Hidden Hotel: Miami Mystery has 25 million downloads.

Tilting Point acquires publishing rights for WhaleApp’s Hidden Hotel: Miami Mystery

Tilting Point will become the exclusive publisher for Hidden Hotel: Miami Mystery, and developer WhaleApp will focus on development and live ops for the game.

Fresh after raising $235 million for its “progressive publishing” model, Tilting Point is helping to scale the game through the funding of user acquisition and other publishing tasks.

Hidden Hotel has gained more than 25 million downloads and $40 million in revenues since its launch in 2019. But Tilting Point believes it can grow that audience even bigger.

The New York-based Tilting Point typically engages with game developers by providing them with user-acquisition budgets. It can borrow up to $132 million (at least) per year in its line of credit, and it has used that money to fuel advertising for games from developers who have shown a lot of promise. As the game grows its revenues, it shares the proceeds from the growth. That enables the company to work with developers who are already seeing great growth, rather than trying to pick the winners from a much larger field of small developers.

Tilting Point helps developers with user acquisition.
Tilting Point helps developers with user acquisition.

This partnership enables WhaleApp, who specializes in story-driven casual games, to focus on managing game operations. Tilting Point will have the option to fully acquire the game and take over all game operations after the first anniversary of partnership with WhaleApp.

Since its launch in 2019, Hidden Hotel: Miami Mystery has remained one of the top five grossing hidden object games on the mobile market. Hidden Hotel: Miami Mystery challenges players to test their seek-and-find skills while uncovering secrets, solving puzzles and decorating an old mysterious hotel.

The story of the game unfolds like a detective story, placing the players in the heart of a mystery, where they will use their observation skills to find clues concealed within a picture.

Tilting Point accelerates success for mobile game developers with its progressive publishing model. It can start with scaling games through UA funding and management. It can team up an co-develop games, or it can eventually acquire the developer and game through an acquisition. Tilting Point recently raised funding so it could do all of that.

Last year, Tilting Point also acquired free-to-play mobile games and assets from gambling technology software leader Playtech plc., including the San Diego-based FTX Games, known for publishing Narcos: Cartel Wars, The Walking Dead: Slots and Criminal Minds: The Mobile Game. Additional acquisitions for Tilting Point in 2020 include hit titles such as Star Trek: Timelines and TerraGenesis.

WhaleApp has more than 500 employees.

Dean Takahashi

Dean Takahashi is editorial director for GamesBeat at VentureBeat. 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.