Gossip Harbor bet: Microfun's story-led merge game tops $100M a month

Microfun Limited (Lemon Micro Fun), a Chinese casual-game studio, publishes Gossip Harbor: Merge & Story (浪漫餐厅), a merge-2 game in which players restore a seaside restaurant while a gossipy story unfolds; it launched in 2022.

Merge-2 could go global if led by soap-opera stories and relentless live ops: build for Western women, buy aggressively, and overtake the genre's Western leaders.

Microfun (Lemon Micro Fun), a Chinese studio, released Gossip Harbor in 2022 and followed it with Seaside Escape, a second merge title. By 2023 Gossip Harbor had climbed to #3 in the genre with Seaside Escape at #4; by 2024 Microfun held the #2 and #3 slots at once, with the two games combined out-earning genre leader Travel Town by roughly $100M (Friendly GameDev).

Growth was steady rather than spiky. In 2025 Gossip Harbor became the genre's new leader with over $600M in IAP revenue and 55M downloads, nearly three times Travel Town's take (Friendly GameDev). Sensor Tower data cited by DataEye/Jiemian put the game's 2025 total revenue at $650M; from January 2026 it held the #1 spot on China's overseas revenue chart for five consecutive months, and from February 2026 its monthly revenue surpassed Candy Crush Saga, closing in on Royal Match.

Still scaling and setting records: March 2026 saw over $104M in estimated monthly IAP, July 2026 was just under $100M at Gossip Harbor's highest chart position to date, and downloads rose 136% month-over-month in January 2026 (Arbytestudios; ChinaBiz Insider).

Microfun shipped two merge titles in quick succession and let their combined scale fund aggressive user acquisition, rather than hoping one launch would stick.

Story-led, gossip-driven positioning gave the ads an emotional hook that the genre's calmer renovation and mystery creatives lacked.

A relentless live-ops calendar — seasons, passes, card albums and limited stores — turned a simple merge loop into a system players paid to keep running.

The Chinese overseas playbook of rapid iteration and global buying let a Beijing team overtake Western studios inside their own casual genre.

Casual games are won on operations, not genre: Microfun beat Western merge incumbents by pairing their loop with sharper story ads, denser events and a battle pass.

As of September 2026 Gossip Harbor is Microfun's flagship and still growing: Sensor Tower data shows 2025 revenue of $650M, the #1 position on China's overseas revenue chart for January–May 2026, and monthly revenue above Candy Crush Saga since February 2026. Arbytestudios estimates March 2026 brought over $104M in IAP and July 2026 just under $100M at the game's highest chart position yet. ChinaBiz Insider reported January 2026 downloads up 136% month-over-month, and Friendly GameDev (April 2026) records the game as the first merge-2 title past $1B in lifetime in-app purchases.