Ten Square Games S.A. (TEN.WA) - Deep Dive Research Report

Listing: Warsaw Stock Exchange (GPW) Sector: Communication Services - Interactive Media & Mobile Gaming HQ: Wrocław, Poland Report date: 2026-05-25 Concalls used: Q1 2026 (May 12, 2026), Q4 & FY 2025 (March 24, 2026), Q3 2025 (November 12, 2025), Q2 2025 (August 26, 2025)

1. What the Company Does

Ten Square Games (TSG) makes free-to-play mobile games. The way they make money is simple. They get a player to install a game, hook them on a loop they want to keep playing every day, and then sell that player digital items, in-game currency, premium content, or a subscription. Most players spend nothing. A small group of "whales" spend a lot. The business is run as a portfolio: a few mature titles generate cash, a few growth titles consume marketing capital to scale, and a continuous prototype-and-test pipeline filters new ideas through the funnel.

The company was founded in October 2011 by Maciej Popowicz and Arkadiusz Pernal, the same duo that built nasza-klasa.pl (Poland's once-dominant social network). The name "Ten Square Games" refers literally to a 10-square-metre room in Wrocław where the studio started. They studied F2P mechanics on Facebook, built a desktop fishing game called Let's Fish in 2012, ported it to mobile in 2014, and then in 2017 launched Fishing Clash - the title that turned them into a public company a year later and a $1bn+ company in mid-2020.

The core product instinct that defines TSG is narrow: hobbyist outdoor-pursuit games. Fishing. Hunting. Flying. The hypothesis is that midlife male hobbyists with disposable income are an underserved monetization cohort - they have spending power, deep affinity for their hobby, and limited competition in the genre (most of the big F2P money has chased puzzle, casino, and 4X strategy). The TSG playbook applies casino-grade liveops, gacha-style item drops, and clan competitions to fishing rods and hunting rifles instead of slot machines.

Around 2021 they widened the lens. They paid €45m for Verona-based Rortos, a flight-simulator developer with 200m+ downloads on titles like Real Flight Simulator and Airline Commander. In 2023 they added a 24.8% stake in Kraków-based Gamesture. In May 2023 they launched TSG Store, a browser-based direct-to-consumer payment portal that lets players top up Fishbucks and Deerbucks outside the Apple/Google tax. By 2025-2026, TSG Store had cleared 25% of bookings for Fishing Clash, validating the channel.

The current strategy, articulated under CEO Andrzej Ilczuk (appointed May 2023), is what management calls "portfolio transformation": stabilise the cash-cow titles, scale Wings of Heroes and Trophy Hunter into the next leg, and use a "Game Factory" pipeline to build the leg after that. The first proof point of the new model was Trophy Hunter (global launch July 2025), which management has called the fastest-scaling title in company history. The second proof point under test is Medal Hunter, a military PvP shooter, which entered technical release on May 4, 2026.

"2025 was a year of strategic portfolio transformation - the launch of Trophy Hunter enabled the development of a more efficient, data-driven game creation model." - CEO Andrzej Ilczuk, Q4/FY 2025 results (March 23, 2026)

The non-obvious thing about TSG is that despite being a "mobile gaming" company, it does not build casual hits like Candy Crush or hyper-casual ad-funded games like Voodoo's portfolio. It builds long-lived, deeply themed, IAP-monetized hobby simulations - closer to live-service MMOs in their player economics than to typical app-store fare. That's the asset.

2. Business Segments

TSG does not report formal financial segments. Operationally, the business is best understood as four product lines plus a payment platform.

2.1 Outdoor Sports Sims (Fishing Clash, Hunting Clash, Let's Fish, Wild Hunt) - the cash engine

This is the historical core of the business and still the majority of bookings. Fishing Clash is the flagship: a realistic mobile fishing simulator with thousands of fish species, real-world fisheries, clan battles, and a calendar of weekly "fisheries" (themed events). It generated PLN 197.5 million in 2025 bookings (down 18.6% YoY) and remains the single largest revenue contributor in the group. Hunting Clash mirrors the same mechanic for big-game hunting: PLN 63.7m in 2025 (down 29.3% YoY).

The core capability here is a decade of live-operations expertise on a narrow demographic. TSG knows how to design a fishing tournament that maximises retention of a 45-year-old man in Texas with a fishing licence in real life. They know when to push him a limited-time legendary rod. They know how much grinding to require before the offer feels earned. This was built by tens of millions of A/B tests across the player base since 2017. It is not technology that is patentable. It is process knowledge and a balanced economy.

Why it sits as a distinct line: these titles are mature, declining slowly, and being run for cash and margin rather than growth. Marketing spend on Fishing Clash dropped 39.4% in 2025; on Hunting Clash it hit "the lowest annual level" since launch (Q4/FY 2025 results, March 23, 2026). The titles are also where TSG Store has the highest penetration (Fishing Clash 32.9% in H1 2025), meaning the marginal dollar of bookings here comes with materially better unit economics than a year ago.

Competitive position: the only direct competitor of comparable scale in mobile fishing is Com2uS's Ace Fishing franchise; in hunting, Glu Mobile/EA's Deer Hunter series. TSG is the category leader in both. Strategic priority: cash cow, margin engine.

