Session: The State of Gaming 2025: Mobile Trends, Transmedia Impact & Global Shifts by Josh Skinner

[Music] Up next, I would like to welcome Mr. Josh Skinner from Center Tower, who's going to be giving a state of gaming session here in PGC Barcelona. So, please do stick around for that. So, welcome Josh. Thanks, Charlie. Hey, everyone. Um, pleasure to be here in Barcelona. Um, and great to see PGC in

Barcelona. I think we can agree. Maybe it's been a long time coming. Um, so excited to be here. Um, and to take you guys through today the state of kind of gaming from a sensar data perspective. Um, starting to understand some mobile trends that we've seen from past years into half one of 2025. And then we'll also jump into a bit of PC and console data as well, understanding some of the recent trans media successes that we've seen. Um, so for those that aren't aware, Sensar is a a mobile data provider historically. However, we now have a PC console data set. Um, we're able to understand the success or downfalls of your competitors. So, let's jump into it and start to understand what's been happening in the last 12 months or so. Starting back in 2024 and we'll progress forward. It's important to understand where we were previously and where we are now. In 2024, we actually saw year-on-year growth down for downloads. Okay, with 6.6% down. However, we saw

the growth in revenue. We saw inapp purchases increasing 3.8. In terms of actual time spent on mobile, it's important to understand that although we saw downloads down, we actually saw total hours spent on mobile increasing significantly year on year. And this is across both Apple and Android. And this links easily well into sessions, but also on the ends where we see game ad impressions captured. 160,000 ad impressions were captured every single second in 2024 in the gaming space, which is quite crazy to see. and we're actually seeing this grow. But let's jump into 2025 and let's get a little bit more relevant. So, we're going to hop into downloads and revenue worldwide for 2025 so far. How have we been looking so far? Interestingly, downloads are down over the same period of 2024. However, it's not really all doom and gloom. Although downloads are down, inapp purchases are up just a

slight amount over the same period. So, we're starting to see some positive growth in the market from a revenue and consumer spend perspective worldwide. Total hours spent is around the same. We're not seeing too much increase, but sessions are increasing as we see one session per day per person on Earth in 2024 and we're exactly the same that we see there. So, we are starting to see that growth worldwide from an inapp purchase and revenue perspective. Even though we are starting to see obviously some developers and publishers switch out of typical revenue and looking direct to consumer models for Q1 2025 we did see growth in the overall um app space. Okay. However, this came from non-game. We can see that Q1 2025 over the last 12 months is actually the strongest quarter that we've seen in the whole app ecosystem in terms of downloads. And we've seen that positive momentum. This really was

driven um through increases in both stores. Okay, we saw a 3.9% increase on the apps Apple App Store and we saw a 2.4 increase in Google Play. However, if you look on the right in the darker modules, we can see that actually gaming in terms of downloads was actually down. And this links into some of the 2024 stuff we see. But if we flip the script away from downloads and look into consumer sprint spend growth again Q1205 is the largest spend that we've seen in the last 12 months and versus Q1 2024 it's actually up 11.1%. So again, with the direct to consumer potential methods coming in um for developers and publishers, we haven't really seen that impact on Apple and Google Play yet, but I'm sure as the quarters play out, it may some may be something that we start to see. And on a positive light, where we see the most growth is from the iOS side. a staggering 13.5% overall growth in the

app market that we see and we see the growth both in gaming but actually on Android we see a decline in in gaming revenue. Okay. So most of the revenue in fact all of the revenue growth that we see from a gaming perspective is coming from iOS. Let's take it to more of a um a worldwide split and start to understand different geos to consider. Mobile mobile games as we saw in in the previous slide um in terms of year-on-year did decline in Europe just a small 1% um for Q for Q1 2025. However, where we are starting to see growth um from a a download perspective is in Africa. We can see the Middle East and I think the Middle East is is one to take note here. Um PGC obviously held an event in Dubai recently and we start to see upcoming kind of um indie developer space but I think as you'll see um throughout the slides the consumer market there we are seeing some growth. Okay. So I think it's important that the

Middle East and obviously the growth in Africa at 9% are markets that shouldn't um be avoided and ones that we should seriously consider. In terms of downloads by product model, this is taken from Sensar's gaming taxonomy and we break out um product models into hyper casual, casual, hybrid casual and midcore and so on. Interestingly, what we see for 2025 and year year to date is download growth within the hyper casual space. This could come as a surprise to some people. Um we see casual down 16% and hybrid casual down 5% for for Q1 so far. But interestingly, hyper casual seems to be coming back from a download perspective and that's one interesting takeaway that we have seen. We can see the breakout on the on the left hand side here as well looking at 2025 compared to previous years and again where hyper casual is starting to almost claw back into some of its market share in terms of downloads worldwide.

