Gaming
Gaming ad spend hits $25bn as paid installs rise 10 per cent: AppsFlyer report
MUMBAI: Artificial intelligence has made building games faster, cheaper and easier. Standing out, however, has never been harder.
That is the central takeaway from The State of Gaming for Marketers – 2026 Edition, a new report by AppsFlyer that paints a picture of an industry bursting with content, cash and competition. The tools of creation are now widely available. Attention is not.
In 2025, paid installs for mobile games rose 10 per cent year on year, while ad impressions jumped 20 per cent. The reason is simple. AI has turbocharged development and creative production, allowing even small studios to churn out games and marketing assets at speeds once reserved for blockbuster titles. The result is a crowded marketplace where marketing muscle and data savvy matter more than ever.
“Production is no longer the problem,” the report suggests. “Attention is.”
Money is still flowing in. Global gaming user acquisition spend hit 25 billion dollars in 2025, up nearly four per cent from the previous year. But the geography of that spending is shifting. Almost half of all budgets still go to the United States, yet US spend actually fell five per cent as high costs make incremental growth harder to justify.
By contrast, markets such as India and Turkey are enjoying a surge. Spend jumped 19 per cent in India and 29 per cent in Turkey, reflecting cheaper scale and growing ad based monetisation. For marketers willing to look beyond traditional strongholds, opportunity is knocking loudly.
Genres are also moving in different directions. Casual games continue to command more than half of all acquisition budgets, but their Android spend dipped seven per cent as returns softened. Hypercasual titles remain heavily reliant on paid traffic, thriving on Android where costs are lower, but struggling on iOS where spend fell 14 per cent. Midcore games, meanwhile, are enjoying a renaissance on iOS, with budgets up 26 per cent year on year as publishers chase higher lifetime value players.
One of the most striking shifts comes from China based publishers. Their share of global gaming acquisition spend outside China rose 22 per cent to reach 35 per cent of the market. Once focused on domestic success, these companies are now aggressively expanding into Western and mature Asian markets. Growth in the US, UK, Germany and France shows that creative localisation is working, while gains in Japan and South Korea signal direct competition with long established local players.
Monetisation models are also evolving, albeit slowly. Around seven per cent more games adopted hybrid monetisation in 2025, combining in app purchases with advertising. Even so, fewer than a third of games currently use a hybrid approach. Developers are experimenting, not yet committing, as they search for the right balance between player experience and revenue resilience.
Behind the scenes, AI is becoming an everyday companion for gaming teams. Nearly half of all AI assistant queries are now about reporting and performance breakdowns. Hypercasual teams use AI for speed, checking what works and cutting what does not. Midcore and Casino teams dig deeper, asking AI to explain anomalies and interpret shifts that affect long term monetisation.
Creativity, however, remains the ultimate numbers game. Top spenders now produce between 2,400 and 2,600 creative variations every quarter, up as much as 30 per cent year on year. Smaller advertisers are scaling up too, while some mid tier players risk falling behind by cutting output. In a world awash with ads, testing velocity has become a competitive weapon.
The report also highlights growing diversification on iOS, where advertisers are spreading budgets across more media sources rather than squeezing existing channels. This broader mix offers incremental scale and some insurance against platform volatility.
Taken together, the findings point to a simple truth. AI has levelled the playing field on creation, but raised the bar on marketing. Winning in 2026 will not be about making more games. It will be about reading the data better, testing faster, and knowing where attention and value truly lie.
For an industry once defined by play, the real game now is focus.
Gaming
MTG gaming chief Benninghoff joins NODWIN board as esports firm primes for IPO
The Gurugram-based esports firm is pursuing a public listing, has returned to profitability and is growing revenues by 42 per cent
GURUGRAM: NODWIN Gaming is moving fast. The Gurugram-based gaming and esports company has launched a pre-IPO fundraising round, appointed UBS as lead adviser for both the round and a subsequent public listing, and landed a heavyweight board director, all in one go.
The new board member is Arnd Benninghoff, executive vice president of gaming at Stockholm-listed Modern Times Group (MTG), who has overseen the group’s strategic investments and portfolio growth since 2014. He is no stranger to building things: Benninghoff has founded and built fifteen companies, served as chief digital officer at ProSiebenSat.1 Media AG, managing director of SevenVentures, and chief executive of Holtzbrinck eLAB. He began his career as a journalist at Deutsche Presse Agentur and various TV networks, holds a Diplom-Kaufmann in business and administration from the University of Münster, and previously sat on the board of Edgeware AB.
The numbers back the ambition
NODWIN is not pitching a story without substance. The company has returned to EBITDA profitability and posted a 42 per cent year-on-year revenue surge, reaching $58.5m in the first nine months of FY2026. The pre-IPO round will combine a primary issuance to fund global expansion through organic growth and acquisitions, alongside a secondary sale to give existing shareholders some liquidity.
Akshat Rathee, co-founder and managing director of NODWIN Gaming, said Benninghoff understands “the entire lifecycle of the gaming and media ecosystem, from the boots-on-the-ground reality of building startups to the strategic complexity of managing multi-billion dollar global portfolios.”
Benninghoff, for his part, said the company “sits at the intersection of sports, entertainment, and technology, making it one of the most exciting players in the global gaming landscape today.”
A portfolio built for the global south
Founded in 2014 by Rathee and Gautam Virk, NODWIN has quietly assembled one of the more compelling esports portfolios outside the Western hemisphere. Its properties include DreamHack India and Comic Con India, and it recently acquired StarLadder, the Ukraine-based tournament organiser behind premier events in CS:GO and Dota 2. The company also serves as a long-term strategic marketing partner for the Evolution Championship Series (EVO), the world’s most prominent fighting game tournament, helping push it into new geographies.
Its geographic focus spans South Asia, Central Asia, Southeast Asia, the Middle East and Africa. Backers include Nazara Technologies, KRAFTON, Sony Group Corporation, JetSynthesys, and the founders’ investment vehicle Good Game Investments.
What comes next
With UBS running the books, a board freshly reinforced with European media and gaming expertise, and revenue heading in the right direction, NODWIN is laying the groundwork deliberately. The esports industry has burned investors before with big promises and thin margins. NODWIN’s return to profitability, combined with a real portfolio of owned intellectual properties across gaming, music and youth culture, gives it a more credible runway than most. The IPO clock is now ticking.
