Mob Entertainment is not a typical game publisher. It is a global transmedia entertainment company that develops original characters and stories and brings them to life across games, film, TV, books, and consumer products. The company publishes on all major PC, console, and mobile platforms.
When Mob Entertainment's flagship franchise, Poppy Playtime exploded into a viral sensation, the team faced a new challenge: how to turn a single horror hit into a lasting entertainment universe.
From YouTube fame to film deals and global licensing with Scholastic and McFarlane Toys, Mob was growing fast, but to scale smartly, they needed reliable data to guide their next move. And that's where Newzoo came in.
The Challenge: Turning data into confident decisions
As Mob Entertainment expanded its reach across multiple entertainment branches, the company recognized the need for comprehensive games industry and audience insights to guide its growth.
Alan Miller, Mob's Vice President of Analytics and Business Intelligence (and cofounder of Activision), had followed Newzoo's work for years and saw an opportunity to integrate its data more deeply into Mob's decision-making. They needed a way to benchmark their games' performance, size the market for new concepts and opportunities, and define their audience size for expanding their transmedia universe.
"Mob has great aspirations," Miller explained, "but we realized we needed better data about the games industry to efficiently plan and realize our goals." By early 2024, Mob adopted Newzoo's data and analytics tools to strengthen its market understanding and support data-driven decision-making across teams.
The Approach: Empowering every team with data
Tracking and benchmarking game performance on PC & Console
Mob Entertainment uses Newzoo's Game Performance Monitor, Business & Store Intelligence, Global Gamer Study, along with direct analyst insight, to guide business-critical decisions across multiple departments. Newzoo's data provides insights into nearly every department at Mob, from marketing and finance to film, TV, and licensing.
Alan Miller explained how this data empowers their teams and how it plays a role in nearly every stage of planning.
We rely on Newzoo's data to track and understand the performance of our games and our competitors' games, as well as their players across different countries, markets, and segments.That gives us the information we need to improve our own games, develop new games, and understand how to effectively market to these diverse audiences.— Alan Miller, Vice President of Analytics and Business Intelligence (and cofounder of Activision)
These insights ensure that every decision, from feature updates to regional launches, is backed by hard market evidence, not assumptions.
Market sizing and greenlighting with confidence
Before greenlighting new concepts, Mob's teams use Game Performance Monitor to benchmark against comparable titles and gauge market size. In one case, analysis showed that a proposed game concept addressed a smaller niche than expected, helping Mob refocus its development priorities early on, which saved development time, resources, and costs.
The image below shows an example of how player segmentation in the Game Performance Monitor can reveal the true size of a target audience, enabling teams to refocus development efforts early and optimize time and resources.
Data shown on this image is for demonstration purposes only and does not reflect actual figures. (Newzoo Platform, Game Performance Monitor, Player Segments, 2025)
Using audience insights to power Mob's transmedia strategy
As Mob grows beyond games into film, TV, and consumer products, its transmedia ambitions require equally versatile data.
With Newzoo's Global Gamer Study, Mob can identify overlap between its gaming audiences and fans of other entertainment categories, uncovering where its stories and characters have the strongest cross-media potential.
"Data can be applied in so many ways. Publishers need to start thinking transmedia; film, TV, consumer products, because it makes the business more stable and bigger."
This is an illustrative example of how audience insights from the Global Gamer Study can inform transmedia strategies across games, film, and consumer products.
The data shown on this image is for demonstration purposes only and does not reflect actual figures (Newzoo, Global Gamer Study, 2025)
Michael Rifkin, former Co-Head of International Productions at Sony Pictures Entertainment and now Senior Advisor on Franchise Development and Strategy at Mob, explained that Newzoo's insights were instrumental in shaping the company's transmedia approach.
I joined Mob to position the company as a trend setter in transmedia adaptation of film and TV series from their own developed games. Newzoo's products have been essential to show how these adaptations can impact game sales and shape audience engagement for the IP.— Michael Rifkin, Senior Advisor on Franchise Development and Strategy
Senior Analyst Nam Ngo added that having access to reliable data helps the team make more grounded decisions when exploring new projects. "For example, when hype suggested a game-to-film adaptation drastically boosted purchases, Newzoo's revenue data helped us temper expectations and separate hype from reality."
The Impact: From insight to action
With Newzoo's support, Mob has:
- Improved cross-departmental decision-making, from marketing and product development to finance and licensing.
- Strengthened its console market planning and benchmarking.
- Created a framework for new game concept market sizing and greenlighting.
- Built confidence and accuracy in planning its long-term transmedia roadmap.
The biggest difference Newzoo has made is improving our confidence and accuracy in making plans for the console and transmedia space. The data and insights are wonderful and tremendous value, and on top of that; Newzoo people are always a pleasure to work with.— Alan Miller, Vice President of Analytics and Business Intelligence (and cofounder of Activision)
Newzoo's insights continue to help Mob turn creative ambition into measurable, sustainable growth across every branch of its entertainment business. Curious how we can support your portfolio? Get in touch, we'd love to chat.