One key takeaway from this slide is Asia were on a bit of a decline in terms of consumer spend and revenue in the mobile gaming space. However, we have actually seen yearonear for for 2025 um a 1% increase taking them back to 16 billion which is a positive um element for the region as we did start to see some strong declines there in 2024 over 2023. So, it's important to take note there. Looking into North America from the gaming space as well, we have seen decline there from a revenue perspective, but Europe is also pulling through strong again with the Middle East. I know there's a big disparity from 5 billion to 500 million, but I think it also echoes the point that the Middle East isn't a region to be ignored. We believe from a revenue perspective and the opportunity opportunities that are arising within that space. Breaking out onto a genre level, looking

at Q1 2025 so far. One of the key takeaways here is the growth of strategy. Yes, action at 53% year-on-year growth. That's down to a couple of apps that have been released. But if we're taking into account strategy, it's the first time it's overtaken RPG on a quarterby quarter consumer spend base. Okay, so that script has really switched around there and we expect this growth in strategy to increase and will stay at least level from within there. One key takeaway and you'll see this within the European market is looking at casino games. We are seeing a bit of a decline in consumer spend. This could potentially be linked to out of store payment methods that we're starting to see particularly within casino games. So this could account for some of the decreases within there. Excuse me. Let's break it into Europe and get a bit more relevant to the region that we're in. Puzzle always strong, but again, 17% growth um year on year for for Q1 2024

versus 2025. Strategy always strong and we still see that decline in casino. It was stronger in a worldwide view, but on a European view, we see that 3% decrease, which is an interesting takeaway. And interestingly, we're seeing RPGs decrease in Europe in terms of that consumer spend. Overall, this picture is very different to what it looked like in Q1 2024 and even Q4 2024. So, some of the key takeaways that we're starting to see are becoming more and more interesting as the market evolves. looking into some of the top growing games of 2025 so far. It's interesting to understand the difference of product models and the genres. What we're really seeing though is midcore and strategy games that have been released within the last two years are starting to really take take control here. Interestingly, with these top growing games, we can see the majority of games from 2024

highlighted in green within there. Okay, Pokémon TGC Pocket taking kind of the lead in terms of what we see by inapp purchase revenue and starting to understand really what's hitting home. Cool. I mentioned right at the start and in the talk previously the scoping guys really spoke about the recent trans media efforts that we're seeing the crossover between mobile into PC and console. Sensit for those who are aware of Sensar has historically been a mobile data provider on analytics. However, we're also changing kind of our narrative as a company. Recently, we acquired video game insights which provides PC and console data across Steam, Xbox, and PlayStation. By having PC console um data, we're able to pull this together with our mobile data sets and track some of the trans media activity that's been happening within the market. And one key takeaway to start with is looking at Minecraft.

What we can see is starting to understand when Minecraft's of course a huge IP released in April the 4th, 2025. Not only do we see the increase in mobile daily active users, we also see a significant increase in PlayStation and Xbox daily active users. What does this say and where's the value here? This really hits home on the importance of trans media and IP collaborations that we're seeing within the market. Again mentioned in the chat before, but we truly believe that we will see more and more of these efforts across the market from the larger developers and publishers. And with Sense Tower, we're really able to understand the impact. Okay, so here is a good story to share, but we can also share the stories of potentially where it didn't work out. And with our um diverse data set, you can understand it from different media opportunities away from Minecraft. Oh, bit of format. Um the Last of Us games and Max app. So the the um HBO Max app in the US and The

Last of Us games. What we're able to understand is around the launch in April 2025, the impact of a game becoming um becoming a series and the impact of the games that we see within there. Not only can we see the impact of the HBO Max app downloads, but we can also understand console daily active users and the impact that this has within these games. Again, this really hits home on the trans media efforts that we're seeing within the market and the positive impact that we're also seeing. So, again, an important takeaway from here that we are seeing is these trans media efforts becoming more and more popular and the impact is becoming strong as we start to see um the mobile market potentially saturate within there. So to hop in some key takeaways of what I've kind of been through. I think the one positive to really take away is the stability that we see within the mobile gaming market and this really is

impacted from the growth of APAC in Europe. Okay, which have really lifted the rest of the market to look at this stability that I think we were all looking for and hoping for. We've also started to see strategy titles cement the top spot for the top half of 2025 as we shared in the earlier slide for those those um the earlier game lists. And really I sound like a broken record but trans media continues to kind of touch every aspect with the engagement within games outside of mobile PC console and also multi uh multiple um various mediums and different mobile providers. So that's me for kind of key takeaways and a short kind of overview of the state of gaming. Of course, we have this in a much more comprehensive level um within Sent if anybody wants to catch me after or ask any questions. Um you can also kind of get these reports directly from our website. We have just released last week a full trans media report breaking into further events that I've just shown within there. So with that,

