2026 games industry predictions and trends | Week in Mobile Games podcast

Hello and welcome to the pocket gamer.biz podcast week in mobile games where we discuss the week's news and provide some insights. Happy new year everybody. Glad to have you all back. And with me today is is my two colleagues. So we've got uh Aaron Assel, our news editor as always and we have the return of our deputy editor, Paige Cook. Welcome back, Paige. Hope you're doing well.
Thank you. It's nice. It's nice to be back. I've forgot how to podcast, but it'll be fine.
Judging by the recording that no one else will hear. I I'm also struggling to get back to the to the podcasting arena, but uh so how was your how was your holidays? How was your New Year's page? What you been up to?
Yeah. Um it was nice. I had some family up for a couple of days at Christmas, which was lovely. So, a lot of the time it's just me and my partner since none of us live local to our families. So, it was nice to actually have some family with us. Um, as much as it was lovely when it's like 3 days of hosting people,

I was kind of ready to be like, "It's been lovely seeing you, but you social battery was very depleted." But no, it was really nice. And then New Year, we just did like a murder mystery thing that you can get on Amazon, but they're brilliant. Like, I'm obsessed with them. They're so good at how they're put together. So, if you're into like solving crimes and mysteries, give one a try cuz yeah, we we did the same thing last year and we gave ourselves like a little goal to solve the case before midnight, which we did. So, I was very happy about that. But yeah, it was it was good. It was a nice little break.
I love the sound of that. Well, great to have you back, Paige. I'm glad you had a good enjoyed the holidays. Hopefully had a good rest. Back at it now for the PGC grind. And Aaron, what about you? How's your holidays?
Yeah. Yeah, nice. Thank you. And yeah, happy new year to everyone listening. Yeah, I enjoyed it. It was quite restful. I um got some cool game merch that I prepared prepared for the podcast. We've got Rowlet, which is one of my favorite Pokémon, possibly after

some listeners time from 2016. And this was quite cool. I didn't even know this was a thing, but my mom got me this big like box set of like Japanese Zelda CDs. So, like that's packed full of CDs. Oh, wow. which I still need to listen to. I've just been kind of enjoying looking at the box all nicely sealed so far.
Never opening that.
I I keep telling myself I'm going to Yeah. So, no, it was nice. Similar to Paige, I saw some family and stuff. Good. I went out a few people on New Year's generally. Pretty relaxed. Nothing crazy eventful. I got the tree up in I think like the 19th this year or last year now. So, that was pretty good going.
Good. That's good. It was like a full week almost before Christmas.
Feel like that's better than you did the year before. I swear the year before it was like a couple of days before Christmas and you're like, "Yeah, not done any decorations yet."
Yeah. Sometimes it ends up being like the 23rd and then it's cuz I do like

having it up. It's just actually getting round to for doing it.
It's a little bit depressing when you take it all down though because I always feel like the house looks like so empty. Where are all the flashing lights and things?
I think I've broken I feel like I've broken the law. I still have my tree up. It's technically I think the the official date is like the 5th of January or something
something like that.
It's still and I won't be able to unless I do it like tonight I won't be able to put it down until Sunday. So looks like you're staying
still a festive household.
Yeah. Yeah. With a dying Christmas tree.
Yeah. Cuz you got a real one, didn't you?
I did.
Oh, nice.
I revealed the horror story. So if people want to know the horror story behind my last real Christmas tree, tune in to the previous podcast. just you only have to listen to the beginning. It's awful, but it didn't happen again this year, thankfully. So, yeah, that would have been uh I definitely wouldn't have got a new one again if that happened. All right, cool. Thanks, Aaron. I'm glad you glad you enjoyed the holidays. As myself, kind of the same as well. Family time was at my sisters for Christmas. It was lovely. We actually

got the Nintendo Wii out and uh classic playing some bowling, some tennis. My he's two, my nephew was playing bowling with him. That was quite fun. He enjoyed that very much. And then on New Year's went to the same place I went to last year because we couldn't find anywhere else. And it's basically like on this farm, so it's set in a barn and they do it all up for New Year's party and you pay to go. This year it was slightly they they moved it slightly different. And it, you know, it's like 0 degrees. I think it was like the feels like temperature was -4° and everyone is just there wrapped up in their coats and woolly hats and gloves like the entire night. And we knew it was going to be cold anyway. And we got there early so we could try and grab grab a table which would have a bit of heating which did which where we were lucky to get near the start my friend just went up to them and said because basically at the side instead of walls it's just goes out into the into the cold and but they had like these little plastic sheets that they could bring down and my friend went up and said oh just just check it like obviously like people are cold later you're going to be