2.2 Flight Simulators (Real Flight Simulator, Airline Commander, Real Combat Simulator, Extreme Landings, Wings of Heroes) - the growth bet

This segment came from the Rortos acquisition in July 2021 plus internally-developed Wings of Heroes (a WWII air-combat game). Rortos brought the technical engine for accurate flight physics and Wings of Heroes layered TSG's hobbyist-monetization expertise on top.

The capability is technical and unusual in mobile: real-time atmospheric, navigational, and aerodynamic simulation that produces flight behaviour that civilian pilots and aviation enthusiasts actually accept as plausible. Rortos has a 14-year history doing only this. In September 2025 the team shipped the "Real World Engine," described as the biggest visual and technical upgrade in the title's history (Q3 2025 results, November 12, 2025).

The segment is now genuinely scaling. Wings of Heroes posted PLN 31.8 million in 2025 bookings (up 66.0% YoY) and >50% YoY growth in three consecutive quarters as of Q1 2026. Real Combat Simulator launched globally October 7, 2025 with a subscription model (€5.99/month, €40.99/year) - the second TSG title on subscription rather than IAP, and management says it has "no direct competitors in its segment."

Why a separate line: different engine, different studio, different revenue model. Subscriptions on RCS, IAP on Wings of Heroes, mixed on Real Flight Simulator. Different player base (aviation enthusiasts vs. fishermen). Strategic priority: scale-up. Q1 2026 commentary called Real Flight Simulator the #1 ranked title in its segment.

2.3 Hunter franchise (Trophy Hunter, Medal Hunter) - the new model

In July 2025 TSG launched Trophy Hunter, a casual, big-game hunting game. It is technically distinct from Hunting Clash (different design, much faster session loop, broader appeal, integrated ad monetization). Management describes it as the fastest-scaling product the company has ever had and as the validation of a new, more disciplined, data-driven development process. The game is now a top-3 contributor to group bookings (PLN 15.3m in Q4 2025 alone) on an annual marketing investment that materially exceeds prior new-game launches.

Medal Hunter, a military-themed PvP shooter, is the explicit attempt to replicate Trophy Hunter's mechanics in a new vertical. It uses the same short-session, precision-targeting loop. Technical release began May 4, 2026 in Mexico, Vietnam, the Philippines and Poland. Soft launch in Australia/Germany/UK/US planned for mid-May 2026, global launch end May / early June 2026.

Capability: the development model itself - prototype, KPI-gate at each stage, kill projects that miss benchmarks, scale survivors aggressively. This was historically TSG's weakness - they had Fishing Clash and Hunting Clash, then nothing comparable for years.

"Trophy Hunter validated our replicable game development model." - Q4/FY 2025 results (March 23, 2026)

Strategic priority: the leading edge of group growth. Trophy Hunter monetization is still light (limited IAP options, ~$5m monthly run-rate in Q1 2026 per management commentary on the May 12 call); break-even expected Q3 2026.

2.4 TSG Store / Direct-to-Consumer Platform - the margin lever

Launched May 2023 for Fishing Clash and rolled out across the portfolio. A browser-based store where players buy in-game currency directly from TSG, bypassing the 30% (now 15-30%) Apple/Google fee. Initially in the form of Fishbucks (Fishing Clash) and Deerbucks (Hunting Clash) tied to specific titles.

By March 2025, TSG Store hit 19.1% of group bookings; by May 2025 it cleared 30% of combined Fishing Clash + Hunting Clash bookings; Fishing Clash specifically exceeded the 25% strategic target. The unit economics are 15-30 percentage points better per dollar booked here vs. the app stores. Starting Q1 2026 management consolidates TSG Store and other external-link sales into a single "D2C platform" disclosure as the company expands alternative-payment methods in the US.

This is not a "segment" in the product sense - it's a payments infrastructure layered across every game. But it is arguably the single biggest structural margin lever in the business and the most credible defense against ongoing platform-policy changes.

Segment summary

3. Products and Business Detail

The active commercial portfolio as of May 2026:

• Fishing Clash (launched 2017) - mobile fishing simulator, thousands of species, weekly fisheries, clan tournaments. Annual content cycle now five weeks per fishery, with revenue sensitive to release cadence (Q1 2026 dip explicitly attributed to fewer fisheries in the calendar).
• Hunting Clash (launched 2019/2020) - big-game hunting equivalent. Q4 2025 introduced an overhauled competition system; "Arena" mode launched August 2024.
• Let's Fish (2012 desktop, 2014 mobile) - legacy title, smaller contribution.
• Wild Hunt (2017/2020) - earlier hunting title, smaller scale.
• Wings of Heroes (in-house developed in Wrocław) - WWII PvP air combat, IAP-monetized. Best quarterly result ever in Q4 2025 (PLN 9.8m), 50%+ YoY growth three consecutive quarters into Q1 2026.
• Real Flight Simulator (Rortos) - flight sim flagship, +7.9% YoY in H1 2025, "Real World Engine" upgrade September 2025.
• Airline Commander (Rortos) - commercial aviation sim.
• Extreme Landings (Rortos) - earlier Rortos title.
• Real Combat Simulator (Rortos, global launch October 7, 2025) - first subscription-monetized flight combat game on mobile (€5.99/mo to €40.99/yr).
• Trophy Hunter (global launch July 3, 2025) - fastest scaling product in company history, hybrid IAP + ad monetization, ~$5m monthly run-rate Q1 2026.
• Medal Hunter (technical release May 4, 2026) - military PvP shooter, five locations at launch, aircraft and naval targets, two distinct shooting models.

