Back during the COVID-19 pandemic six years ago, mobile gaming hit a new peak. Almost everybody was stuck at home and games like Among Us had the nation completely hooked, leading to mobile game installs reaching 42.7 billion in the first 9 months of 2020, a 36.9% YoY increase.

But six years later, mobile gaming isn’t seeing the same lockdown-era “boom” as before, with plenty of fans now critical of what was once a highly innovative market. Complaints of AI slop, ad-ridden releases, and general low-effort games hitting the app stores have been commonplace for quite a while now.

There is undoubtedly a lack of quality control in mobile gaming at the moment, something that’s harming the good will of long-time players, although the market itself isn’t actually struggling at all according to the latest numbers.

Mobile Gaming Isn’t Dead But Total Downloads Have Dipped

Mobile gaming is far from over. With nearly 3 billion players worldwide, mobile gaming contributed 55% of total global games industry revenue in 2025, signalling major dominance over both PC and console. In total, mobile games generated $81.75 billion from in-app purchases in 2025, a slight increase over the previous year.

Mobile gamers also played a combined total of 444.63 billion hours, another increase, with the likes of Block Blast!, Roblox, and Subway Surfers keeping players glued to their screens. However, for the second year in a row, total mobile game downloads dropped, this time decreasing by 7.2% to 50.4 billion as the industry continues moving away from the impressive pandemic-era highs.

In a nutshell, revenue and player engagement levels are still extremely high, but total mobile game downloads and installs have been slowly tapering off for a couple of years.

The Hyper-Casual Free-to-Play Market Remains the Big Draw

One of the main reasons why mobile gaming is still the most dominant gaming market of them all is because it has a stranglehold on hyper-casual gamers. Almost everybody owns a smartphone now so it’s natural that most people eventually  open the respective Android or Apple app stores and hit ‘Download’ on some of the top-charting casual games.

These types of games are generally simple and easy to play while also being available to download for free, which is why a game like Block Blast! was able to reach 356.2 million downloads worldwide in 2025. Gen Z are also openly cutting down on their video game purchases, another reason why free-to-play mobile games are able to keep pulling in such huge numbers no matter what year it is.

The average casual gamer today wants something fun, light, and free, so they gravitate towards these types of games more than any other. The downside, of course, is that free-to-play mobile games for the casual market need to make money in some type of way, which is why almost all of them are dominated by in-game ads.

It’s a trade-off the mobile gaming market is having to make at the moment and it’s caused plenty of controversy over the years due to mobile gamers claiming these ads are “unbearable”. But the simple fact is that today’s gamers, especially those from younger generations, simply don’t want to fork out big bucks on disposable mobile games, so the F2P market will no doubt remain a huge driving force over the coming years in the mobile sector.

Sweepstakes Casino-Style Games Also Have a Fast-Growing Market

Another interesting trend in mobile gaming has been the recent rise of sweepstakes casino games. McLuck, Crown Coins, Pulsz, and many of the other big brand sweepstakes casino operators now have mobile apps on iOS and Android.

These types of casinos have become a huge hit on mobile not just because they’re free-to-play but because they follow a skill-based gaming model where players can collect ‘Sweeps Coins’ and potentially win real-world prizes, something that most mobile gaming apps don’t allow.

What we have now is a new generation of gamers, many of which aren’t actually casino fans, who have joined these sweepstakes casino apps so that they can play slots and roulette for free while experiencing the chance to win rewards like gift cards and cash transfers.

It’s another major sign of where the mobile gaming market is heading and this prize-chasing trend will almost certainly start to infiltrate other similar gaming apps over time. It’s a guaranteed way to get players interested which is why the likes of High 5 Casino have 1M+ downloads on Google Play.

Some argue that the dominance of these types of apps in mobile gaming could be harmful to the wider industry, but sweepstakes casinos don’t actually require you to bet real money so they are (at least) a safer alternative to traditional gambling apps.

Player Complaints Remain High

With everything going on in mobile gaming right now, player complaints across social media and Reddit never slow down. Ad complaints are by far the biggest and research has even found that upwards of 65% of mobile games now feature in-game ads as a way to generate revenue. Players don’t like them at all, so much so that 1 in 5 mobile gamers are willing to quit and uninstall a game whenever they encounter annoying ads.

On top of this, player disdain for “AI slop” releases, low-effort games, and pay-to-win mechanics is at an all-time high now that this has been going on for years. Not to mention, there’s also a significant problem with misleading marketing currently, as countless mobile game ads present a game one way only for players to install it and find they were duped.

The industry itself is pulling in huge bags of cash, that’s indisputable, but a clear lack of quality control and regulation is harming it and player complaints are only going to keep rising if nothing is done about it.

Summary

Mobile gaming is in an interesting place. If you speak to many, they’ll tell you the app stores aren’t as good as they used to be and that the golden era for mobile games is long gone. Others will say they’ve never been happier, as there are plenty of amazing indie games and roguelites available to download, including Slay the Spire, Monster Train, Door Kickers, and a mountain of others that can’t be thrown into the AI slop category.

There’s also the rise of sweepstakes casino-style mobile games that have got millions of players hooked, despite how controversial they are. Plus, love or hate in-game ads, they ultimately allow players to keep playing for free, which is a strong point in the modern economy. And moving forward, TechRT forecasts that global mobile gaming revenue will rise from around $158.5 billion in 2026 to $174.5 billion in 2027 and then $192 billion by 2028. The market isn’t going to disappear any time soon, that’s for sure.

However, increased quality control and a significant crackdown on AI games would benefit the wider industry rather than harming it and could perhaps get many of the market’s critics back on-side.