putting those down later and they went oh yeah that's a good idea and then they proceeded to pull one of these sheets down out of like I don't know how many six seven eight and then that was it. They just left it the rest of the night. So, everyone everyone was absolutely freezing and no one took their coats off. But it was a really good time uh despite that.
Yeah. I feel like they didn't really think that through room that their response was, "Oh, that's a good idea."
It's ridiculous. Okay. I couldn't believe it. Whatever. It was still good fun. Right. So, we we'll uh we'll get into it. Um as first uh first off, some shout outs. So, just a big one really. Pocket Gamer Connects London January 19th to 20th. We're all going to be there. So, please, if you want to meet us, drop us an email, message on LinkedIn or whatever. And uh we any of us will be happy to meet and can't wait. We're expecting probably about three up to 3,000 people at the show. It will be at the brewery as always. And we're also going to be a couple summits, the Apps Business Summit and the Trans Media Summit. Uh is

going to be in the Barbin, which is literally just a couple minutes walk around the corner. And uh the other thing we've been working on is we did the top we've done the top 50 UK game makers list. Uh we'll reveal that soon. I think we're going to reveal that during the event. So that is uh of UK developers and publishers from across all platforms. We did it last year. Last year Hello Games was the number one. And you'll have to find out who's going to be the number one uh soon, but I'll go into a little bit later. Right. Right. So, the main theme of this show, we're going to look at like the trends and stories to watch for 2026. Maybe give some predictions if if we dare. The first thing I really quickly wanted to do was just look back at a story I wrote last year, which was the big games industry trends and stories to watch in 2025. These weren't predictions, but they were just like, "Oh, things to look out for." And a couple things actually stuck out to me. People were like, "Oh, it's going to be hard times ahead." So, hard times for small studios and indies, but good times for big publishers. That was probably pretty accurate. I think the industry is back to growth, but

definitely for the bigger companies. Not all of them, but definitely for the bigger companies. The Gem Capital MD Kir Gerski said he was cautious cautiously optimistic that the downturn would end and the emergence of new funds, increase M&A, more venture activity. I feel like we're seeing more private equity. We've seen some investments that definitely writing a lot more this year, but I know people are still feeling like how very difficult that is. I spoke about that on a previous podcast when I was at ROIOC. And um but some of the trends I wrote, so HTML 5 and web games, I feel like that just sort of didn't really happen this year. Maybe it's all cooking in the background. It's like that. That's what they kind of say about web 3. It's all just like the real stuff's happening now. It just never sort of emerges. There are companies like Pokey around. Um but yeah, I it's not as exciting as it was at like the end of 2024. Uh we spoke about AI that's definitely been a big thing. We'll talk about that uh soon. Although uh Quali oh at the time

he's now the Turborilla CEO. John Wright said that AI will become central to game ideation and design and predicted in 2025 we'd see the first title where over 50% of its foundation was generated with the tech. I guess like it's definitely been used. I I feel like the 50% thing for development hasn't happened, but maybe it has and we don't know. But I feel like that never really happened. Uh, rewarded play. That was uh I I feel like that one again is another one that's kind of sort of it's doing well, but it's not like the hot topic it was last year and kind of at the end of 2024 when you had all these companies emerge. It's definitely still going. There's things happening. That's interesting. Regulator enforcement. A lot happened there. We'll talk about that a bit in a bit. But, uh, yeah, there was a few big things this year. Obviously the app store being cracked open the whole Epic Epic doing a lot with Google Play as well and that's still kind of bumbling away. Uh that's going to on in a couple weeks I think the the judge what is it

Epic and Google going to court to to see what the judge thinks about their new proposals that would base fees around the type of monetizations Chinese publishers increase their influence? Yeah, I'll go into that as well. So a few things there that did happen, a few things that definitely did. Um but I've done enough talking so we're going to jump straight to someone else. So, uh, Aaron, first off, kick us off. What do you think like the stories to watch or predictions for this year?
Yeah. So, firstly, as you were saying, like AI is inevitably going to continue to be a thing. I guess my maybe more interesting prediction is I think bigger companies are going to start to be more brazen about using it. like it just seems like general like dayto-day I'm seeing more people use things like chat GPT over Google and even just like basically texting the AI as if it is a person that's going to answer their questions. So I don't know I think like that feels like it's picked up quite quickly in recent like months. So, I guess to bring that back to games, I

