The US Didn't Stop Spending on Mobile Games: The App Stores Stopped Seeing

The document is a Gamemakers analysis of the Q3 2026 mobile games market, built from Sensor Tower data covering 1,556 games that each earned over $250K in at least one month of the quarter. It excludes ads, direct-to-consumer web shops, China's third-party Android stores, and games below the $250K bar. Worldwide games IAP revenue fell 6.9% year over year to $13.58B, and the US, at -13.5% YoY, accounted for 72% of that drop, while the rest of the world rose 1.2%. The author suggests a shift to publisher web shops may be part of the US decline, but notes store data cannot confirm it. Puzzle grew 18.2% by $430.5M while Strategy fell 17.6% by $586.7M. Sort & Jam revenue rose 128.8% to $352.4M, with its model largely ad-based and not counted in these IAP figures. New 2026 launches earned 6.3% of universe revenue, and licensed IP accounted for 18.7% of universe revenue.