In early January of this year, DianDian went global and detailed the new super head of the mixed day racing track, Pixel Flow!, in the article "Leisure New Game Pixel Flow! Is Crazy: Tested in Less than 5 Months, Monthly Flow Exceeds 60 Million, Gameplay imitators Monthly Flow Has Easily Exceeded 10 Million".

The main framework of this game is the matching elimination mechanism, but it takes a different approach by adding the element of "conveyor belt" to construct a more unique, interesting, and deep decision-making process (for specific gameplay, please click on the hyperlink in the upper paragraph to read and understand).

Such innovative design has enabled Pixel Flow! To achieve explosive market data, with global revenue skyrocketing. As of now, its total revenue has reached approximately $66.85 million (about RMB 457 million, only referring to IAP revenue, the same below) in about six months since its official launch, and has not shown any signs of decline. In the past month, it has reached $18.4 million (about RMB 126 million).

01

Vietnamese manufacturer's high volume replica encounters infringement 'sniper'

Simply copying the "Pixel Flow!" mechanism is difficult to achieve

In addition to its outstanding performance, the emergence of Pixel Flow! Has also driven more manufacturers to enter the market.

Among the many imitators in the early days, Vietnamese manufacturer Amobear responded the fastest, bringing "Color Blaze Shooter" and "Color Cube Breaker" in just over two months after the release of "Pixel Flow. The former has achieved remarkable results since its launch, with a turnover of 2.05 million US dollars (approximately 14.03 million yuan) in January this year. Although the latter's performance is slightly insufficient, its initial growth trend is obvious, with a peak daily turnover of over 5300 US dollars (approximately 40000 yuan) in January.

However, while the industry was still observing the continued performance of these two replicas, "Color Blaze Shooter" was suddenly taken down at the end of February, and "Color Cube Breaker" was also taken down in early April. This is mainly because in early February, Loom Games, the developer of Pixel Flow!, filed a lawsuit in the Federal District Court for the Northern District of California, alleging Amobear's infringement.

According to a report by "Nocheng Game Law", Loom Games stated that "Pixel Flow!" is a digital work with a complete audio-visual recognition system developed by them with a large amount of creativity and funding. It is not just an abstract game rule set, and the game has completed copyright registration in the United States. Amobear's multiple products are skin swapping games that replicate the expression of "Pixel Flow!" in multiple key design aspects, such as visual design, level structure, gameplay logic, props, and gain effects.

Under the framework of US copyright law, even if individual elements themselves may belong to common designs or functional expressions, if developers have creatively combined and arranged these elements, they may still constitute protected expressions. Loom Games has shifted the focus of controversy from "whether the gameplay is similar" to "whether the overall audio-visual expression has been replicated" through this argumentation path.

This lawsuit has actually sounded the alarm for other similar replicas.

But in reality, not all manufacturers are taking the path of simple replication. Many manufacturers are trying to create more derivative combinations in the form of transmission belts, while avoiding infringement and maximizing the development of this new mechanism.

02

Strongest Follower Update, Yarn Loop Monthly Streaming Exceeds $4 Million

Integrating yarn themes+high-quality experience+backed by Spyke Games

Recently, a game called "Yarn Loop: Knit Puzzle" (hereinafter referred to as "Yarn Loop") is one of the leaders, currently ranked in the top 100 iOS game bestsellers in 15 countries and regions, with a monthly revenue of over 4.4 million US dollars (approximately 30.2 million yuan).

This work combines the "Pixel Flow" mechanism with the theme of yarn, transforming the pig turret placed on the conveyor belt into various colored yarn spools, and changing the objects that need to be eliminated from pixel drawings to cross stitch.

This change may to some extent reduce the vibration feedback or pleasure caused by shooting bullets in Pixel Flow, but the silky smooth texture and interlaced sound effects of the stitches will bring players another comfortable experience similar to ASMR.

In addition, the pace of game levels changes significantly, the difficulty curve is not smooth, and the economic system also integrates into it earlier.

In short, Yarn Loop has been meticulously crafted in terms of art, feedback, and overall production quality. It is not just a skin change, but a product with a mature process mechanism and visual language.

According to DianDian data, "Yarn Loop" was first released on the App Store in mid to late November 2025 under the name "Yarn Flow". This release time was almost the same as the replica under the Vietnamese manufacturer Amobear, but they took two different paths. In mid to late December of the same year, the game was released on Google Play under the name "Yarn Loop" (the App Store unified the game name in March).

