Ben Engel-Kacen, CEO of Planet of the Apps.
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Israel’s Planet of the Apps churns out zany games one after another

  • Posted byby Dean Takahashi
  • Updated
  • 3 min

Small indie mobile-game companies have to be nimble, or they quickly become prey in the $30 billion mobile-games market. Ben Engel-Kacen, the chief executive of Israeli game startup Planet of the Apps, has learned that lesson during his company’s short life.

Planet of the Apps, a “boutique” game studio based in a small town outside of Jerusalem, is making titles in some very crowded parts of the app store: casual, arcade, and puzzle games. It is publishing often, with 22 apps released so far since 2013 — all with a team of just 12 people. None of the games has been a huge hit yet, but Planet of the Apps has generated more than 4.5 million downloads to date.

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Written by

Dean Takahashi

Dean Takahashi is editorial director for GamesBeat. He has been a tech journalist since 1988, and he has covered games as a beat since 1996. He was lead writer for GamesBeat at VentureBeat from 2008 to April 2025. Prior to that, he wrote for the San Jose Mercury News, the Red Herring, the Wall Street Journal, the Los Angeles Times, and the Dallas Times-Herald. He is the author of two books, "Opening the Xbox" and "The Xbox 360 Uncloaked." He organizes the annual GamesBeat Next, GamesBeat Summit and GamesBeat Insider Series: Hollywood and Games conferences and is a frequent speaker at gaming and tech events. He lives in the San Francisco Bay Area.