Weekly Gaming Reports Recap: April 13 - April 17 (2026)
New mobile market insights from Adjust; PC/Console sales from GameDiscoverCo & Top Roblox Games in 2025 by Newzoo.
Reports of the week:
Adjust: Gaming App Insights Report 2026
GameDiscoverCo: Top Games on Steam and Consoles in March 2026
Newzoo: Top Roblox Games in 2025
Adjust: Gaming App Insights Report 2026
Data covers the top 5,000 apps and the full Adjust dataset, aggregated and anonymized. Data collected from January 2024 to January 2026, across 23 game genres, 6 regions, and 21 countries.
Mobile gaming market
Mobile games accounted for 55% of total gaming industry revenue in 2025. The mobile gaming audience is approximately 3 billion people, or around 80% of all players.
IAP revenue across casual, midcore & hypercasual games grew to $81.8 billion. The segment has grown for three consecutive years on App Store and Google Play, though growth has nearly plateaued.
Total time spent in mobile games reached 444.6 billion hours (+1% YoY).
Installs and Sessions
Global session count grew 1% YoY. Install trends diverged by region: MENA was up 2% in installs and +7% in sessions. In LATAM, installs fall 9% with modest session growth (+0.4% YoY). In Europe, installs dropped by 7% while sessions grew 3%.
Hypercasual games retain the largest install share at 29.1% (up from 27% in 2024). Their session share also grew, from 11% to 15%.
❗️Yes, this refers specifically to hypercasual projects. The line between hypercasual and hybrid casual games has become increasingly blurry.
Casual and hybrid casual titles account for around 10% of installs each, with 7% and 8.5% of sessions, respectively. Some genres (puzzles, for instance) are calculated separately; puzzles have 10% of installs and 13% of all sessions.
Action games have the largest gap between installs and sessions: 8% of installs but 17.1% of sessions.
Strategy games led session growth in 2025, up 57% for the year. Casual games grew 37%, hypercasual 31%, simulators 18%, and card games 15%.
By the end of 2025, slots grew at +46% YoY. Casino came second (+22% YoY), casual games third (+19% YoY).
❗️It’s not entirely clear for me what falls under the casual category, if puzzles, card games, hypercasual/hybrid casual games, simulators, and word games are all broken out separately.
At the country level, Turkey grew sessions by 7%, France by 4%, and the DACH region by 3%.
Session Length
Strategy games saw the strongest growth in session length, up from 31.72 to 37.51 minutes (+18%). Racing games grew 17% (to 16.33 minutes), casual and hypercasual titles grew 15% and 13% respectively.
Action games have the highest average session length at 43.8 minutes, though it has declined slightly.
APAC is the only region where session length declined (-4%, from 34.48 to 33.14 minutes). MENA grew 3% to 30.88 minutes, and LATAM grew 2% to 25.44 minutes.
Day-zero session count (on install day) held steady at 1.65 in 2025, and this holds across nearly all genres. The average user plays one session on install day, making that session critical for hooking players.
Regional differences in day-zero sessions are modest. LATAM has the lowest count (with a declining trend), Europe has the highest among major regions, though Japan is the absolute leader.
Retention
D1 Retention across all genres was 27% in 2025. Hypercasual and hybrid casual have the highest numbers.
❗️Top games in the market regularly exceed 40-50% D1 Retention. Benchmarking against averages is somewhat misleading.
The biggest D1 Retention improvement by genre came from family games, up 5 percentage points from 18% to 23%.
Japan has the highest D1 Retention of any country, at around 25%.
Paid and Organic Installs
The median paid-to-organic install ratio grew from 2.07 to 3.33 (+61% YoY), with growth recorded across all verticals and regions.
Casino has the highest ratio at 11.05 (11 paid installs for every organic one), up 223% YoY.
❗️The numbers confirm that UA is scaling aggressively, especially in high-monetization genres.
By region, APAC saw the largest growth in paid install share (+45% YoY, from 2.05 to 2.97). North America grew 28% YoY (from 2.76 to 3.52), Europe 26% YoY (from 2.53 to 3.18).
Countries with the highest paid-to-organic ratios: Brazil (5.32), Turkey (4.28), India (3.81), and the US (3.53).
Marketing Metrics
IPM (Installs Per Mille) for gaming apps edged up slightly in 2025, to 8.62 from 8.59 the year prior. Racing games have the highest IPM at 16.2. Casino saw the strongest IPM growth, up 65% to 5.13.
IPM fell in most regions (Europe, LATAM, MENA, North America) but grew in APAC.
CPC (Cost per Click) grew from $0.03 in 2024 to $0.04 in 2025 (+33% YoY). The sharpest increases: strategy (+133% YoY, to $0.07) and slots (+106%, to $0.35). Among countries, the US saw the strongest growth (+86% YoY, to $0.13).
Global CPI (Cost per Install) rose to $0.56 (+30% YoY). The most expensive installs: slots ($4.47), idle RPG ($3.19), strategy ($1.03). Per Adjust, CPI fell for casino and family games.
CPI rose nearly everywhere in 2025. Europe was up 47% YoY (from $0.36 to $0.53), LATAM up 40% (to $0.14), North America up 31% (from $1.28 to $1.68).
The highest CPM (Cost per Mille) in 2025 was in the casino (above $12) and slots (nearly $12). Average CPM across all genres grew from $3.63 to $4.34 (+20% YoY).