kind of I wonder if we're going to reach a tipping point where a lot more people are just using AI stuff. So, they're not really going to there's not going to be the same backlash against companies using it because the general consumers using it anyway. Whereas, I think two years ago then if a company, you know, if big company was like, "Oh, we're just going to make a game using a load of AI stuff," people would have been more anti that than I think they would today. As you say, I'm still not expecting anyone to come out. You know, I don't think a big developer is going to say our game's entirely AI or necessarily 50%, but just some of the ones that have been more reluctant to to do a lot with it. I wonder yeah whether we're going to see quite an uptick in the amount that do use it this year.
I kind of think I don't know I don't know about your prediction about being more brazen. I think weirdly like company so Craftton has obviously been brazen about it and I think some Asian companies maybe don't have it depends on the franchise as well really but and mobile I think is probably fine to be a

lot more brazen about using it I I don't think that will have as much of a kickback but I think in AAA I think we'll see a lot more caution about the use of either the use of assets created by generative AI especially for big IP and franchises. I'm not saying these companies won't use it. I think probably most are somewhere in in in in production or pre-production, but because we've seen like with Arc Raiders, with Call of Duty, um some other I think there's some others even clear obscure right the the awards show with respect to the to the awards, but like I hadn't heard of it before and I know it was everywhere because Claire obscure had their award taken away because there was one placeholder asset or a couple placeholder assets that were left that were generative AI. Um, so I think a company's going to be very cautious about at least how public they are and using it at a consumerf facing level of what they see cuz and I think it's right that there's still a lot of animosity towards generative AI that

have just brazantly stolen everyone's copyright and then
and then that's used to kind of effectively this is a bit of a weird way to put it I guess but effectively then steal people's jobs with the work that they with their own work. So uh obviously there's different ways you could do it. I think interesting. Roio was an interesting example. Pocket Gamer Connect San Francisco how they basically use their own artists to create the stuff and they and then the generative AI tech uses that to to kind of build new assets for marketing and obviously we've seen a lot of it used in in creatives. But I think that kind of use would be is is interesting. Um
it's just whether also if even at that level I don't know if consumers would have any trust that that's what's been done. It's my thought paid. Yeah, I would I would agree. I think maybe mobile could get away with being a bit more brazen about it, but yeah, I think like console, PC, we've already seen like like you said with the CLA obscure thing, I remember reading about all of that over the holidays. Like like I said, I think they had a couple of placeholder things in that were left. I

think they were in the game for like the first week maybe something like that. And like, you know, they got an award taken away from them. There was all of this uh backlash. So, would a company be in a rush to show that they've done that again? Probably not. I also think there's just a lot of like still misunderstanding about AI tools and which AI tools are being used. I think you say that now and everyone instantly thinks, oh, generative AI, not all AI tools are that like some people are building their own in-house stuff. So, I think yeah, it's it's a year where we're going to see a lot more of it being used, but I think we're still going to see a lot of misunderstanding of how it's used this year. Like, yeah, the Arc Raiders thing. I remember that as well. Like the instant backlash was, "Oh my god, it's AI voices," which instantly sounds very bad. Like that's jobs lost that could go to a voice actor, but then you kind of find out that technically they pay some voice actors allow their voices to be used and they pay for it. So I think it's just another year of just trying to understand this technology more and what are the ethical uses of it and what aren't. I think

ultimately this year and beyond depending on how big the the boom is but and how practical some of these tools will ultimately be ultimately that keeps saying that word but there will be a lot of use of this somewhere in the game development pipeline and in marketing like is just going to happen it's just how much and where it's used will be interesting to see
and how much they want to say they're using it.
Yeah, exactly. Um, so, uh, Paige, you what, uh, any trends that you're looking at?
Well, as we mentioned with, uh, uh, Pocket Gamer Connects London coming up, we are doing a Beyond Games trans media summit. So, that's very on market for what I was going to talk about, which is trans media. I just I I don't know why I find this such an interesting subject. I guess maybe because one of my big hobbies is games and another hobby is like I'm a big movie buff and I enjoy stuff like that. So, I think, you know, growing up where I had like the odd game that became a film or a series, but a lot of the time they weren't great was

whereas now it's like they're everywhere. There's there's so many games that, you know, become movies, TV series, they've got merchandise, they've got comics. Um, you know, I just think that games have become such a big ecosystem outside of just being a game. I know there's a lot of debate about how much these kind of projects actually, you know, give studios in terms of like a revenue, but I don't know if more of the appeal is, you know, sort of about audience reach, you know, reaching them in new ways, finding new audiences and in general just keeping an IP more relevant today. Like I feel like the general consumer today is like we're quite greedy. We want stuff everywhere. We want to be immersed in the worlds that we like, be it through a book, a show, whatever it may be. So yeah, I think it's it's a very easy prediction to make, but yeah, we're going to keep seeing tons more. I think this year, I don't even know how many I could say off the top of my head. I know it was a Mortal Kombat, Silent Hill, Street Fighter, Super Mario Bros. I think there's another Resident Evil like film coming out. I don't know how many of

