Mobile gaming kept the cash register ringing even as installs plateaued. Singular’s Q2 dashboard shows overall mobile ad outlay up 40 % YoY, yet gaming-only budgets fell ≈15 % as marketers concentrated spend where post-IDFA signal is strongest.GAM3S.GG Publishers that did buy aggressively focused on return-on-ad-spend (ROAS) cohorts rather than headline CPI and leaned on machine-learning bidders to stay efficient—InnoGames, for instance, slashed U.S.-Android CPI on Forge of Empires from $50 to $8 with Moloco’s AI models while lifting day-7 ROAS 88 %.Moloco
May 2025 – IP crossovers kick off the summer
Early May saw Scopely roll out a Star Wars takeover in MONOPOLY GO!, flooding social feeds with themed sticker albums and limited boards.scopely.com The stunt helped the casino-lite hit arrest its post-holiday revenue slide and set the tone for IP-driven “mini-seasons” that dominated Q2. Combined with puzzle evergreens such as Block Blast!, casual titles kept download charts humming even as overall install volumes stayed flat.
June 2025 – Live-event spikes and sports fever
Real-world tent-poles translated directly into app-store momentum. GameRefinery notes that new TV seasons and sporting finals propelled Love Island: The Game, NBA 2K25 MyTeam and MLB Clutch Hit up the charts, while viral collaborations (Capybara Go! ✕ TMNT, Phase 10 ✕ Snoopy) juiced spend without costly UA bursts.GameRefinery On the revenue side, 4X strategy leader Whiteout Survival booked $182.4 m in June alone, second only to Tencent’s Honor of Kings.Pocket Gamer
Early July 2025 – 4X still ascendant
Half-year AppMagic tallies show Last War at $895 m IAP—doubling last year’s run-rate—and keeping pace with Whiteout.Mobilegamer.biz Meanwhile Pokémon TCG Pocket settled at roughly $55 m a month after a white-hot launch, yet remains a top-ten earner.Mobilegamer.biz
UA metrics in flux
- Costs diverge. Android’s priciest market was the U.S. at $3.25 CPI, whereas on iOS the genre you buy matters most: RPG installs now average $36.50, with casino a distant second at $16.69.GAM3S.GG
- Engagement versus price. iOS ad creatives are suddenly pulling 250 % higher CTR YoY, yet CPMs budged just +2 %, keeping effective reach affordable.GAM3S.GG
- Privacy signals. Games still enjoy one of the best ATT consent scores—26.5 % opt-in—giving UA managers a comparative data edge for look-alike modelling.GAM3S.GG
Monetisation & privacy shake-ups
Hybrid is the new default: Tenjin and other benchmark studies show ad-supported revenue now accounts for roughly half of top-200 casual titles’ LTV mix as rewarded-video eCPMs hover in the $10–$20 range and climb modestly quarter-on-quarter.gamigion.com Apple’s WWDC25 upgrade to AdAttributionKit added geo codes and overlapping windows, promising richer postbacks, yet real-world adoption of SKAN-4 is still below 50 % according to Singular’s tracking board—so marketers must juggle multiple funnels for the foreseeable future.Apple DeveloperSingular
AI-assisted buying goes mainstream
Moloco’s Forge-of-Empires case isn’t an outlier—AppLovin’s AXON and Google’s tROAS bidding now handle the bulk of budget on many mid-core campaigns. The takeaway: creative testing and LTV modelling—not manual bid tweaks—are the main human levers left.
Take-aways for UA & growth teams
- Anchor to payback windows, not headline CPI. Genre spreads (e.g., $3 Android shooter vs. $36 iOS RPG) make blended targets meaningless.
- Feed the machines. Provide ML networks with fresh creatives and clean post-install events; they already outperform manual segmentation on price efficiency.
- Instrument AAK/SKAN-4 now. Even partial implementation yields extra geo depth and earlier postbacks—early adopters report double-digit iOS savings.
- Bundle IP into LiveOps. May–June crossovers showed licensed content can spike ARPDAU without pricey acquisition bursts.
- Model ad ARPU in LTV. Ignoring IAA can under-bid casual titles by 20 % or more now that hybrid monetisation is standard.