For years now, when we think of mobile games, we think of app stores. Developers invest countless hours, months or even years creating games only to hand over a significant portion – up to 30% – of their profits to major players like Apple and Google. However, a newcomer has entered the scene, aiming to revolutionize this model.
Meet Jokea marketplace for messaging games that recently emerged from stealth with $7 million in seed funding. Jest believes that the future of mobile game distribution will not come from an app store, but from the messaging app.
The release of Jest coincides with the rise of Rich Communication Services (RCS), an enhanced version of SMS that enables more engaging experiences through rich media, interactive features and embedded payments.
As RCS adoption grows, the landscape is changing. In 2024, Apple joined the RCS movement with iOS 18, and by May 2025, RCS supported over a billion messages daily in the US, according to Google.
“Mobile game developers have been largely locked into app store distribution as the primary way to reach players,” said Deyan Vitanov, CEO and co-founder, in an interview with TechCrunch. “RCS games live in the inbox, the stickiest surface on mobile, where people already spend a huge amount of time talking to friends and family. We’re building on an interaction pattern that people already use every day.”
Jest offers users the ability to send games directly to their chat threads, without having to visit an app store. (Games launch in the web browser and require Wi-Fi to play.)
This convenience is especially important as consumers download fewer games. In 2025, mobile games were downloaded 39.4 billion times, reflecting an 8.6% year-over-year decline after a 6.6% decline from 2023 to 2024, according to Appfigures’ annual report.
Jest’s strategy is proving effective. By the end of January, just four months into the beta phase, the platform had already achieved two major milestones: more than 1 million messaging games had been played and more than 300,000 messages had been exchanged.
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“We’re seeing 3-4x better retention than traditional mobile apps. This is a fundamental shift in the engagement curve. In terms of user acquisition, we’ve fully validated that users will sign up and play games via messaging, with our first partners reporting 30-60% lower acquisition costs compared to mobile apps. It’s a super simple link.” us.
Moreover, what is most attractive about Jest’s market is the revenue model for developers: an impressive 90/10 split, with 90% of the profits going directly to them. This contrasts with the typical 30% commission that traditional app stores receive, offering a promising new avenue for game studios.
“There’s also a smart network effect built in. If one studio acquires a user but another studio monetizes it, we split the finances: 70% to the monetizing studio, 20% to the acquiring studio, and 10% to the acquiring studio. This creates strong incentives where even viral games that don’t monetize well can monetize on other platforms when users add streams for other users.”
In particular, Jest has already attracted interest from several development partners, including teams behind popular titles such as “Episode”, “Puppy Mansion” and “Kingdom Maker”.
The seed funding, led by Innovation Endeavors, will go towards scaling the platform and onboarding the first group of gaming studios.
To further accelerate development, Jest has also launched a dedicated Games Fund to support studios at every stage of franchise development on the platform. This fund will deploy capital in three tiers: $1 million for flagship titles, $200,000 for promising mid-stage titles, and $40,000 for exploratory projects and experimental ideas.
Jest is currently live in the US and is set to expand to 14 additional countries by Q3 2026.