those been at this point, like another reboot of that series. So yeah, I just think it's going to be another year where we see a lot of trans media stuff coming from the games industry. I always see people how I know obviously books are still developed into shows and TV a lot, but it's kind of like it's not all books being adapted now. It's just games are like the new go-to, which I thought is quite interesting. So yeah, I think we'll see a lot more um that. But then interestingly, I'm putting together a feature at the moment about trans media stuff and I think entertainment industry is where your mind goes to. But one of the guys I spoke to was talking about like robotics and AI and things and yeah I suppose your mind doesn't always go there even with like in recent years like Unreal's been used again in entertainment but yeah so with like games and trans media it's not always just the entertainment industry. There are other uses for how games technology can be used in other fields which I think is is quite interesting. So yeah I think um PGC I'm really interested to

learn a lot more about that and hear a lot of more uh insights from people. I'm looking forward to Mortal Kombat 2 next year. It's the one I want to see. I actually enjoyed the first film. I don't know if it got reviewed that well, but Carl Urban's in it and there was an amazing trailer for like an 80s style fighting scene cuz he's like the actor Johnny Cage drew. It's brilliant.
Some of them are definitely a guilty pleasure, but it's still really entertaining, so it works.
Angry Birds 3, of course. The interesting thing that I'm kind of looking forward to is I wonder if there's like more more even more stuff that will happen in Fortnite around like film stuff. So, we had the Tarantino. Was it Kill Bill?
I saw something on this the other day cuz I I was on PlayStation and like PlayStation has little pop-ups of things that are happening
and I just saw the characters from Pulp Fiction in Fortnite and I think I just stared at my screen for a second and I was like, Pulp Fiction in Fortnite? What? I don't even think like my nephew knows what Pulp Fiction is.

Now, well, now he gets to know this 18 rated uh
that is how he'll know it. If I say like, "What's Pulp Fiction?" They'll be like, "It's that thing from Fortnite." And I don't know. That scares me.
That's kind of weird, isn't it?
Yeah. So, it's kind of like So, it's the other way.
So, it was the other way around for me. I was watching that like Bill extra thing and I didn't know there was any like Fortnite in action. And then there's just a bit where like you see like the banana character and it's I'm sure isn't that a Fortnite thing and then it just kind of carried on and then but like I've not played Fortnite but there you know some other just random background characters came up and then in the credits it was you know had all these names of the game characters like playing themselves. I was so confused. Like I was thinking, does that mean like all the background characters are like Fortnite characters? And then looked it up afterwards and it okay, like it makes sense now. But yeah, I had no idea going in and then so that threw me off a bit.
Yeah. So yeah, I'm interested in like the EGC applications in in Roblox and Fortnite moving forward. And then um

it's not much of a prediction from me, but yeah, like you say, I I just expect more of it cuz Sonic seems to be doing very well. There have been some very successful movies. Mario was super successful. Minecraft. And it's not like you can get fatigued from it because they're all different genres and types. So, it's not like you get superhero fatigue. It's just they're just different films and or TV shows and experiences. Right. I'm going to move on to another trend. So, this one is basically the trend I talked about for 2025 and it will just continue in 2026, which is I think uh so I'll keep it fairly brief. I mentioned it in the last show just before the new year. There's a lot of just before Christmas. There's a lot of eyes that are going to be on the growth of China's top publishers. We've seen Micro Fun with Gossip Harbor and the merge space become dominant. First fun and Century Games with Last War by Out Survival Kingshot. They've become dominant in the Forex strategy space. Uh Infolds uh released a hit game with Love

and Deep Space. I don't even know what I'd call that. I've played it. I I don't really know what it's called as it's kind of like a dating sim. I don't know. Anyway, but what is interesting is they they're kind of achieving global success, but they're also kind of they're not just competing, they're like surpassing Western publishers and making more money than some of those ever did. Like in the forex space, that's gone up dramatically. The merge merge space revenue has gone up dramatically. Although shout out to a UK developer, Magmatic Games, which was I think it was bought by Moon Active that made Travel Town, which is maybe even the top merge game in the world, but they're not now the top merge publisher cuz Micro Finance has a couple. Anyway, I digress. So, that was obviously the big trend of last year. I don't expect it to slow down this year. And it's interesting whether they can make the move to match free. So, I was speaking to someone at Roia Con last year and they were saying that's probably the only thing they haven't cracked yet is the match free space. So, I guess we'll see what they