Where it's made. Engineering happens in Wrocław (HQ, ~320 staff at last disclosure), Warsaw, Berlin, Bucharest, and Verona (Rortos). The Verona office is the centre of gravity for flight simulation; Wrocław leads the Hunter franchise and outdoor sports titles. Trophy Hunter's core team grew from 11 at launch to a substantially larger group by Q4 2025 commentary.

Where it sells. The largest market is the United States, which is also the focus of the D2C/TSG Store expansion in 2026. Western Europe is the second-largest cluster. Fishing Clash entered the Chinese market in 2021; that channel is meaningful but not the dominant driver. Aviation titles skew more Western. Trophy Hunter and Medal Hunter are being soft-launched in Latin America and Southeast Asia (Mexico, Vietnam, Philippines) before broader rollout to validate retention KPIs at lower CAC.

Manufacturing/delivery. None. The product is digital. Distribution is Apple App Store, Google Play, and TSG Store (web). The "manufacturing process" is the development lifecycle: prototype → soft launch in 2-4 small markets → KPI-gate review → expand to mid-tier markets → global launch with marketing scale-up. Marketing spend is the dominant variable cost. User acquisition is run programmatically across ad networks (Meta, Google, TikTok, Unity Ads).

Milestones.

• 2011 founding, 10 m² apartment
• 2014 mobile pivot for Let's Fish
• 2015 introduction of "Game Factory" model
• 2017 Fishing Clash launch (still the lifetime top earner)
• 2018 IPO on Warsaw Stock Exchange at PLN 335m market cap
• 2020 net revenue +140% YoY, EUR 129m, US$1bn market cap reached
• 2021 Rortos acquisition (€45m) - Verona studio
• 2022 Gamesture investment (24.8%)
• 2023 TSG Store launches; CEO transition to Andrzej Ilczuk; "Focus Strategy" reset
• 2024 PLN 114.5m share buyback (954,166 shares at PLN 120 each, settled Feb 27 2024)
• 2025 Trophy Hunter global launch (July); record PLN 100m dividend paid (June); Real Combat Simulator launch (October)
• 2026 Medal Hunter technical release (May 4); PLN 63.7m dividend declared (PLN 10/share)

4. Customers

The customer is the individual mobile-game player. There is no B2B sales motion, no enterprise contract, no concentration risk in the traditional sense. The "concentration" lives at the player level, where a small percentage of "whale" spenders contributes a large share of bookings in any given title.

Who buys. Demographics differ by title. Fishing Clash and Hunting Clash skew sharply male, 35-60, with hobby affinity (actual anglers, actual hunters, or vicarious ones). Real Flight Simulator and Real Combat Simulator skew male, 25-55, aviation enthusiasts including some active and former pilots. Wings of Heroes pulls a younger, broader military-history audience. Trophy Hunter, by design, is more mass-casual - a broader funnel less dependent on prior hobby affinity. Medal Hunter is aimed at PvP-shooter players, an even more mainstream and competitive cohort. Geographically, the US is the single biggest market, followed by Western Europe.

Why they buy. Two drivers. First, identity: a fisherman who plays Fishing Clash is buying a more competitive simulation of the thing he loves doing in real life. Premium rods and lures are status items inside a community. Second, the standard F2P motivators: progression friction that can be relieved by IAP, time-limited events, social pressure inside clans, gacha-style randomized drops, and milestone achievements. The TSG-specific edge is the niche: a casino-grade liveops calendar applied to a community that competing developers do not bother to specialise in.

Switching costs. Inside a TSG title they are real: the player's progression, social graph (clan), in-game currency balance, and unlocked items are non-portable. A Fishing Clash whale leaving for Ace Fishing starts from zero. This is the same lock-in that protects every mature live-service game. Outside the title, of course, switching is effortless - the player's wallet is portable across thousands of apps competing for their attention. So the bigger threat is not direct switching to a competitor's fishing game but a general decline in engagement with the title relative to whatever else the player could be doing on their phone.

Concentration. No single customer is material. The dominant top-line concentration is at the title level: Fishing Clash was 60.7% of group revenue in 2024, falling to 56% of 2025 bookings as Trophy Hunter and Wings of Heroes scaled. This is the headline risk the portfolio-transformation strategy is designed to address. The other concentration is platform: Apple App Store and Google Play together still process the substantial majority of TSG bookings, with the residual processed through TSG Store / D2C - a share management is actively trying to grow.

Contract structure. None at the player level - all sales are instantaneous in-app or web-store purchases. The "contract" with the player is the implicit promise that the game will keep getting content updates worth playing. On the platform side, TSG operates under Apple and Google's standard developer agreements, which is itself a risk (see Section 8). Real Combat Simulator's subscription model marks the first move toward more predictable, recurring per-user revenue.

5. Competitive Landscape

Mobile gaming is a hits-driven, highly fragmented industry where dozens of large publishers compete on dozens of genre verticals and a long tail of independents fills the gaps. TSG's competitive structure is best looked at by vertical.

