🤩🤩 State of Mobile Gaming: Growth Returns, Monetization Evolves, and Marketing Enters a New Era After several slow years, mobile gaming is growing again. In past years, in-app purchase revenue rose 4%, player time increased nearly 8%, and total sessions jumped 12% — the biggest annual growth since 2020. North America led the rebound, while Asia showed a slight IAP decline, signaling a shift in monetization power toward Western markets. 🤩Casual gaming remains the backbone of growth, especially in the U.S. and Europe, where IAP revenue increased 9% year-over-year. At the same time, hybridcasual — blending hypercasual acquisition with deeper monetization — is reshaping the model. This format combines ads and IAP to create diversified revenue streams. Impact: 🤩20 billion hypercasual downloads in 2024 🤩37% rise in hybridcasual IAP revenue 🤩84% of mobile IAP revenue now comes from live service titles. Rising user acquisition costs and privacy changes have shifted focus from pure volume to retention and LTV. Developers are investing in continuous updates, events, and cosmetic content rather than launching endless new titles. For affiliates, this means longer campaign lifecycles and more predictable performance. 🤩 The Ad Shift: TikTok & AppLovin. Ad distribution is transforming fast: 🤩TikTok: +67% impression share in mobile gaming 🤩 AppLovin: +397% impression share among in-app networks Short-form video is now the dominant acquisition format. Hypercasual-style creatives — fast, humorous, story-driven — are being adopted across all categories to reduce CPI. Full breakdown 🤩 here.