Gossip Harbor exceeded $100M in monthly IAP revenue in March, and its growth still shows no signs of slowing down.
But what makes it crazier is that, unlike other puzzle genres, merge-2 games do not have a fail state for monetization. Instead, they have a stop state.
This makes the game’s entire economy revolves around resource scarcity, especially energy. While the core loop itself is flawlessly designed with strong supply vs. demand balance and board efficiency optimization, that alone is not enough to drive this level of growth.
So, the real magic happens through its LiveOps system.
Gossip Harbor’s LiveOps constantly creates energy scarcity in ways that still make players feel they are ‘close enough’ to continue playing. Either by waiting… or spending.
And when looking deeper into the game, its LiveOps strategy can be broken down into several layers.
1. Hourly Events
Short-duration events designed to directly increase session length. Their rewards usually synergize with other ongoing events, creating layered FOMO and encouraging players to stay active.
Ex: Banana Peel’s Prize, Raccoon Rascals, Double Pack Party
2. Daily Events
Events that run less than 24 hours, helping increase session frequency throughout the day. They usually feature progress bar objectives, order completion loops, milestone races or daily accelerators for other ongoing events.
Ex: Drilling Derby, Tower Trials, Flaming Frenzy
3. Weekly Events
Week-long events focused on heavily reinforcing core gameplay engagement. These often includes task-based progression systems and core duplicates mechanics.
Ex: Restaurant Goals, Heartfelt Handicraft, Sewing Sessions
4. Weekend Events
These are events designed to maximize player engagement during weekends and reduce accumulated resources. They typically feature extended competitive races that encourage longer play sessions, alongside leaderboard events tied to decoration exchange shops.
Ex: Beat the Heat Wipeout. Lori’s Dough Derby, Slingshot Sprint
5. Long-term Events
These are the backbone of long-term retention and act as engagement anchors for the shorter LiveOps layers. Gossip Harbor mainly uses 4 formats here.
● Cards Albums – collection psychology
● Decoration Exchange Shops – personalization and narrative progression
● Passes – 3-tier rewards for task completions
● Expeditions – exploration events with core duplication mechanics
Ex: Come What May, Cyber Easter 2026, Heartful Season, Brimwave’s BigFoot Sighting
When all these layers combine, Gossip Harbor creates a highly tactical LiveOps ecosystem that:
Drives core gameplay engagement → Increases session length & frequency→ Depletes resources → Pushes monetization opportunities