Fishing/hunting/outdoor sims. Direct competitors are remarkably few. Com2uS' Ace Fishing has run for over a decade and remains the closest thing to a global rival in fishing. In hunting, EA's Deer Hunter franchise was once dominant but the line has been deprioritised; MY.GAMES' Hunting Simulator and several smaller PC-to-mobile ports compete on the periphery. TSG is the global leader in both verticals by bookings. Why they win: depth of liveops, a decade of behavioural data on a specific player profile, and a relentless content cadence that smaller competitors cannot match.

Flight simulators. The mobile flight-sim niche is small but Rortos is the recognised category leader by downloads (200m+ lifetime) and quality of physics. Microsoft Flight Simulator and X-Plane Mobile exist but the former is desktop/console-anchored and the latter is a hobbyist port. Wings of Heroes competes with Wargaming's World of Warplanes Blitz and a long tail of WWII-themed shooters. Real Combat Simulator, per management, has no direct subscription competitor on mobile.

Hunter franchise (PvP shooters). This is where competition gets genuinely tough. Tencent's PUBG Mobile, Activision's Call of Duty: Mobile, Krafton's BGMI/PUBG, and Garena's Free Fire dominate the mobile shooter top grossing charts. Medal Hunter is not trying to compete head-on with these AAA-budget incumbents. The design intent is short-session, precision-shooting PvP - more arcade than tactical - which is structurally less crowded. Whether that is enough differentiation to scale is the open question for 2026.

Mobile gaming at the platform level. TSG competes for player attention against everything else on the phone: Playtika's casino portfolio, Scopely's franchise mid-cores, Voodoo's hyper-casuals, Zynga's social casino, Supercell, Tripledot, King, Jam City. These are all bigger, with more capital, more user-acquisition leverage, and more diversified portfolios. TSG's defence is niche - it competes by being non-obvious to these companies, not by outspending them on UA in head-to-head genres.

Barriers to entry. Moderate. The technical bar to ship a mobile F2P game is low; the bar to operate a profitable one with a multi-year monetization curve in a niche genre against an incumbent that has 50m+ players and 8 years of A/B data is materially higher. Capital matters: marketing for a global launch can run into eight figures of euros with no guarantee of payback. Niche-genre liveops know-how is the real moat - and it is a soft moat that fades when management attention shifts or when a competitor recruits enough of the same talent.

Polish gaming peer group. The Warsaw Stock Exchange hosts five large gaming names: CD Projekt (console/PC AAA, fundamentally different business), PlayWay (PC simulation publisher), Huuuge Games (social casino), 11 bit studios (premium PC/console indie), and TSG. None directly compete with TSG's mobile-F2P niche-genre model. Huuuge is closest in business model (mobile F2P) but operates in social casino, a different player base. So TSG is its own thing within the Polish listed gaming complex.

Structural shifts to watch. First, Apple's privacy changes (ATT, post-2021) have permanently raised CAC across the F2P industry and disproportionately punished smaller scale developers. Second, regulators in the EU, UK, US, and Korea are pressuring app stores on commission rates and alternative payment methods - directly favourable to TSG's D2C strategy. Third, AI-assisted asset and content generation is starting to compress development cycle times for mid-budget studios, partially equalising the gap with AAA shops; management has explicitly highlighted this on calls.

6. Industry

Market size and trajectory. Mobile gaming is now the largest single segment of the global gaming industry. Estimates vary by methodology, but the most cited 2025 number for global mobile gaming bookings is approximately $90-100bn, with broader "mobile games market" including ad revenue and devices sometimes reported above $140bn. The industry is well past the 20%-a-year growth phase of 2017-2020 and into mid-single-digit to high-single-digit growth, with engagement and ARPU expansion doing more of the work than new-user growth in mature markets.

Demand drivers. Smartphone penetration is essentially saturated in TSG's core markets (US, Western Europe). Growth therefore comes from monetization depth: ARPU expansion on existing players, geographic expansion into India/SE Asia/LatAm where ARPU is lower but reach is wider, and category innovation (subscriptions, NFTs/Web3 in pockets, ads as a complement to IAP). Hobbyist genres - fishing, hunting, flight - are not on the leading edge of growth, but they are also not vulnerable to the boom-and-bust dynamics of trend genres like idle, merge, or hyper-casual.

Supply chain position. TSG sits at the publisher/developer node. Upstream are app stores (Apple/Google), ad networks (Meta, Google, Unity, ironSource), payment processors, and AWS-class cloud infrastructure. Downstream is the player. Until 2024, the app stores extracted a 30% take rate on virtually all in-app purchases. EU Digital Markets Act (March 2024), the US Epic v. Apple ruling (2024-2025), and Korea's app market regulation have meaningfully cracked that lock-in for alternative-payment-eligible apps. This is the structural tailwind behind TSG Store.

Regulation. A few axes matter. (1) App store commission policy - the active battleground. (2) Loot box and gacha regulation: the Netherlands, Belgium, and parts of Germany have taken positions ranging from disclosure requirements to outright bans. UK and EU broader regulation is being debated. TSG's gacha-light mechanics are less exposed than full casino-aesthetic loot box titles but not immune. (3) Children's-privacy regimes (COPPA, UK ICO Children's Code) - relevant given Fishing Clash's broad age appeal. (4) Polish corporate-tax incentives: gaming companies in Poland benefit from R&D tax credits and IP Box (5% effective rate on qualifying IP income), which materially supports operating margins.