do. I have meant to check. I think Century Games has a puzzle game that has released that is doing very well and it might have been a match free. I think it was a truck based one. I'll look at that while someone else is chat. But I think I think might already start to happen. it. Obviously, we've seen a lot of like success in sort of puzzle in like Turkey with Blast and Match. That's continuing with say Pixel Flow, which is like a completely new type of of puzzle game really. Uh, which is really interesting. It's like I don't know how to describe it. You have like these pigs that go around a square and there's an image in the middle and then they you have to shoot the colors and then get rid of the picture. It's the worst explanation. I won't do the marketing for them but you know so I think China all eyes are on that and I think Turkey probably continue doing very well there's a lot of just like not just in say glass and match free but they're innovating there um so that's quite exciting and we'll see basically this year and beyond how

western publishers deal with China China having a lot of global success and taking over categories most importantly like will some western publishers start to suffer or was the market big enough to sustain everyone um even at even at the rate that Chinese publishers can put out creatives on UA channels. Um moving on, Aaron, what else have you got?
Yeah, so I also think there's going to be quite an emphasis on like nostalgia this year because the games industry has like loads of big anniversaries. So I expect we're going to see like quite a lot of old games come back, you know, with remasters or re-releases. maybe some like old franchises getting like mobile remakes or you know across consoles there's a lot that's going to be celebrated this year. So like on the mobile side this year is 10 years of Pokémon Go and Clash Royale I believe is 2016. Um so obviously they're both still like big games I imagine like big in-game campaigns and stuff going on for their 10 year anniversaries and then

kind of broader games industry anniversaries. A lot of these are kind of based on Japanese release. Like Zelda's 40th anniversary this year, Metroid's 40th, Castlevania's 40th, Sonic's 35 this year, Sona series is 30, Pikmin's 25. Um, so there's like a bunch of franchises there that could lean into um their anniversaries at least in like a lot of those have mobile games like Persona, Hitman, Sonic, obviously like I'm sure Sonic Rumble will be doing a 35th anniversary thing. So yeah, I think there's just going to be a lot of kind of excuses for companies to try and draw back older fans through nostalgia and obviously just an excuse to celebrate and market really. And just as a little bonus one, because you mentioned playing the Wii at the start of this podcast, Craig, the Wii is 20 this year.
Yeah.
So everyone feels nice and fresh and young.
Yeah. 20 years. Crazy. You know, the

interesting thing about the Wii is I feel like nothing the fact that I don't think I'm the only one that gets the maybe I am that gets like the Nintendo Wii out at Christmas. And I know it's not a business to just have this console that comes out once a year at Christmas, but like there's been nothing like it since, right? So, I think that's kind of that feels like there's a market for that kind of experience still. I I don't know.
An interesting thing on that that you've mentioned it at my Christmas, somebody mentioned that because one of the presents that me and my partner kind of got collectively for us is we got a VR headset and when we had family round, we were all playing it and obviously you can sync it up to the TV so you can all see what the other person's doing. So, somebody was playing Beat Saber or like we had like a mini golf game on it. Um, and someone said like, "Oh, this is like the futuristic version of the Wii."
I've never heard VR described like this.
Yeah. And it made me giggle last night cuz Yeah. I was also like, "That didn't cross my mind." But yeah. Okay.
But to describe it like that, it's like the clunkier version of the Wii cuz then you have to put on this headset. It's just like
I think it's really cool to play Beat

Saber as a group, but then it's also like with a Wii, I don't know. It just feels a lot more involved with everybody.
Yeah. Yeah. It's always the person that's putting on a VR headset. They're kind of like this strange person over in a corner doing lots of weird things whilst you look at a screen of what they're doing. It's not like a It is a shared experience, but I guess like that sort of community feel isn't there as much as it is with the Wii. So, I wonder if there's room to bring back something like that. I know the Connect was a flop and I know then it wouldn't be Nintendo, so there's all these things that would make it not work. But the interesting thing is like in the US which is uh something to look out for this year. It's not mobile but is the next playground which has done very well. Um but that kind of targets I think like family kids stuff. So that is kind of an example of trying to bring back this era that is has long been ignored in the console space. So maybe that is the solution to the manufacturer problem I've created. But yeah, interesting nostalgia. And actually, just as a real random one while we're here, cuz you mentioned Clash Royale. Uh, I just got I

wonder what's going to happen to Supercell 26 because they can't I I don't foresee them having another big comeback in one of their games. They've done it with Brawl Stars. It's declined. They done it with Clash Royale. I think Clash Royale is like declined from its peak, but it is holding pretty steady. So, they can't do that again. So, what they're going to need in the next couple years is a big new hit. And I've been hearing I've seeing a lot on LinkedIn that Supercell is sorry, they're hiring a bunch of people because of their new games division. And it's it seems like there's quite a few titles getting green lit. At least we're being told that publicly whether they even hit soft launch Supercell. They maybe won't. Uh they've got Mo.co is still technically not globally launched even though it is. And then they've got what is it? I can't remember the other stuff now. Is it Project Rise? Is that still is that cancel? I can't remember. And then they've got um boat game in soft launch. There's a few interesting things. I think they need a hit whether it's 26 27. I'm curious what the revenue was at 25. We'll know that in February. Maybe

