Gossip Harbor now generates over $100M in monthly IAP revenue.
And 6 other Merge-2 games made over $10M in the last 30 days, while around 20 titles made over $1M in IAP revenue.
With numbers like these, it is no surprise that more publishers want a piece of the category.
In August 2026, new Merge-2 releases with complex meta gameplay reached almost 50, nearly doubling last year’s monthly peak.
And it’s not just new publishers trying to grab a piece of the market.
The competition is coming from the very top of the charts, with the biggest Merge-2 publishers also trying to expand their portfolios.
Why?
Well, Microfun showed what’s possible.
They managed to get not 1, not 2, but 3 games into the top 10, continuously applying learnings from their previous games to the next ones. And now others appear to be following a similar path.
Moon Active now has 4 other merge-2 games in its portfolio alongside Travel Town, including two games they acquired from GreenPixel last year and two new releases this year. And Century Games has gone even further, releasing 5 new Merge-2 games since Tasty Travels started scaling last year.
So the strategy is becoming:
Find one Merge-2 hit → Understand what works → Keep launching new games to occupy more of the charts
And this isn’t limited to the top 3.
Happibits, the developer behind Merge Cooking, now has another growing title, Foodstars. And when looking through the portfolio of Metacore, the developer behind the former category leader, Merge Mansion, there are a bunch of Merge-2 attempts that have appeared and disappeared over the past year.
There is no doubt that opportunity is huge. But so is the competition.
And as the UA barrier gets higher, publishers are increasingly combining the familiar Merge-2 core with different meta layers beyond renovation, including exploration, fashion, farming, simulation, and and even short dramas.
So Merge-2 is no longer just a race to answer: Who will build the next big Merge-2 game?
It’s becoming a portfolio arms race between publishers to capture more spots in the charts.
