading global scholastic esports organization. NASEF supports leaders and youth to build career and professional skills through a unique blend of play and learning. Its frameworks for developing scholastic esports classes, clubs, and teams are used by tens of thousands of educators seeking to leverage the draw of gameplay for student impact.

“We are pleased to join with NASEF to make it easier and safer for schools and leagues to offer scholastic esports programs,” said Tobias Hartmann, CEO of Ativion. “Scholastic esports is an all-inclusive sports program available to every student, and it offers many benefits, academically and socially. We look forward to working closely with NASEF to make StudentKeeper a conduit for schools to grow their scholastic esports programs.”

“School leaders and educators are eager to adopt scholastic esports because of its proven positive impacts on student attendance, grades, test scores, and morale. Of course, it is important that they can access key gaming and information sites without compromising the security of the network. NASEF and Ativion are working together to make that safe access a simpler process,” said Claire LaBeaux, Chief Advancement Officer for NASEF.

StudentKeeper – which is built on Ativion’s award winning ContentKeeper filtering and real-time reporting platform – was released this year as a single platform for schools and school districts. StudentKeeper gives school administrators confidence that their hardware and network can manage threats to data, privacy, and the well-being of their students.

About Ativion

Ativion, formerly Impero Solutions, is a global leader in EdTech, Cybersecurity, and Remote Access solutions. Founded on the belief that all children deserve access to a safe digital environment that promotes positive learning, Ativion is dedicated to helping drive learning engagement worldwide. Our flagship product, StudentKeeper, Powered by ContentKeeper, creates a secure and flexible digital learning environment, fostering a love of learning in every child.

Story Continues

©Pokémon. ©Nintendo/Creatures Inc./GAME FREAK inc.
ポケットモンスター・ポケモン・Pokémonは任天堂・クリーチャーズ・ゲームフリークの登録商標です。

A YouTube spokesperson declined to share the specific number of Shorts-based partnerships recently signed by the company, but confirmed that YouTube is actively working to expand its internal brand partnership tools and build relationships with a wide range of third-party creator monetization vendors – all aimed at unlocking more revenue for Shorts creators.

“Our goal is to help creators better find opportunities to work with brands, which is why we are investing in our own solutions like YouTube’s BrandConnect and working with industry partners to help creators monetize across Shorts and beyond,” the YouTube spokesperson said.

Agentio and StreamElements’ partnerships with YouTube are not replacing BrandConnect — YouTube’s built-in influencer marketing platform — or other internal tools.

BrandConnect links creators with brands for sponsored content, but it is currently in its beta-testing phase and available only to a small group of invited creators. Initial invitations were offered to YouTubers with at least 25,000 subscribers, with YouTube featuring creators with millions of subscribers, such as Michelle Khare and Jasmine Brown, in BrandConnect promotional materials. However, using BrandConnect requires more effort, including creative briefs, approvals and reporting, and it can be difficult for creators to scale up their use of the tool. In contrast, ad revenue from Shorts is open to anyone in the YouTube partner program, but offers low payouts unless a creator gets millions of views. 

By integrating third-party creator monetization platforms, YouTube can potentially unlock more partnerships for smaller creators, tapping into the long tail for suitable advertisers. StreamElements CEO Or Perry told Digiday that “hundreds of thousands of creators” use the platform on an annual basis. By handling elements like creative briefs and editing logistics, platforms like StreamElements and Agentio aim to make branded content campaigns more manageable for both creators and advertisers.

“Creators on Agentio receive bids for long-form integrations from leading brands like DoorDash, Away, Turo, Tecovas, David Protein, Bombas,” said Agentio CEO Arthur Leopold. “These are brands that historically hadn’t spent with YouTube creators given the complexity involved in doing so — more so than even typical influencer partnerships.”

The YouTube spokesperson agreed that the partners are using “an ‘and’ approach of meeting creators where they are” by creating more monetization options for creators who want them — but declined to comment on exactly how many more creators would be able to monetize their Shorts through third-party partners. 

“Creators are drawn to the freedom platforms like StreamElements and Agentio offer: they can own their brand and monetize content with fewer brand-imposed constraints,” said Ogilvy associate director of connections strategy Ashley Bowling. “We expect brand-creator partnerships to grow in volume and creativity as tools like Agentio and StreamElements remove friction and enable more personalized deals.”