Cyclicality. Mobile gaming is not particularly cyclical at the macroeconomic level - the players who keep spending in a recession are often the same whales who spent in a boom. But it is cyclical at the title level: every F2P game has a bookings curve that rises, plateaus, and decays, and the management challenge is to replace decaying titles with new growth titles fast enough. This is precisely the dynamic TSG is navigating now.

Tailwinds. D2C payment processing as regulation forces app stores open; AI-driven development efficiency; subscription monetization spreading from streaming media into gaming; continued global expansion of mid-spend cohorts in LatAm and SE Asia.

Headwinds. Persistent post-IDFA CAC inflation; saturation in mature markets; intensifying competition from publishers with much deeper UA budgets; the existential challenge for every F2P operator of finding new hit titles to replace ageing ones.

7. Growth Triggers

Drawn from the four most recent concalls. Each bullet is cited.

• Medal Hunter global launch, late May / early June 2026 (Q1 2026 concall, May 12, 2026; technical release confirmed May 4, 2026). Phased rollout has begun in Mexico, Vietnam, the Philippines and Poland with broader soft launch in Australia, Germany, UK and US in mid-May. Same Trophy Hunter mechanics, new vertical (military PvP).

  "Medal Hunter applies the proven mechanics of Trophy Hunter within battle-themed environments." - Q4/FY 2025 results, March 23, 2026

• Trophy Hunter monetization deepening through Q3 2026 (Q1 2026 concall, May 12, 2026). Management flagged the game lacks "monetizers" today and expects to add structured IAP systems through Q2/Q3, with break-even targeted at Q3 2026 depending on marketing spend. Repeated from Q4 2025.

• Wings of Heroes marketing scale-up through 2026 (Q4/FY 2025, March 23, 2026; reiterated Q1 2026, May 12, 2026). Marketing spend on the title was up 89.1% YoY in 2025 and 19.5% QoQ in Q4. Management has explicitly characterised the title as "entering a new phase of marketing scale-up."

• D2C platform consolidation and US expansion (Q4/FY 2025, March 23, 2026). From Q1 2026, TSG Store and other external-link sales are consolidated as "D2C platform" disclosure to reflect alternative-payment expansion in the US market - the largest market by bookings.

  "Direct-to-consumer platform development improves monetization efficiency and strengthens resilience against regulatory changes affecting major distribution ecosystems." - CTO Janusz Dziemidowicz, Q4/FY 2025

• Real Combat Simulator content and platform features early 2026 (Q3 2025 concall, November 12, 2025). The subscription title launched in October 2025 with no marketing support; major platform features scheduled for early 2026 to drive engagement and conversion.

• Core titles content rebuild (Fishing Clash, Hunting Clash) (Q3 2025 results, November 12, 2025; Q1 2026 concall, May 12, 2026). A/B testing focused on player segmentation and first-time-user experience. New segmentation strategy delivered a "21% uplift in bookings" for certain segments according to Q2 2025 results. Goal is to stabilise the cash engines rather than re-grow them aggressively.

• New prototype scheduled for market testing in Q4 2025 (Q3 2025, November 12, 2025). The pipeline behind Medal Hunter is now formalised; management has not named the project but has flagged the disciplined prototype-and-test cadence as the operating model.

• Real Flight Simulator "Real World Engine" upgrade (Q3 2025, November 12, 2025; ongoing Q1 2026). Launched September 2025, described as the largest visual and technical upgrade in the title's history; ongoing content updates throughout 2026.

• 2026-2028 cumulative revenue target tied to Incentive Program 2025-2029 (Q4/FY 2025, March 23, 2026). The new management incentive plan targets PLN 360 million in cumulative results, with 100% of granted shares vesting only at full target. Management has acknowledged this is "very ambitious" and reflects a shift to being "a growth company."

  "This is a very ambitious goal which reflects the structural change as we want to be a growth company and want our products to grow." - Management commentary, Q4/FY 2025

8. Key Risks

Hit-driven business and concentration in legacy titles. Fishing Clash was still 56% of 2025 group bookings even after declining 18.6% YoY; Hunting Clash added another 18%. The combined legacy core is roughly three-quarters of the business and the trajectory is down. The portfolio transformation is real but Trophy Hunter and Wings of Heroes, even on aggressive scale-up trajectories, are smaller. If the legacy titles decay faster than the new titles ramp, group bookings shrink. This is a real and acknowledged risk; management has been explicit that 2025-2026 is a transition.

Medal Hunter execution risk. The pivot into PvP shooters is a genre shift, not just a new title. PvP requires server infrastructure and skill-based matchmaking that hobbyist sims do not, and the competitive set (PUBG Mobile, Call of Duty: Mobile, Free Fire) is significantly more capitalised than anything TSG has historically faced. A soft launch followed by global rollout in May/June 2026 is the single most consequential product event of the year and an unproven design space for the company.

App-store policy and platform-fee risk. TSG Store is the offset, but the majority of bookings still flow through Apple and Google. Regulatory progress on alternative payments has been bumpy - Apple in particular has shown willingness to charge "alternative-platform" fees (Core Technology Fee, commissions on links out) that erode the savings. The D2C strategy depends on continued regulatory pressure holding the door open, or on TSG's player base being willing to bypass the app-store flow in meaningful numbers (it has, so far).