it went up. Not sure cuz squad bus is obviously a failure in the end. The the narrative could become by the end of this year once again that well Supercell's in decline again and the restructure hasn't worked. I know it takes time. Yeah. Anyway, I thought that was interesting. And also we'll see uh Clash Royale's development into a game sort of a platform itself which was part of the idea. They bought Clash Mini into it. There's some other games you can play in it. Maybe they'll develop that more but this year. Yeah, Super is what to watch. Right. Uh Paige, what else have you got?
Um yeah, and just quickly say on Aaron's thing, I did see a video the other day about it being the 10th anniversary for Pokémon Go, and it kind of blew my mind cuz I was like, is was that 10 years ago? Like it made me feel really old. I was like, oh no. cuz I remember like everyone just being out and people were buying battery packs for their phones so they could stay out for longer to catch more Pokémon. Like that was just a very strange but great time. So
I was shocked by Pikmin being 25.
Thanks for that, Aaron.
Yeah, that's all right. It makes me feel

old as well. I'm getting no victory in the
one of us. But yeah, my uh my next one's Yeah, it's more of a just an ongoing trend really. Not really a prediction since it's a very glaringly obvious one, but just the continuation of seeing more games going crossplatform, be that they launched on one platform and they implement it later or they're just designed from the get- go to be crossplatform. I think it kind of coincides with the trans media stuff that audiences want their games in a multitude of ways. We want to be able to play things and continue playing things. If I'm playing it on a high-end PC at home, great. But then if I'm on the way to work, maybe I want to be able to play that same game on my mobile. And as a sort of continuation of crossplatform, I think there's also the whole cross progression thing. Like people don't want to have a game on their console and then play it on mobile and PC and have to start again. They they want it all in one place. So yeah, I think just more of that more of that being developed in mind from the get- go. obviously more

challenging to develop for multiple platforms. But I think because players expect it more now, it's becoming more of a necessity. It's about reach, but it's also about retention. Like, you know, I think so many of the most popular games now aren't always new releases. People play a new game and they finish it in two weeks and then that they don't think about it again. Whereas there's certain games that people play every single day and they've been playing that game for 2 years. So if you can do that in multiple places, there's more chance that you do keep coming back. And yeah, I think like years ago, if a game came out on a certain platform, you just accepted that that's the platform it was on. Whereas now, I feel like as soon as a new game is announced, you see so many people being like, "Oh, well, what other platforms is it coming on? Oh, if it's crossplatform, is it cross progression?" It's just an immediate thing people ask. Um, I think obviously for PC console, it's a lot more expected. I am intrigued sort of this year and beyond if we do start to see more mobile games having some sort of presence elsewhere whether that's like I said just being designed

from the get- go or if it's mobile games you know that started mobile and then they eventually come to console PC. So yeah I'm intrigued to see if we we see more of that. I I suspect that we will.
Yeah. What was interesting is I looked at the uh Steam top sellers 2025 and I noticed that there's so much crossover whether it's like kind of the same game bought to mobile or the other way around to PC or like sort of adaptations just IPs being taken. There's so many and I'll quickly name like a few of them like Black Desert Online, Delta Force, Once Human, Pudgy Mobile, Rust Mobile is like the new the new one that's been in testing that should come out soon. astu valley um um mus pretty derby war thunderframe mobile wavering waves Yu-Gi-Oh master jewel and and then there's a bunch more like French IP so it's very much crossplatform future what I'm curious to see this year mostly like if I was to be specific will Xbox like properly reveal its plaids uh for what

it's actually doing with its next sort of era I guess for game pass and its hardware business cuz their plan is to play everything is an Xbox and I'm curious like how they pitch that. I I imagine that will be pitched this year. Um but we'll see.
Yeah, I expect this year there'll be some kind of Xbox restructuring story somewhere. Also, obviously there's the Steam, you know, they're having like a console version come out, so that's quite interesting. Um is it is it the Steam Machine? Is that what it's called? But yeah, so I think that'll be interesting too.
Yeah. So, it's definitely a really interesting one to to be keep an eye on this year. Um, we've got a few more, so I'll try and rattle through some. Every time I say that, it's one I take the longest. So, the next one I I did quickly want to look at was um it's not prediction, but like is global politics and part of that includes regulations, which we covered quite extensively last time. Regulation is a big one to watch