Creators hopeful about future Shorts monetization 

Creators view YouTube’s Shorts branded content push as a positive, believing it will help address some of their lingering concerns about the format. Creators’ RPMs — revenue earned per 1,000 views — for Shorts content are generally lower than the RPMs they can achieve through long-form content, and brand deals are an attractive way for creators to potentially make up for that income gap.

“Long-form monetization is 100 percent better; it’s more consistent,” said “Dungeons & Dragons” creator Zachery “ZachTheBold” Renauldo. “With Shorts, you get a peak, and then it falls off. You get paid X amount of money for those days, and it’s great — but it makes it so you have to keep posting frequently.”

The regularity of brand partnership revenue could also help assuage creators’ concerns over the relative inconsistency of the advertising revenue share they receive through viewership of their Shorts. In addition to the lower RPMs of short-form content on YouTube, creators such as foam dart blaster YouTuber Beret said that the opacity of the YouTube Shorts algorithm has made it more difficult to determine which Shorts would go viral, discouraging creators from investing more time and money into the format due to the ever-present chance that a Short might flop.

“I’ve realized that you never know which one might gain traction until you post the next one,” he said. “Guaranteed payment for a particular short would be cool.”

However, YouTube’s bid to make more brand deals available to Shorts creators is not all upside. “Magic: The Gathering” YouTuber MaldHound noted that the rise in branded content opportunities could lead some Shorts creators to prioritize quantity over quality, potentially decreasing the overall perception of the format.

“I think that it’s good overall, even though it will probably lead to more slop content, because people will be trying to pick them up, and because they’re small,” he said. “From a career perspective, you cannot invest days into scripting and shooting and reshooting a $50 partnership.”

A rising tide

Advertiser interest in YouTube Shorts has steadily grown over the past year. Seventy-five percent of Dentsu Creative UK’s creator-led campaigns in 2025 have included Shorts, according to CEO Jessica Tamsedge, who said that this represented a significant year-over-year increase but did not specify last year’s figure. 

“There’s a democratizing of creative stuff that’s going on there, and that definitely follows the trend of the increase in nano-influencers with smaller reach — more authentic, less polished, less scaled,” Tamsedge said. 

Kim Iadevaia, chief growth officer of the Publicis-owned influencer marketing agency Influential, said that adoption of YouTube Shorts was also picking up among her clients, although she declined to share specific numbers. She pointed out that YouTube has partnered with Influential and other agencies to grow advertiser awareness in Shorts since last year, although the company’s recent run of partnerships is focused more on scaling up direct brand deal opportunities for Shorts creators rather than educating marketers. 

“We are absolutely starting to see much more of an adoption and a hand raise [from clients],” she said, “and I think the biggest reason for that right now is that YouTube is investing in partnerships with Influential and like-minded companies.”

©Pokémon. ©Nintendo/Creatures Inc./GAME FREAK inc.
ポケットモンスター・ポケモン・Pokémonは任天堂・クリーチャーズ・ゲームフリークの登録商標です。

The Sheldon High School esports team passed another level to end the 2024-25 season.

It’s only the third year of the program, and Sheldon already had qualified for two Iowa High School Esports Association state events — “Rocket League” in winter of 2023-24 and “Super Smash Bros. Ultimate” in the fall.

But Sheldon still was looking for a top-three finish at state going into the spring season for “Mario Kart 8 Deluxe.”

After losing the season opener, Sheldon went on a winning streak that stretched all the way to the IAHSEA Spring Finals on May 21 in Marshalltown, including a spot in the championship against Estherville Lincoln Central.

While the winning streak came to an end as Sheldon lost, the runner-up finish in “Mario Kart 8 Deluxe” is the highest in the program’s history.

“The guys were bummed that they lost the finals but were still in great spirits on the way home,” said Sheldon esports coach Toby Maggert. “We set the goal to come home with some hardware, and we met that goal. This is the highest a team sport has placed at state at Sheldon in a long time, and they are carrying that with pride.”

“Mario Kart 8 Deluxe” is played on the Nintendo Switch and Sheldon had 13 players out for the spring season. Four players make up the varsity roster and four more are allowed for substitutes. Juniors Dawsin Merley and Ethan Vogelaar, sophomore Weston Smith and freshman Aaron Verburg made up Sheldon’s varsity “Mario Kart” roster.