Marketing-spend leverage on Trophy Hunter and Wings of Heroes. Both growth titles consume cash up front (UA spend) for revenue that returns over 12-24 months. Trophy Hunter is pre-break-even and management has been candid that Q3 2026 is the target (Q1 2026 call, May 12, 2026). If LTV/CAC ratios deteriorate - because of CAC inflation, retention disappointment, or competition for ad inventory - the payback math weakens and growth investment has to throttle back.

CAC inflation in a post-IDFA world. Apple's App Tracking Transparency has structurally raised CAC for performance-marketed mobile games since 2021. TSG mitigates with disciplined targeting, but the effect is industry-wide and not company-specific. April 2026 marketing efficiency was explicitly called out by management as weaker than expected on the Q1 call.

Concentration of FX exposure to USD/EUR. Costs are predominantly PLN (Polish payroll for ~320 staff plus Verona/Bucharest/Berlin), revenues are predominantly USD and EUR. PLN appreciation against either is a direct margin headwind. The company does not appear to engage in material currency hedging beyond natural offsets.

Loot-box and gacha regulation. While TSG's mechanics are lighter than full social-casino models, gacha-style limited-time offers are part of the liveops toolkit on Fishing Clash and Hunting Clash. Regulatory tightening in Western Europe or the US (especially around minors) could constrain monetization design.

Key-person and culture risk on a 320-person creative organisation. A material amount of liveops competence is held in the heads of senior designers and producers across Wrocław and Verona. Voluntary turnover during a strategic transition - especially in Trophy Hunter and Wings of Heroes teams - would be costly. The 2025-2029 incentive program is a partial mitigant (323,799 shares conditionally allocated, ~5% of share capital, vesting tied to financial and market criteria).

Decay risk on Hunting Clash. -29.3% YoY in 2025 with marketing already at the lowest annual level since launch. There is limited room left to defend bookings by cutting UA further - the title is in the harvest phase. Management has said they are "not overly concerned about the decline" (Q1 2026 call, May 12, 2026) and prioritising loyal-player retention rather than reacceleration, which is realistic but means this title is not going to contribute to growth.

9. Walk the Talk

Concalls used: Q1 2026 (May 12, 2026), Q4 & FY 2025 (March 24, 2026), Q3 2025 (November 12, 2025), Q2 2025 (August 26, 2025).

The picture across four quarters is of a management team that is genuinely candid about what is happening - not promoting too aggressively, not hiding the deterioration in legacy titles, and broadly delivering on the things they said they would do, though with some slippage on monetization timing.

Start with Q2 2025 (August 26, 2025). Trophy Hunter had just launched globally on July 3, 2025. Management said early retention and monetization metrics outperformed previous TSG titles and called out a hybrid model with ~25% revenue from ads. They flagged Wings of Heroes was scaling (PLN 6.3m in Q2, +111.7% H1 YoY). They committed to ongoing transformation of core titles via segmentation testing and reduced UA spend to enhance long-term effectiveness. They told the market H2 2025 priorities included content enrichment and multiplayer features for Real Combat Simulator. They paid a record PLN 100m dividend in June - actually paid, not just announced. So the Q2 promise list was: scale Trophy Hunter, scale Wings of Heroes, push RCS to launch.

By Q3 2025 (November 12, 2025), two of the three Q2 promises were already visibly tracking. Wings of Heroes posted +33.4% QoQ and management called out record marketing investment and new social features doing the work. Trophy Hunter generated PLN 3.2m in its first full quarter post-launch on PLN 6.1m marketing spend. Real Combat Simulator launched October 7, 2025 - delivered. The Real World Engine on Real Flight Simulator shipped in September - delivered. The slippage: adjusted EBITDA dropped to PLN 22.1m on the heaviest quarterly marketing investment of the year, and management was clear that this was a deliberate trade-off, not a surprise. They pre-warned the market that Q4 UA costs would rise further due to holiday-season competition.

"The third quarter of 2025 brought clear progress in delivering on the key pillars of our strategy." - CEO Andrzej Ilczuk, Q3 2025 results, November 12, 2025

Q4 & FY 2025 (March 24, 2026) was the validation moment. Full-year adjusted EBITDA hit PLN 98.2m and net profit PLN 77m despite the deliberate margin compression in Q3-Q4. Trophy Hunter delivered PLN 15.3m in Q4 alone, becoming the third-largest title by bookings - much faster scaling than any prior new launch. Wings of Heroes hit PLN 9.8m, its best quarter ever. Cash at year-end was PLN 120.3m. The dividend recommendation came in at PLN 10/share (PLN 63.7m total), exceeding the standard 75% policy threshold. Management introduced the PLN 360m cumulative revenue target for 2026-2028 tied to the new incentive program - the most public, datable commitment in the report's window. They were explicit it is "very ambitious." Medal Hunter was announced for Q2 2026 soft launch.

