According to the Mobile Game Profit Report 2025, published by AppMagic, the volume of in-house purchases on Google Play is shrinking significantly, with role-playing games falling by 29 per cent and lottery games falling by 50 per cent.
According to the report, the impact on GooglePlay of reduced player payments was much greater than Apple Store. In terms of overall income this year, Google Play fell slightly by less than 1 per cent, while App Store grew by 5 per cent and the average income of two major shops increased by just over 3 per cent. Super-recreational games have become the biggest highlight, with annual income increasing by 88 per cent over the same period, but with the highest increase of only 3 per cent. The report states: “The market for mobile games has not changed dramatically compared to last year”.
Of concern is the 46 per cent increase in income from direct consumers (DTC) and alternative payment methods. However, despite the fact that legislative changes have contributed to the DTC trend, in the first half of 2025, the number of first-hand games actually using the model decreased – – Only 62 of the top 100 games used the DTC model, down from 72 in 2024. The report analyses that DTC has become a “stabilizing tool” to support the benefits of old games, but that “new games are not eager to integrate into alternative payment systems”. Between October 2024 and September 2025, revenues from strategic games increased by 21 per cent in Google Play and 28 per cent in App Store. This growth was driven by reports of “several pounds of new work”, in which income from card game subdivisions rose by 213 per cent. This is likely to point to the October 2024 listing of the BMC TGC pocket, which has become one of the most profitable mobile games in recent years, with a $1 billion out-run of the DG.
In the field of strategic games, “only one subcategory shows a marked negative growth”, i.e., multi-person online tactical games. On the contrary, card battles, turn-based strategies and 4X strategy games have all grown. In retrospect role-playing, a general decline of 15-30 per cent in the global market was observed, with only Roguelike RPG and Tactical RPG subcategories growing. In particular, the report highlights successful cases such as Mech Assemble: Zombie Swarm, published in 2025 by ONEMT, a domestic game at sea, the Bow and Arrow Legend 2, created by Habby, and SD Up to the G Generation under the banner of the Mandea Palace.
In the area of lottery, Monopoly Go has been prominent in raising the average income of paid users, but the total income of this group in two major shops has declined by almost 8 per cent. The full report also revealed key indicators such as D90 ARPPU (90-day average income for paid users), of which the Google Play platform RPG type game dropped by 42 per cent.
