Sensor Tower just lately launched its newest report on the state of cellular gaming at the start of 2025, which exhibits the traits which are poised to information the market this yr and the way it’s modified over 2024. The findings of the report present that cellular gaming had optimistic year-over-year progress in in-app buy (IAP) income for the primary time since 2021. Nonetheless, it additionally exhibits that downloads are down 6%, indicating maybe that avid gamers are spending extra time persistently in present cellular recreation ecosystems, a change from earlier market dynamics.
The report covers the assorted genres of video games that noticed success in 2024 and in addition covers the shifts within the rising markets. The latter, it says, are accountable for a few of the greatest will increase in engagement out there. One other main takeaway exhibits that fewer new video games are succeeding in the marketplace and avid gamers appear to overwhelmingly preferring core titles. There have been over 200 new video games within the high 1,000 within the U.S. in 2020, however solely about 100 in 2024.
Jonathan Briskman, Sensor Tower’s Principal Market Insights Supervisor, informed GamesBeat in an interview, “ a few of the successes prior to now yr or two, a very powerful query builders must ask themselves is how they’re going to purchase a playerbase enough to assist their recreation. Pokémon TCG Pocket tapped into one of many greatest IPs on this planet with gameplay that triggers nostalgia for nearly anybody underneath the age of 40 (and lots of above!) … . Gamers typically have a recreation or video games they’re spending time in already, and new entrants want a really robust argument to persuade these gamers to spend time on their recreation as a substitute.”
Shifts in monetization for 2025’s cellular video games
Sensor Tower’s report exhibits the variations between the genres with the best variety of downloads and people with the best IAP income. Whereas simulation and puzzle titles present the best share of 2024’s downloads, it’s the technique style that dominates in world shopper spend. The truth is, year-over-year spending for IAP income for technique video games grew by 16% in 2024, and it accounted for 21% of all IAP income.
Briskman attributes this to main technique builders refining their methods to make it each welcoming and simple for brand new gamers to grasp whereas additionally pushing inventive advert methods to longtime gamers. A latest examine from Cellular Premier League prompt that gamers can have a powerful response to in-game adverts, which might have a unfavourable impact on the sport’s total participant goodwill.
Briskman added, “One pattern is the persevering with rise of hybridcasual video games. These video games use cheaper belongings, so they’re cheaper to make. They use simple to market gameplay paying homage to hypercasual but additionally development methods that improve lifetime worth. Additionally, they use a mixture of in-app purchases and advert monetization, making them much less susceptible to market shifts that injury both monetization technique.” He cited Habby’s Capybara Go and Final Conflict: Survival as attention-grabbing case research.
Total, Sensor Tower stories that the cellular gaming market hit $80.9 billion in 2024 regardless of (or maybe due to) the shift in the direction of core video games. Along with technique titles, shooters reminiscent of Free Hearth confirmed essentially the most world obtain progress, whereas on line casino style video games reminiscent of Monopoly Go! confirmed essentially the most IAP income progress.