Q1 2026 (May 12, 2026) is the freshest data point. Group bookings were PLN 98.3m, +3.0% QoQ. Management was candid that:

• April 2026 was soft on weather impact in outdoor sports titles and weak marketing efficiency.
• LiveOps errors in Fishing Clash hurt early-Q2 performance.
• Trophy Hunter break-even slipped to Q3 2026 - still on the timeline they had implied at Q4, but only because they're adding marketing spend that delays the crossover.
• Medal Hunter technical release went live May 4 in four small markets, soft launch in mid-May, global late May / early June - tracking their Q4 commitment.

What broke or got dropped? Trophy Hunter's break-even has not yet happened - management deferred it but never overpromised it. The Hunting Clash decline accelerated and management is honest they are not trying to reverse it. Group bookings declined 12.3% in H1 2025 on the prior year (Q2 2025 disclosure) - they did not pretend otherwise. The PLN 360m three-year target announced in Q4 2025 has not yet been tested; that is the credibility-defining number for 2026-2028.

Plain assessment. This is a management team that does roughly what they say. They are conservative-to-realistic about declining titles, delivering on product milestones, and have not used the typical CEO defensive posture of blaming externalities. The single biggest open commitment is the PLN 360m cumulative 2026-2028 target. Until Medal Hunter has a meaningful run-rate and Trophy Hunter clears break-even, that target is unproven. But the four-quarter pattern shows guidance discipline rather than excessive optimism.

10. Shareholder Friendliness Index

Dividends. TSG has paid in each of the last three fiscal years and the trend reflects underlying earnings rather than a steady-growth dividend policy. Fiscal 2023 net profit was returned partly via the February 2024 share buyback (PLN 114.5m, see below). Fiscal 2024 net profit (PLN 72.7m standalone) was distributed as a PLN 15.73 per share dividend totalling PLN 100.0m, paid June 27, 2025 - the largest single distribution in company history, augmented by PLN 27.3m from reserve capital to deliver beyond 100% of standalone net profit. Fiscal 2025 distribution was approved at PLN 10.00 per share totalling PLN 63.7m, payable May 22, 2026 (Current Report 11/2026, April 21, 2026); this represents roughly 76% of 2025 standalone net profit (PLN 83.6m), with the residual to supplementary capital. The trend in absolute payout is uneven (down YoY in 2026 vs 2025) because 2025's payout was unusually large - a deliberate capital-return event. The policy floor is 75% of standalone net profit; actual practice has cleared that floor in each of the last three years.

Buybacks and dilution. The big event was the February 2024 buyback: 954,166 shares at PLN 120 per share, total PLN 114.5m, executed in a single tender offer settled February 27, 2024 - approximately 13% of share capital retired. Since then, TSG has not announced a new programme. As of May 11, 2026 the company holds 101,435 treasury shares (1.6% of share capital) acquired from earlier buybacks. Share count is held flat-to-down: a new 2025-2029 Incentive Program was approved (conditional capital increase of up to 323,799 series B shares, ~5% potential dilution if fully earned, vesting tied to financial and market hurdles through 2027-2029). The third tranche of the prior 2023 incentive plan vested in April 2026 from treasury, no new shares issued. Net result: shares outstanding are stable around 6.48m bearer shares, with a 1.6% treasury reserve and a ~5% future dilution overhang that activates only on aggressive performance.

Verdict: Returns Capital - PLN 100m record dividend in 2025, a PLN 114m buyback retiring 13% of capital in 2024, and a policy of distributing well above the 75% floor whenever cash allows.

11. Insider Activities

The insider footprint at TSG over the last 12 months is dominated by incentive-plan vesting rather than open-market transactions. Polish regulations (MAR Article 19) require PDMR notifications for both buys and sells, and TSG publishes them via the ESPI system with corresponding company current reports.

Recent transactions (last 12 months):

Buys - read the signal. The April 2026 and May 2025 transactions are not open-market purchases - they are performance-based vesting of shares previously held in treasury. They are still meaningful: the Supervisory Board independently certified that the criterion (financial performance and market-based hurdle) was met before each tranche released. The vest delivers a meaningful ownership stake to the three Management Board members and aligns their economics with the share price. But it is not the same conviction signal as a CEO writing a personal cheque to buy stock at the market price. Across the search budget, no open-market buying by any director, officer, or significant shareholder of TSG was identified in the trailing 12 months.

Sells - work out the why. No material open-market sales by officers or directors were identified in the last 12 months. The only major shareholder-level change in recent history was the January 30, 2024 transfer of co-founder Maciej Popowicz's 18.04% stake (1,322,941 shares) into MJP Fundacja Rodzinna (his own family foundation) - an estate-planning transfer, not a market disposal. Co-founder Arkadiusz Pernal executed a comparable transfer to AMP Fundacja Rodzinna on the same date. Both foundations subsequently joined the existing Shareholders' Agreement of October 21, 2019. Treat these as ownership-vehicle restructurings, not signals about the business.

Ownership structure (as of May 11, 2026): The Shareholders' Agreement (Popowicz/Pernal family foundations) holds 1,969,176 shares (30.4%). Treasury: 101,435 shares (1.6%). Free float: 4,405,389 shares (68.0%). The founder bloc is therefore stable and aligned.