North America remains the most expensive region by a wide margin, at $15.98 CPM. LATAM and MENA both saw CPM fall 3% for the year.
Ad Networks
The average number of ad partners per app declined from 6 to 5.3. Some genres saw partner counts grow (hypercasual, for instance), while others saw sharp declines (slots).
❗️As CPI and CPM rise, companies focus on the channels that deliver the highest LTV. Fewer experiments means fewer active channels.
ATT Opt-In
Global ATT opt-in rate grew from 38% in Q1 2025 to 39% in Q1 2026. Sports games (54%) and action games (50%) continue to lead.
Arcade is the only genre where ATT opt-in declined, from 50% to 46%.
The strongest ATT opt-in growth was in India, from 44% to 51%. In absolute terms, Indonesia leads at 60% in Q1 2026.
GameDiscoverCo: Top Games on Steam and Consoles in March 2026
The data is from GameDiscoverCo Pro, one of the PC/Console data analytics leaders. Sales include both direct Steam purchases and direct key sales.
Top 10 New Releases on Steam by Copies Sold
Slay the Spire 2 led March by copies sold, with over 5 million units sold on Steam. The original game has over 10 million players and a median playtime of 26 hours (average: 74 hours!). The sequel also has co-op.
Crimson Desert was second, with 2.2 million copies sold on Steam and over 3 million total, including PlayStation and Xbox. The developers have already reported that 5 million copies have been sold.
Marathon sold 920k copies on Steam in March, though console sales were considerably weaker.
Fourth by copies was Scritchy Scratchy (608k copies), a $6.99 game built around scratch cards of all kinds.
Death Stranding 2 sold 459k copies on Steam in March; combined with the original PlayStation release, total sales have exceeded 2.5 million copies. GameDiscoverCo analysts note with surprise that 43% of all reviews for the game come from keys sold outside Steam (China region?).
Top 10 New Releases on Steam by Revenue
Slay the Spire 2 also topped the revenue chart, earning over $115 million. Crimson Desert was right behind, generating just over $105 million on Steam in March.
Among other new releases, only Marathon, Death Stranding 2, and Monster Hunter Stories 3: Twisted Reflection (a JRPG spin-off of the main series) crossed the $10 million mark.
Top 10 Games on Steam by Revenue (All Games)
Slay the Spire 2 and Crimson Desert took second and third place in the overall monthly Steam revenue chart, right behind the perennial leader Counter-Strike 2 ($148.2 million in March).
Apex Legends ($52.1 million) and PUBG: Battlegrounds ($41.9 million) continue to hold firmly in the top 10.
Resident Evil Requiem, which launched back on February 26, added another $58.8 million in March, bringing its Steam totals to 2.5 million copies and $134 million in revenue. Per GameDiscoverCo estimates, total sales across all platforms have exceeded 7 million copies and $400 million in revenue.
Console Game Sales
Baseball sim MLB The Show 26 sold over 1.1 million copies on consoles, with 93% of sales coming from the US. The game has no PC version.
Crimson Desert was the second best-selling console game of March, with over 900,000 copies on PlayStation and under 300,000 on Xbox.
WWE 2K26 sold nearly 600,000 copies across all platforms, with almost 350,000 on PlayStation. The Middle East accounts for a notable share of the audience, around 15%.
Marathon had a weak console launch, with around 400,000 of its total 1.3 million copies sold coming from consoles. North America accounts for 61% of the PlayStation audience, though the game showed little traction in China, Brazil, and the MENA region.
Pokemon Pokopia sold 2.2 million copies in its first 4 days and was the clear leader on Nintendo Switch in March.
Blue Prince is approaching 50,000 copies sold on the eShop; Monster Hunter Stories 3, Scott Pilgrim EX, and MLB The Show 26 are each in the tens of thousands.
Newzoo: Top Roblox Games in 2025
Data is provided by Gamefam RoMonitor Stats. Rankings are based on total visits per quarter.
Platform Overview
Roblox significantly outpaced the market in 2025. Revenue grew 36% YoY to $4.9 billion. Total bookings grew 55% to $6.8 billion. The global games market grew 7.5% over the same period.
❗️Total Bookings refers to the combined value of all user purchases on Roblox, regardless of when that revenue is recognized. In Roblox’s case, Robux purchases flow into Bookings first, then convert to revenue as users spend them.
Total time spent in games reached 123.8 billion hours (+69% YoY), with daily active users averaging 126.5 million (+53% YoY).
Top Games by Quarters
Several new hits emerged on Roblox in 2025, showing the platform’s potential for scale. Three titles released during the year reached numbers no game had previously seen on the platform: Grow a Garden (12.3 billion visits in Q2), Steal a Brainrot (26.4 billion visits in Q3), and 99 Nights in the Forest (over 10 billion visits within a few months of launch).
Q2 2025 was the first quarter in which at least one game crossed 10 million peak CCU. By Q3, three games had hit that mark; Q4 saw two again.
The records were followed by equally rapid declines. Grow a Garden dropped out of the top 10 by December; Steal a Brainrot had lost around 30% of its monthly visits from the August peak by the same month.
Though some titles showed real longevity. Brookhaven RP and Blox Fruits were in the top 10 every single month of 2025. RIVALS and The Strongest Battlegrounds made the top 10 in 11 out of 12 months.
Audience Concentration
The share of total top-10 visits held by the single largest title grew throughout the year, from 22% in Q1’25 to 43% in Q4’25.
By year’s end, 3 games in the top 10 accounted for over 70% of all visits.