Josh's Games

Josh Robinson, Founder

Haverford, PA

A peek inside one of Josh’s Pinochle games, where players rack up points by building various card combos

2026

How Josh’s Games became an integral part of its players’ daily routines

In 2014, Josh Robinson, a full-time government employee by day, and a mobile game programmer by night, debuted the first official title from his namesake studio Josh’s Games. It was a version of the card game Palace, and has been building similar mobile card games in his spare time ever since (Pinochle, Trash, Kentucky Discard). Over the past decade, his portfolio of free, ad-supported titles has attracted a loyal fan base, proving that steady, reliable engagement (and ad revenue) can sustain a business for years.

One developer’s side quest

Josh Robinson has something he’d like to admit… he’s been leading a double life.

And no, he doesn’t moonlight as some kind of caped crusader (although, some mobile game players out there might consider him to be a hero of sorts). Rather, he’s a government worker by day. And a mobile game programmer extraordinaire by night.

“I’ve always liked making things people can use,” Josh reminisces. “Whether it’s web apps for the government or games for Google Play, there’s something really rewarding about putting something out into the world that people can use or enjoy.”

Josh, who studied information science at Penn State, went straight into working for the Department of Veterans Affairs right out of college, where he helped build some of the government’s early web apps.

But at the same time, he’s never been one to shy away from any entrepreneurial cravings, either. That’s how he found himself on many nights and weekends tinkering, programming on the side, mostly for fun, to make any extra money that he could.

Then, around 2010, with the dawn of the smartphone age, Josh was swept up by the burgeoning world of mobile app development, or in Josh’s case, mobile games. Before he knew it, that late-night habit of his morphed into something different, something more serious.

And in 2014, Josh ended up launching his very first bona fide mobile game, a card game by the name of Palace — one of those card-shedding games, where the objective is to race your opponent in getting rid of your cards before they can.

But he didn’t stop there.

As the years went on, Josh’s Games, the namesake studio he eventually founded for his mobile gaming business, would come out with a whole slew of other titles.

There’s Pinochle variations like Cutthroat Pinochle and Pinochle Online, each a different take on the classic card game where players score points by collecting certain card combinations. Then there’s also a title like Trash, this quick card game where players take turns drawing cards to complete a sequence.

And there’s even a game whose origins can be traced back to the religious community of Mennonites down in Pennsylvania; it’s called Kentucky Discard, and it’s specifically designed without face cards, consistent with Mennonite beliefs and practices.

Trash, this fast-paced card by game on mobile by Josh's Games where players race each other to complete sequences

Leveling up with ads

Just as Josh tended to think of himself when he was making games, what he'd personally enjoy, what he’d like to play, he also priced them at what he’d be willing to pay too — which is to say, zero, zip, nothing.

“I’ve always preferred free content,” he says. “That’s how the internet was when I was growing up: Google, Gmail, everything was free to use. I didn’t want to charge people to play.”

But therein lies the dilemma: building and maintaining his games wasn’t free, however. Josh had to figure out a way to pay his own bills, and that’s why he decided to go with an ad-supported model for Josh’s Games, integrating Google AdMob into his games early on to display ads.

“It made things really simple,” he explains. “I didn’t have to go out and sell ads or find sponsors. I could just focus on building.”

And it paid off: ads gave Josh enough revenue so that he could keep his games free for anyone to install and play, a model that reflects how much of the internet still works: content is free for users, advertising supports the people creating it.

“People don’t want to pay to play a game,” Josh explains. “Even a small cost can turn someone away. With ads, they can just download it and start playing.”

In fact, ad revenue is responsible for practically all the income from Josh’s Games today. Plus, it allows him to reinvest into the business, including promoting any new games he’s launching by buying ads himself through Google Ads.

Ad revenue feeds into player growth, which in turn drives even more ad revenue. It’s an efficient flywheel many mobile game developers have come to rely on.

“People don’t want to pay to play a game. Even a small cost can turn someone away. With ads, they can just download it and start playing.”

Kentucky Discard, another card game from Josh's Games, this one inspired by Mennonite traditions, and played without face cards

Pressing continue

Josh’s Games may not be a household brand name, but they more than make up for it with long-time player loyalty.

“I don’t have huge numbers,” Josh says. “But I have a lot of people who come back and play regularly.”

That’s because his games are baked into many of their players’ daily routines, sometimes even their bedtime rituals, for years now, in fact.

Josh remembers one fellow in particular, a player who reached out after one of Josh’s updates made a game incompatible with his older, outdated phone.

“He told me he used the game every single night to fall asleep,” as Josh tells it. “And when it stopped working, he said he couldn’t sleep anymore.” Let’s just say the story ends with someone biting the bullet and finally getting himself a new phone, all so that he could get his hands on Josh’s games once again.

It’s also a nice pat on the back for Josh, for all the work he’s put in. “Sometimes I’ll be out walking or doing something else, and I think… there are people all over the world playing my games right now,” he says proudly. “That’s a pretty cool feeling.”

Meanwhile, the revenue impact hits pretty close to home for Josh as well, and quite literally. “I have kids who are getting close to college,” he says. “So a lot of the money is going toward that.”

Next up, Josh still plans on putting out more games, setting a goal of one or two new games a year, perhaps even something for another underserved, niche community out there, you never know.

And he’s also experimenting with AI, albeit still figuring out how precisely it fits into his workflow. But for now, “the most helpful use case so far has been debugging. If I can’t figure out why something isn’t working, it can give me a hint.”

But at the end of the day, Josh’s Games is built on a sturdy foundation: his games have a very loyal following, which, regardless of what happens next, still matters.

Unless that changes, you can expect Josh to stay focused on what he’s always been doing: building things he enjoys and sharing them with the world, day and night.

About the Publisher

Josh Robinson is the creator of Josh’s Games, the one-person studio behind a collection of various mobile card games played by thousands of users around the world each day. Working from his home in Haverford, Pennsylvania, Josh develops games on the side, while he’s working full-time in government technology. He chose an ad-supported model so that he could offer his games free of charge to players, just the way he’d like to enjoy games himself.