The games are four versus four with all players scoring. In an eight-player race, points are awarded from first- to eighth-place. Ten points are awarded for first place, eight for second, six for third, five for fourth, four for fifth, three for sixth, two for seventh and one for eighth.

Teams play a best out of three cups and each cup is a series of four races. Whichever team has the most points at the end wins the cup.

All races are on courses of 150cc, the fastest courses, with normal rules for racing. Each player chooses their own kart combo, which consists of a character, the kart, the wheels and the glider. There are more than 8,000 combos to build from.

“The online community did the math and determined the best few combos, so you see the same five combos a lot,” Maggert said.

The start of the season got off on the wrong foot for Sheldon, which lost to Westwood 101-55 and 83-73.

Maggert said the team had a “double disadvantage” going into the match.

“First, we had connection issues and could only get three players to race online, so we were racing three versus four in the first six races,” he said. “We also had our team-voted MVP gone that day, so we were already handicapped in personnel. The last two races our tech guy figured out the issue, and we were able to have four guys, in and you can see the score was closer in that second game.

“It just goes to show that even at a handicap, our team was able to compete against another team that made it to state and won a match there as well.”

Sheldon bounced back with a 109-47 and 110-46 win over River Valley in the second week, which started a nine-match winning streak. For the rest of the regular season matches, only two cups were within 20 points of Sheldon’s total.

Sheldon earned the sixth seed in the postseason and faced WACO of Wayland in the state qualifier.

“We were the sixth seed, which I felt made us a bit of a sleeper team,” Maggert said. “I knew our only loss was at a huge disadvantage, so if not for that, we would have been a higher seed.”

Sheldon dominated WACO, winning 100-56 and 97-56 to advance to Marshalltown.

The Orabs almost did not make it out of the first round at state though. They faced third-seeded West Fork of Sheffield and trailed throughout the first cup before making a major comeback to force a 78-78 tie. Sheldon won the second cup 88-68 but lost the third cup 82-74.

“Since it is a best of three, we had to go back and replay the first cup again and that time we won 83-73,” Maggert said.

Sheldon faced second-seeded Woodward in the semifinals and won the first cup 82-74. It dropped the second cup 87-69 but pulled out an 84-72 victory to get to the championship match.

“Going into the last race, we were down by one but managed to take first and second place, which was enough points to lock up the victory,” Maggert said. “Honestly, we were underdogs all day. We hands down had the hardest competition of the day, and all of those teams came into the tournament undefeated.

“Our first match win had the guys almost relieved to know they had what it takes to compete at state, and after the second-round victory, they were on cloud nine.”

That set up the match against top-seed Estherville Lincoln Central and Sheldon won the first cup. It was the first cup loss of the entire year for ELC.

“You could see in their faces that they had just considered for the first time that they might not win,” Maggert said. “After that, ELC came back strong and focused and raced two great cups. The last cup was even one of the sets we had gotten lots of practice on so I was hopeful we could take the win, but it wasn’t meant to be.”

Estherville Lincoln Central took the next two cups to win the title with Sheldon in second place.

For Maggert, the runner-up in “Mario Kart” was a fitting end to a strong year of esports at Sheldon.

“We qualified for state in ‘Smash Bros.’ and had a winning record in all of our seasons,” he said. “We did not make state for ‘Rocket League’ but still walked off with a positive record. Ending the ‘Mario Kart’ season at 9-2 is awesome, and our only losses were to a state qualifier and state champ.

“I am putting a big W for this year for the esports team.”

This kind of season can vault a program forward. It’s still a young program at Sheldon, and Maggert continues to encourage his players to spread the word about esports.

“We take a group of kids that typically game for fun and teach them about structured and rigorous practice, how to research skills to self-improve, communicate effectively with peers in times of stress and build a positive environment in a context that kids are usually left to themselves,” he said. “I have seen tremendous personal and competitive growth from my students, and I would love to have even more students get that experience.”

Sheldon should be poised for another successful esports year in 2025-26 since it did not graduate any starters.

“On our varsity lineup, we didn’t have any seniors starting in ‘Smash Bros.’ or ‘Mario Kart,’ so we are bringing back a lot of talent,” Maggert said. “I am looking forward to seeing how they improve over the summer and are ready to keep climbing the ladder. They are all motivated to have at least as much success next year, and I believe they can do it.”