this year. So on that front, I don't know if we'll hear more about the EU's digital fairness acts this year. I can't remember when that's due. Um the cons consultation period for that ended last year. Maybe we'll hear a bit more about kind of the negotiations that going on in the background there because that could very much impact as Il Kapana then said like the future of Europe's mobile games industry if it goes wrong. And then the other things to look out for I mentioned earlier is the so Epic had obviously favorable rulings against App Store and Google Play in the US. The App Store won't be quite as free as it was going to be. So don't know what that's going to look like yet, but it expects like basically fees even for direct consumer potentially there. And then Google Play, I mentioned that earlier. We'll see what happens in just a couple weeks. Uh the latest on that. And then online safety is a big thing. We'll talk about Roblox got like the Face ID stuff now which is interesting and then you got wider regulation for social media

which is banned in Australia. There could be more on that and then that ultimately impacts marketing. So that's one to look out for. And then obviously there's a lot of tension around the world really at the moment with the US, China, Russia and the EU various kind of all at each other except for Russia and China seem pretty close but even like the US is trying to trying to take Greenland at the moment it would seem. But the interesting thing about that is is how could that impact the tech and game space? So for example, tensions before tariffs, maybe they'll make a comeback that that impacts like hardware for phones and consoles and pricing. Then obviously with Tik Tok, so there was a new new legislation new legislation passed in Congress a while back. Um that banned Tik Tok but not or they had to orders had to sell it. That's kind of been resolved now. But it also meant for any big platform basically from China owned by a foreign entity. So maybe that could make another

sort of comeback this year for something else. You don't know. These things can kind of spill out in any way. And I remember for example there's a dispute between China and South Korea about a missile defense system called I can't pronounce properly but FAD and that was supplied by the US. So China unofficially banned South Korean games being released in the country and that lasted for quite a few years. And then obviously India banned a lot of China apps because there's border disputes there and I think they were a little bit worried about China dominance over their mobile market and they wanted to uplift their own local companies which is my take. So I think this year is something to really look out for how any regulation but also how global politics in general and the things that happenings could potentially spill over into games. And one thing I wanted to mention earlier that I forgot was uh like we've I think we spoke about AI and so the weird ways that even that can impact the industry outside of just AI. So for example, I bought some RAM in August. Cost me £100. That's 32 GB of

RAM. I just looked yesterday at the cost of the same RAM that I bought on Amazon. It was £200. It's doubled. And there have been warnings as well like you know GPU is going to cost more, RAM's going to cost more because they're fueling these uh AI companies and the knock-on effect of that is then and we've heard some reports which is the console manufacturers will start worrying now because RAM's going to cost them more and they already sell hardware at a loss. So what does that delay the release of future consoles? A lot of things are quite interesting at the moment. Would it affect like manufacturing of phones? Yeah. So, lots lots interesting going on for politically down to AI in ways that you just don't expect. So, bit of a rubbish prediction, isn't it? Expect the unexpecteds this year. It's just interesting. Um, so Paige, I think you had one more thing.
Yeah, just a quick one I'll go through which was just I don't know if it's yet more of a trend I guess. Obviously like last year we saw a lot like you

mentioned with like new regulations and things and as a part of that we saw a lot of you know studios doing their own web shops and I just expect that this year we will see more of that. The obvious is it's you know it's a way to get more revenue and avoid platform fees elsewhere. But I think it's also about having sort of like that direct control and connection with the audience and you know you can determine the pricing, what bundles or promotions are on offer and you know all that kind of stuff. So, um, yeah, I just expect it's something we'll see more of. I know last year, you know, we did quite a few stories like covering different web stores and things. I think there was quite a mixed bag of results for what we've seen from web stores. So, I think for me it's more of a curiosity of, you know, from the sort of mixed bag we saw last year and what we will see this year. Does it start to skew more positive as like they're getting more used to using these or if it's still going to be a bit of a year of discovery for that? So I did uh so I did some research based on the last quarter of financials just like Q3 and it was like

a record year for a few of the big publishers or direct consumer sorry a record quarter for some of the big publishers because of I think some of the in the US when like the stores been cracked open and plus just in general more investment going into direct consumer. So for Platica, DTOC revenue grew 20% year-over-year and 19% quarteron quarter to a record $29 million in Q3. That pushed the total share of player spending on its own on its own platform to 31%. Uh so in the previous quarter it was 25.3% and then in Q3 the previous year it was like 28%. So that's gone up quite a lot. uh MTG uh they broke company records. 26% of revenue was coming from their DTOC platform. Steelfront said that 44% of net revenue now comes from their DTC initiatives versus 33% in Q3 2024. So there's a lot. I'm not saying everyone's succeeding at it, but uh

