- RPGs and casino games have experienced notable revenue declines across most subgenres.
- Strategy games, including card battlers and 4X titles, have seen strong growth this year.
- Direct-to-consumer payments are rising, though adoption among top-grossing games remains limited.
Revenue flows in mobile gaming are rapidly evolving, particularly on the Google Play Store. According to the AppMagic Monetization Report 2025, the global Store's in-app purchases (IAP) for RPGs and casino games dropped by 29% and 50%, respectively.
The downturn is not the same across platforms. The Apple App Store had a 5% growth in overall revenue. Direct-to-consumer (DTC) and other payment pathways, which are increasingly utilized by publishers, rose by 46%.
Mobile Strategy Game Revenue Rises in 2025 While Casino Titles Decline
Since October 2024, the strategy section on Google Play has grown in profits by 21%, while the App Store has grown by 28% during the same time period. Card-based battlers, turn-based strategy games, and 4X titles fueled this growth. Nevertheless, MOBA games lagged behind. The jump is attributed to numerous "major new titles" launched over the last year, with the card-game subgenre alone experiencing a whopping 213% growth.
Meanwhile, RPGs cooled across regions, with only the rogue-like and tactical subgenres having a moderate growth. AppMagic singled out ONEMT's Mech Assemble: Zombie Swarm, Habby's Archero 2, and Bandai Namco's SD Gundam G Generation Eternal as standouts, all of which were launched in 2025. Nonetheless, certain particular casino game titles like Monopoly Go increased the genre’s average spending per user, the overall income decreased by approximately 8% across both platforms.
DTC Adoption: Mobile Gaming Monetization at Crossroads
The increase in direct-to-consumer payments implies that publishers are focusing on alternate monetization options outside typical store-bound IAPs. However, per AppMagic, just 62 of the top 100 grossing games used DTC in the first half of 2025, down from 72 in 2024, indicating that newer games are still hesitant to incorporate these features.
For the time being, the sector is in a transitional moment, with older monetization patterns declining and emerging formats accelerating. With alternative payment mechanisms developing but not yet prevalent, publishers must decide whether to wait, adapt, or completely rethink their playbooks.
