What do you think 2025 will bring?
We asked a whole host of regular mobilegamer.biz readers what they think the big trends will be over the next year, and here’s what they said.
You can find parts one and two here, featuring predictions from leaders at King, Xsolla, My Games, SciPlay, FunPlus and more.
Daniel Tchernahovsky, AppLovin global business development VP
We are seeing more and more partners exploring the web as part of the user experience for their apps. Initially, this was used primarily in the subscription world, where developers would move the onboarding experience to the web, but it is expanding more broadly across app categories. Whether as a way to engage loyal users with a web store or to drive new interactions via pure web-based approaches, I expect there to be a lot of development in this area.
Non-gaming apps in health, wellness and productivity will also continue to adopt gaming mechanics to increase user retention and engagement, creating mutual growth opportunities for both sectors.
Evelin Herrera, Appvertiser head of marketing
A 2025 prediction is that American companies will increasingly hire European and British talent for freelance, part-time, or consulting gigs — a total win-win situation. American companies benefit from advanced talent with high expertise at competitive rates and European and British talent will have greater access to well-paid, flexible opportunities with exciting products and more stability amidst potential economic shifts.
Luken Aragon, King VP of marketing for Candy Crush Saga
Shorter production cycles and faster go-to-market strategies will create new opportunities for innovation. We see this as a chance to expand what’s possible and bring fresh, engaging experiences to players.
Adam Smart, AppsFlyer director of gaming product
Following a turbulent year marked by the loss of several beloved gaming companies, early signs suggest a more resilient landscape as we enter 2025.
As we move into 2025, platform diversity will transform gaming experiences. Developers are increasingly adopting a ‘play anywhere’ model, for example launching directly on web or making playing on both PC and console and mobile a seamless experience.
Alexandra Takei, Naavik podcast host and content lead
Games built and distributed on top of social media and, more specifically, communication platforms. Given the industry is a grabbling with a major distribution recalibration, especially in the West, we should be watching things like Telegram games, WeChat games, and even things like LinkedIn games as they are showing a strong aptitude to accelerate gaming and UA.
In dark times, it’s likely going to be a strategy to simply ‘go where the gamers are’ versus ‘build on a tech platform that enables our games’ vision’.
Halli Thor Bjornsson, Lockwood CEO
In terms of potential impact in 2025 on mobile I’d look out for the Privacy Sandbox from Google. Last time we saw a pretty big change to the mobile ecosystem with the privacy changes on iOS and I’d be surprised if there wasn’t a big impact from this, good and bad. Hopefully not just bad…
Secondly I’m very interested in how mobile games are balanced against social and media, not just in terms of marketshare but also behavioural trends. It’s not going to get easier to compete with the TikTok’s and reels out there and I suspect they’ll potentially benefit more from the AI revolution than other forms of media in the short term at least.
Archie Stonehill, Stash head of product
Major growth will only come from developers who innovate on distribution as well as content. Developers iterating on just content are trying to take bigger slices from the same pie, and it’s becoming harder than ever to grow your share – look at how stagnant mobile has become compared to five years ago.
As has happened before in games, it will require a renewed focus on distribution to grow our industry, just like mobile, free-to-play, and cross-platform once did. We’ve already seen this sort of innovation in 2024, with webshops and direct-to-consumer exploding and early attempts at alternative app stores – but I imagine that’s just the beginning. Likely, this sort of innovation will start with the bigger players (because innovation in distribution can be expensive, so I would watch Microsoft, Epic, and Meta), and be quickly adopted by smaller, more disruptive studios.
Chris Wilson, Metaplay head of marketing
If 2024 was the year of democratised distribution, 2025 will be about deepening it. Studios are no longer bound by the app stores of old – they’re tapping into alternative app stores, web-shops, cross-platform integration, and new direct-to-consumer models. Players nowadays expect their favourite games to be playable in more than one place, which has pushed studios to publish across devices, but I think this shift has also been driven by the improved tooling available to developers compared to previous years.
Jens Lauritzson, Flexion CEO
We are seeing the start of a revolution that will give developers freedom about how they operate. As such developers have the opportunity to build exciting new relationships with users. Instead of restricting their games to one or two markets, developers are increasingly looking to reach audiences wherever they choose to play. From finding new paths to market to building D2C channels. That’s simply about maximising return and reducing market costs.
This new era in gaming frees developers from the restraints of Google and Apple, offering a chance to boost their revenues while reining in costs and improving margins.
Mike Gallagher, Untitled Labs founder
I have seen countless new indie studios popping up with some of the best and brightest talent in the industry coming together. While these studios are just saplings in the greater ecosystem, the more the sprout, the healthier the indie scene will become.
Piggybacking off the above the added cost of UA, and more IP holders wanting to get into the interactive entertainment space, I believe we will start to see these indie studios working with smaller IP holders to bring niche IPs to life, allowing them to tap into pre-existing audiences. This not only saves these bootstrapped studios money on UA, but allows them to cross promote with partners who have healthy marketing stacks, and allows studios to avoid publishers, further degrading their profit margins.