In terms of market data, Yarn Loop was in the small-scale testing stage in December 2025 and January this year, but its advertising volume did increase significantly during this period. In these two months, its monthly downloads were 23000 and 220000 respectively, and its monthly revenue increased from less than a thousand US dollars to 203000 US dollars (approximately 1.385 million yuan).

February of this year was an important turning point for the game. With explosive growth in advertising, its monthly download volume increased by 357% month on month to 1.005 million US dollars, and its monthly revenue increased by 665% month on month to 1.55 million US dollars (approximately 10.6 million yuan).

In March, despite not seeing a significant increase in monthly downloads to 1.21 million, its monthly revenue surged to 3.92 million US dollars (approximately 26.8 million yuan).

As of now, the game has been online for 5 months, with a cumulative download volume of approximately 2.74 million. The United States, United Kingdom, and Germany rank in the top three with 54.24%, 13.96%, and 9.91% respectively; The total estimated revenue is 7.11 million US dollars (approximately 48.54 million RMB), with the United States, the United Kingdom, and Germany ranking in the top three with a proportion of 72.57%, 10.54%, and 5.57%. Although there is still a significant gap compared to Pixel Flow, the overall situation is improving and the future is worth looking forward to.

It is worth mentioning that the manufacturer behind Yarn Loop is not unknown. Although the manufacturer of the game is named Combo Games, a Türkiye company, in the dual end store, the e-mail suffix left by the company in Google Play is Spyke Games.

According to the public information on the Internet, Combo Games is actually an experimental department under Spyke Games, a star manufacturer in Türkiye, which is used to test new creative directions to avoid the brand tonality of its core works being affected by the new project's inconformity with the main brand style.

Spyke Games was founded in 2020. The core team behind Spyke Games has an extremely scary resume. The co-founder and CEO Rina Onur Sirinoglu was the co-founder of Türkiye's unicorn Peak Games (the company was acquired by Zynga in June 2020 for $1.8 billion). Her brother Remi is also the company's co-founder and chief operating officer. The other three co founders are Barkin Basran, chief product officer, Fuat Coskun, chief technology officer, and Mike Madra, the former chief marketing officer.

The company inherits the excellent tradition of Peak Games, specializing in squeezing the payment potential and retention indicators of each level through large-scale A/B testing, and has also accumulated deep experience in combining IAP with incentive video advertising.

Based on this strong alliance, the company received $55 million in financing from Griffin Gaming Partners in the early stages of its establishment and attracted a strategic investment of $50 million from Moon Active (developer of Coin Master).

In 2022, Spyke Games launched the stacking elimination game "Tile Busters", which cleverly combines traditional mahjong elimination mechanisms with modern simulation management elements. Once launched, the data skyrocketed, and in October 2023, the monthly revenue reached a peak of $5.5 million (approximately RMB 37.35 million).

After Tile Busters, the company launched products such as Blitz Busters, Cube Busters, and Resort Match.

It is reported that the annual growth rate of Spyke Games will be as high as 1800% from 2021 to 2023. In the market environment of 2026, Spyke Games and Dream Games (the developer of "Royal Match") are known as the twin stars of Türkiye's game industry. It is expected that they will continue to maintain a strong growth momentum by the end of 2027.

With such background support, it seems very logical to create a product like Yarn Loop.

03 Summary

Finally, it should be clarified that although Yarn Loop is currently the strongest follower of the "Pixel Flow!" mechanism, manufacturers who are eager for this direction and layout can be described as "crossing the river carp", with various combinations emerging endlessly.

For example, "Loop Hole" combines table tennis themes with black hole devouring, "Money Loop!" is a paper currency theme, "Egg Mania! - Packing Jam" is an egg box packaging simulation, "Food Flow: Hotpot Fever" is a hot pot food theme, "Rail Rush" is a roller coaster theme, and so on.

Overall, the dominance of Pixel Flow! In the market is unlikely to be easily broken, but with the increasing external competition and manufacturers' continuous exploration of the "conveyor belt" mechanism, although Yarn Loop has excellent quality and sufficient funds for advertising, it still faces various challenges from derivative products in the medium and long term. Underneath the head, it is not easy for the second tier to sit firm.