yeah,
it's definitely noticeable. And then I go back to the the the regulatory changes again. I wonder what the uplift was from the app store decision in the US that you could link out freely and if that's going to change soon, how what the these financials will look like in the coming quarters. We won't see that in the Q4, so the next round, but maybe depending on when the the judge I guess makes a decision with Apple. Maybe Q1, Q2, Q3, we might see a slowing down or a different story depending on what happens there. But yeah, obviously DTOC is like the eternal trend. these days. Okay, I've got uh I've got one more and and then we're going to stop. So, what one thing that I have been looking at, so I mentioned earlier we're doing the we're going to reveal the top 50 UK game makers. I must say like I I think this year could be pretty big for UK games developers, not necessarily specifically on mobile, but there is that potential as well. For example, Face Punch Studios working with Level Infinite on Rush Mobile. I think that's going to launch properly this

year. So, that's like a big one. If will it, won't it? GTA 6 might launch in in 2026. Uh obviously a big st uh big probably the biggest game in the world from Rockstar North up in in Scotland. Uh I mean this probably one probably won't come out, but Hello Gates is working on is it Light No Fire or something like that. So may maybe I don't think that's expected. That could be a big one. Then the other one of the other big games, Playground Games, Fable is probably going to might come out this year. Might get delayed again. And then also come out this year.
You're looking forward to that one?
Yes, I'm a big Fable fan.
And that might come out. And then I think they're also releasing the latest Fors of Horizon, maybe Fors Horizon 6, and those do very well. Uh Jagex already did the early access of Runescape Dragons, but that full launch is going to come out this year. Got some other really successful studios doing stuff. Dove Tale, Frontier doing stuff. I think planet is it planet zoo 2 but that's going to be 2027 so just misses 26 and

then there I think there's a bunch of others but like it's going to be a really huge year and then there's still a lot of other kind of cool and successful games being worked on reveal the full list and I'll write an art another article with it I think when we announce but yeah I think it could be a big year for UK again not necessarily mobile but also to remember we do have big mobile companies here playmic golf clash is here triple dot has now become become one of the world's biggest mobile publishers with the acquisition of Vapland's games business. Maybe we'll hear more about that integration if that's been successful cuz it was quite a big big change for them. So yeah, pretty excited for the UK games sector as we approach PGC London. And the things we didn't really touch upon here, but they're kind of like ongoing trends really. It's obviously UGC, Roblox, Fortnite. We were talking about that anyway, but you know, Grow Garden still a brain rot. Will we see some more consistency with like more games hitting those like high concurrent user numbers? Will we see more of that this year? I think that's I'm very interested to see. Basically, Roblox is as big a platform

as any. Um, you just have to see if it gets banned in any more countries. They're obviously trying very hard to appease, I guess, regulators and parents most importantly, that it's a safe platform to use. We'll see if they achieve that. Um, I guess I I'll just do a shout out now. We're going to launch like a newsletter for UGC because I'm really excited about the space. I want to learn a lot more about it and I don't think there's enough reported on it. So, keep an eye out for that. We'll have a form soon to kind of pre-register for that. But yeah, if you want to talk about EGC at PDC London, please uh please hit me up. And then obviously non- gaming, we've got the apps Business Summit and Dualingo is doing a lot of really cool stuff. Expect more crossovers from them this year. They did the uh the Genchin Impacts uh crossover. So, I think we're going to see a lot more of that. And just in general, I'm curious how much like non-gaming like revenue grows versus gaming. And then if there is some way that that impacts the games industry, do more publishers start focusing even more on like non-gaming stuff, which is something we've seen. EA

had the is it the EA Sports app, but it was like general like news and scores for football stuff. Rathdon's been investing in short video. I think some others have. Windzo Gaming was also investing in short video. There's some other examples. can't remember off the top of my head. Oh, Voodoo has social apps, right? So, like the expertise is there to make these things. Just curious what we'll see about that. 2026. Okay, we'll stop there. Thank you, uh, thank you everyone for listening to the show. Thank you for joining us for the new year. Happy New Year once again. Hope you all have a great year ahead. And as always, thank you Aaron uh for being on the show.
Yeah, thank you. Good to be here.
And thank you, Paige, for being on the show. It's great to have you back. Hopefully, we'll have more of you this year.
Yep. It's nice to be back. And uh we'll be back again next week. We'll do a pre PGC show and talk about the week's news, maybe some of the stories that we missed from this week. So with that, have a great weekend and hopefully we'll see you at PGC, but if not, we'll sh see you soon. Goodbye.