As we quickly approach 2025, the mobile gaming industry continues to deal with challenges like combatting the monopolies of Apple and Google and grappling with a UA black box ecosystem that are forcing publishers to innovate more intentionally to find new ways to grow. These challenges are leading to the rise of more tactics and technologies being put into play than ever before to drive new growth for publishers – but what strategies are most effective in building a sustainable growth flywheel? 

As we’ve discussed before, a strong growth flywheel consists of three key pillars, each with champion teams and levers of opportunity to increase LTV:

• Attract: UA, Brand, Creative
• Engage: LiveOps, Lifecycle, Monetization.
• Delight: Product, Support

With mounting CPIs, retention challenges, and a need to enhance LTV at play, mobile gaming industry players are actively seeking an ideal strategy blend to establish a robust growth flywheel. In Mistplay’s latest report, the 2024 Mobile Gaming Growth Report, we explore the critical initial phases of the mobile growth funnel and chart the dynamics of player acquisition, engagement, and monetization. 

Read on as we discuss three key predictions from the report around mobile gaming trends for 2025. 

[Download the report]

Three trends for mobile game growth in 2025 

1. Brand marketing initiatives will enrich paid acquisition to reduce overall CAC 

In a saturated market where consumers weigh a company's brand more than ever in their decision-making process, the interplay between brand marketing initiatives and paid acquisition becomes crucial in enhancing brand recognition and reducing the overall cost of acquisition. 

Today, player preferences lean heavily towards community sentiment, with 49% actively seeking reviews on and off app stores and 16% conducting pre-install online research. With a further 21% indicating that a game's brand significantly influences their decision to install and engage, come 2025, you must invest more in robust brand marketing efforts for growth. 

“If you want to strengthen your overall paid UA CAC, brand awareness strategies work really well. Investing in yourself, in your brand, and who you are, is always paying off. For games, social proofing works really well. Whether it’s testimonials or awards like Game of the Year, people want to understand that you are not a scam because there is more and more competition. Creative tailored to your audience that is socially-proofed and user-first is what works best.” – Claire Rozain, Founder of RZAIN Consulting

We’ve yet to see organic marketing strategies be “cracked” in the same way that paid user acquisition has been for mobile games, but the time to experiment in this realm has come – and next year, we’ll see much more resource poured into brand marketing initiatives to combat high acquisition costs and an overwhelmed ad landscape. 

👀 Related reading: From acquisition to retention: How mobile game communities fuel growth today

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2. New monetization models will further grow in popularity to scale revenue

With high fees cutting into mobile game margins, publishers have been looking for ways to diversify revenue and become less reliant on Apple and Google. Now, as the app store giants are being taken to court in the EU and US, we’ll see even more diversification of monetization models to layer on top of IAA and IAP to grow LTV and increase margins. 

Direct-to-consumer (DTC) web shops in particular stand out as a promising new strategy, with 26% of players expressing interest in them and 14% having already engaged. Subscription models, while not new to gaming, offer another opportunity to diversify monetization, with 17% of spenders purchasing a subscription within the last six months. 

"There’s an interesting trend towards web shops in mobile gaming, and it’s only going to grow. One big question with web shops is how do you bring the players outside of the game and into the web shop? It used to be a big no-no, ‘don’t ever disrupt the users in the game,’ but I think different publishers have found ways to tackle it. For example, Stumble Guys gives special skins only available through their web shop, so exclusive content is one strategy that works." – Michael Kopelovich, Monetization & Economy Manager at Major Gem

Some publishers have already cracked the code for web shops, like Playtika, who launched their own DTC platform in 2020 and reported that their 2022 DTC revenue made up nearly a quarter of their total revenue. (1) Similarly, Huuuge Games launched their own DTC channel in 2022 and generated $16.6M in Q4 of 2023 – triple from the previous year despite a decrease in daily players. (2)

While we will continue to see more publishers follow in the DTC foot steps, we also expect to see new monetization models to evolve as the industry experiments with ways to reduce reliance on the app store giants, claw back more of their margins, and grapple with reduced consumer spend. 

👀 Related reading: Future-proof your profits: Forecasting monetization trends on the rise in mobile gaming

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3. Publishers will leverage rewarded engagement across UA and in-app strategies to increase long-term loyalty 

Rewarding actions is effective across the funnel – from rewarded video ads to offerwalls and in-game reward systems for progression. In the next year, we expect that the way publishers leverage rewards will evolve, as balancing intrinsic and extrinsic rewards rises as a powerful way to engage new, old, and even churned players. 

In fact, 67% of gamers list a good progression and rewards system as a top reason to continue engaging with a game after the first few play sessions, with 43% reporting that a poor rewards system causes them to churn. On the flip side, 52% of players report that new, interesting rewards would entice them to re-engage with a game they’ve previously quit playing. 

In 2025, we’ll see the mobile gaming trend of full-funnel rewards turn into a powerful strategy as publisher double-down on deploying reward-based systems throughout the full funnel. From increasing scale of incentivized UA channels within their media mix to utilizing reward programs to try to reduce churn and re-engage lapsed players, we’ll see a profound shift in how mobile game publishers address player needs, foster loyalty, and cultivate a deeper connection with players.

“Dynamic rewards that increase as players participate more and more are great for keeping players hooked. Players who invest more time should feel like they are getting higher value rewards.” – Oxana Fomina, founder of Gradient Universe Games Analytics Consultancy [Headshot] 

👀Related reading: Play-and-earn or play-to-earn: What’s the difference for mobile gaming?

Get more data to build your game growth strategy in 2025

The realm of mobile game growth is poised for significant evolution and innovation in 2025 across various facets. With a collective emphasis on understanding player motivations, optimizing brand impact, and exploring new revenue avenues, the mobile gaming landscape in 2025 promises to be a dynamic space defined by strategic adaptability and player-centric innovation that leads to new levels of growth. 

Get your copy of the 2024 Mobile Gaming Growth Report to uncover more data-backed mobile gaming trends and check out Mistplay’s other industry reports to build an effective mobile game growth strategy for 2025. 

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