I'll pause. I think I've got about six minutes for questions. Does anybody have any questions at all for me? We got a mic. Thank you very much for the presentation. Sure. Um the question is actually um you know with this new epic ruling Yep. Do you have any predictions what's going to happen? Sure. Thank you. Yeah, good question. Um I think I've been asked that question about 10 times in the last two weeks uh by by current customers, many of those who are potentially in the room. So from a Sensar perspective, we're obviously aware of the situation that's happening. Um typically and historically, Senstow has always tracked Apple and Google Play data, revenues, and downloads. So the questions that we've been asked is what are Sensi going to do about it? Is our data still relevant? And how are we going to track what's happening in the market? Thankfully um at sens tower we are driven by a strong panel of users which

give us the opportunity to provide different data sets that we have now with our panel of users what we're able to understand is a player of our games which are class as our panel we are able to understand their user journey so if they're within a game and they are taken to an out of store payment we're actually able to track that ourselves so right now since our monitoring the market and seeing what's happening before we make a decision on productizing something brand new. I think right now our stance is let's give it a quarter and see what happens but after that there is the opportunity for sensar to be able to provide some level of data to start with and improve it as it goes on. So in short we have a panel of users we're able to understand through receipt data the spending in different platforms. Thank you. Good. That was slightly taken my thunder a little bit, but so I won't ask you the same question. What what is your expectation though? I mean, you kind of

said you're not yet seeing it, but we're already seeing like companies like Scopely. So talking not publicly everywhere about maybe 40% of revenues coming from our web stores or direct to consumer. Yeah. I mean, I know you've got different channels you just said. What impact would you expect on the overall numbers? So obviously it's more money to developers but do you think it's going to be more money invested overall because of different techniques or Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Really good question. I think what's interesting is we're seeing statements come from, you know, big developers, but we're also seeing revenue growth on stores, right? So I think for a mobile market as a whole, it's a really positive kind of outcome because we're seeing growth from revenue on our general stores. We're also hearing of revenue growth outside of these stores. So I think as a kind of a market overview I think like things are really moving in a positive direction. Um and overall as a business that's something that we're tracking. I think again to reiterate we're seeing

growth on our standard markets and with the the kind of DTOC opportunities. Um I think it's you know we're only in a good place that that we see within there. So hopefully by PGC Helsinki um for those that are attending we'll have some data around that and something we can share. Yeah. Does anyone else have any questions? Oh, Craig. Had to be Craig, didn't it? God. Thank you. Uh on on Trans Media, I know you showed some data. Is is is the returns that uh publishers actually see in their games actually real significant meaningful revenue uplift or is it well well this should be more opinionated I guess the answer but or or or is it like I don't know it's just it's kind of completely separate from games it kind of doesn't really matter. Yeah, I think what we're seeing is we're seeing like the hype. Say when a TV series is released in trans media, right, or Minecraft, we showed Minecraft

there, right? We saw the hype, we saw the buzz, we saw the release. And of course, I think naturally you're going to see an increase in mobile and console PC usage. But what we're seeing is after the hype has passed, we're still seeing sustained kind of growth in active users within the platform. Okay. From a revenue perspective, we are seeing that sustain, but where we're seeing the most sustained growth is around this active user platform. So, I think the trans media efforts are getting people to the game. I think that's probably the easy bit. The hard bit is is actually retaining these users and we are seeing that sustained growth more so on the PC console side than mobile to be honest. Um, so yeah, I think Minecraft is is a positive example. I'm sure there's other examples where it hasn't worked so well. There are many. Um, but overall what we're seeing is is PC consoles tend to hold the player. Um, whether they're monetizing as well is something we'd have to look at. Um, but yeah, overall we're seeing pretty positive outcomes from trans media efforts.

Cool. Uh, does anyone else have one quick question? All good. I think you covered everything, Josh. So, please give Oh, very quick one, Chris. Sorry. I did you you most of what you're talking about is mobile. Obviously we're trying to cover everything but mobile's our heartland. Yeah. But because you've now got data for PC console for the new acquisition and stuff. Yeah. All the data I've kind of been seeing and looking at myself from various things from last year is it's showing a kind of a squeeze in in PC console. Uh you know when newsy red did their data they sort of down. Do you see that kind of they've kind of hit a bottom or is there still a kind of a bit of a a trend downwards? I think it's a good question. I think from yeah PC console perspective I think let's got Xbox and PlayStation to start I think we are seeing them get to that bottom a little bit um but we are still seeing some positive signs within there for sure I think Steam's a bit of a

different beast right now um but and and he's on but it is a similar approach that we're seeing for sure um I think what's important is within again linking back to trans media I think That's where we're seeing the drive coming from right now. Um, for sure. But yeah, again, we can share some more PC console data at future events for sure if relevant. Brilliant. Can we give Josh a round of applause, please? Thanks everybody. [Music]