Artificial intelligence has fundamentally reshaped gaming marketing, accelerating development and creative production while intensifying competition for player attention, according to The State of Gaming for Marketers – 2026 Edition, released in collaboration with industry data partners.

The report finds that while AI has lowered barriers to game creation, it has simultaneously flooded user acquisition (UA) channels with unprecedented volumes of content. Paid install share rose 10% year-on-year in 2025, while ad impressions surged 20%, underscoring how marketing, not production, has become the primary constraint on growth.

Global gaming UA spend reached $25 billion in 2025, up 3.8% from the previous year. Nearly half of that spend flowed into the United States, though US budgets declined 5% YoY due to rising costs and diminishing marginal returns. In contrast, emerging markets such as Turkey (+29%) and India (+19%) saw sharp growth, highlighting a geographic shift in incremental scale.

Casual games continued to dominate UA budgets, accounting for over 50% of total spend, though Android casual spend declined 7% YoY. Hypercasual titles showed diverging platform economics, growing 14% on Android but falling 14% on iOS, while Midcore games surged on iOS (+26%) as advertisers chased higher lifetime value.

One of the most significant structural shifts came from China-headquartered publishers, whose share of global UA spend outside China rose 22% YoY to reach 35% of the market. These publishers expanded aggressively across Western markets including the US, UK, Germany, and France, gaining ground even in traditionally insulated markets such as Japan and South Korea. Android emerged as their primary expansion engine, with spend nearly double that of iOS.

The report also highlights growing polarization in monetization. Western markets continue to dominate in-app purchase (IAP) revenue, accounting for 66% on iOS and 55% on Android, while emerging markets increasingly drive in-app advertising (IAA) growth. Turkey, in particular, saw a 25% rise in IAA revenue across all genres.

Hybrid monetization models gained traction, with 7% more games adopting combined IAP and IAA strategies in 2025. However, fewer than 30% of games overall currently use hybrid models, indicating gradual rather than wholesale change. Casual and Hypercasual genres lead hybrid adoption, while Midcore and Casino remain largely IAP-driven.

Creative scale has become a defining competitive factor. Top gaming advertisers now produce 2,400–2,600 creative variations per quarter, up 25–30% YoY. Smaller advertisers increased output by as much as 40% to remain competitive, while mid-tier studios struggled to maintain testing velocity, leaving them squeezed between agility and scale.

AI tools are increasingly embedded in daily marketing workflows. Analysis of AI assistant usage shows that 46% of AI queries focus on reporting and performance breakdowns, with Hypercasual teams prioritising speed and visibility, while Midcore and Casino teams use AI more for diagnostics, anomaly detection, and long-term monetization decisions.

The report also points to accelerated media diversification on iOS, with advertisers expanding into more channels as they scale. Casino and Midcore genres, in particular, increased media source breadth to mitigate platform risk and rising acquisition costs.

Finally, the study underscores the rise of “play-anywhere” behaviour. While mobile remains the dominant entry point for discovery, player value increasingly accumulates across mobile, PC, and console ecosystems, reinforcing the need for unified, cross-platform data strategies.

The report concludes that in 2026, success in gaming marketing will belong not to teams that can produce the most content, but to those that can interpret fragmented signals, sustain creative velocity, and allocate budgets based on integrated, data-driven insight rather than sheer scale.