Net assessment. The visible insider activity over the trailing 12 months is routine and aligned rather than directionally bullish or bearish. The Management Board has earned and accepted incentive-plan tranches, which is what a working incentive program looks like when performance criteria are being hit - mildly positive in that the Supervisory Board verified the criteria, but not a conviction signal. There is no open-market buying to flag as bullish and no clustered selling to flag as bearish. The founder block continues to hold via family foundations, which is best read as long-term commitment combined with succession-planning hygiene. Neutral signal overall.

12. Scenarios

Bull case. Medal Hunter clears its soft-launch KPIs in mid-2026 and proves that the Trophy Hunter mechanic generalises beyond the hunting vertical. The team validates that the "Game Factory 2.0" prototype-test-scale model can produce repeatable hits, and a second, third, and fourth Hunter-family title go into prototype through 2026-2027. Trophy Hunter clears break-even in Q3 2026 and runs into 2027 with rich monetization layers and a meaningful US installed base. Wings of Heroes' marketing scale-up keeps compounding past PLN 50m annual bookings. Real Combat Simulator's subscription model proves out and Rortos's next title launches with the same monetization structure. The TSG Store / D2C platform clears 30% of group bookings and the unit economics on each new dollar of bookings improve structurally. Regulatory pressure on the app stores continues to favour the company. Cash generation funds another large dividend and possibly a second buyback. By 2028 the legacy Fishing Clash + Hunting Clash share of group revenue is below 40% and the company has demonstrably re-platformed onto a younger, more diverse portfolio. The PLN 360m three-year incentive target is in reach.

Base case. Trophy Hunter and Wings of Heroes deliver as guided, growing in the high-double-digits. Medal Hunter soft-launches successfully, ramps respectably but does not break out in 2026; it becomes a contributor by 2027. Fishing Clash and Hunting Clash continue declining at high-single-digit to mid-teen rates annually, partially cushioned by TSG Store economics. Group bookings stay broadly flat-to-modestly-up year-on-year through 2026 as growth titles offset legacy decay, with adjusted EBITDA following a similar trajectory because marketing investment stays elevated. The dividend continues at meaningful levels but below the 2025 peak. Cash position remains healthy, providing optionality for selective M&A or a smaller buyback. The PLN 360m three-year target is challenging but partially achievable - perhaps the lower vesting band of the incentive plan gets hit but not the full 100%. Management's portfolio-transformation thesis is partially validated; the company is healthier and more diversified than in 2024 but not yet a re-rated growth story.

Bear case. Medal Hunter fails to find product-market fit during soft launch - PvP shooters demand server, matchmaking, and content cadence that TSG underestimates against PUBG Mobile and Call of Duty: Mobile incumbents. The product is paused or quietly scaled down by Q4 2026. Trophy Hunter's monetization layers underperform; the title plateaus before reaching the scale needed for break-even and the contribution to group bookings stalls in the PLN 60-80m range. Fishing Clash decline accelerates as new competitors enter the niche or as a single LiveOps misstep disengages a meaningful portion of the whale cohort. Apple introduces friction or fees on D2C alternative-payment links that materially erode the TSG Store economics. CAC inflation outpaces LTV growth on Wings of Heroes; the title's marketing payback stretches and management is forced to cut UA, slowing growth. The PLN 360m three-year target is missed by a wide margin; the incentive plan delivers minimal vesting; the dividend is cut back to a maintenance level; the equity story reverts to "Polish small-cap with a declining cash-cow F2P portfolio."

Sources:

• Ten Square Games Q1 2026 Consolidated Financial Report (May 10-11, 2026)
• Q1 2026 Earnings Call Highlights (GuruFocus, via Investing.com, May 12, 2026)
• Ten Square Games Q4 and FY 2025 Results (March 23, 2026)
• Q3 2025 Financial Results (November 12, 2025)
• Q2 2025 Financial Results (August 25, 2025)
• Q1 2025 Financial Results (May 19, 2025)
• Ten Square Games - Wikipedia
• Ten Square Games Company History (IR site)
• Ten Square Games Stockholders Page (IR site)
• Current Report 13/2026 - PDMR transactions, Tranche III (April 23, 2026)
• Current Report 11/2026 - Dividend resolution (April 21, 2026)
• Current Report 6/2026 - Supervisory Board profit allocation assessment (March 30, 2026)
• Current Report 3/2026 - 2025 profit distribution proposal (March 23, 2026)
• Current Report 13/2025 - PDMR transactions, Tranche II (May 21, 2025)
• Current Report 14/2025 - Conditional capital increase, Incentive Program 2025-2029 (June 2, 2025)
• Current Report 8/2025 - Supervisory Board dividend recommendation (April 7, 2025)
• Real Combat Simulator global launch (October 7, 2025)
• TSG Store record share (June 13, 2025)
• Medal Hunter phased rollout - European Gaming (May 4, 2026)
• Medal Hunter technical release - Pocket Gamer (May 4, 2026)
• Rortos acquisition press release (July 2, 2021)
• Ten Square Games dividend history - StockAnalysis
• Naavik deep dive on Ten Square Games
• Ten Square Games 2024 Annual Report (PDF)

Report saved as a comprehensive .md deliverable with embedded chart-data block (6 charts: revenue mix by game, quarterly bookings trend, Wings of Heroes ramp, TSG Store share, capital returns, and shareholder structure). Section 13 (Further Reading) was omitted because SemiAnalysis, Stratechery, and MBI Deep Dives have no qualifying coverage of TEN.WA.