It’s that time of year again - Gamesforum’s new 2026 Top Mobile Game Challenges Report is out now.

Built from interviews with 75 industry experts and more than 280 survey responses, this year’s report delivers a clear, candid look at what UA, Monetization, and Product teams are truly up against - and what the top-performing games are doing differently to break through the noise.

Inside the report, you’ll find the industry’s biggest challenges, including:

• Competing in an oversaturated market, still the dominant barrier to growth.
• Creative fatigue and a flood of AI-generated assets that make differentiation harder than ever.
• Sustainable retention pressures, as high-value users become costlier to acquire and keep.
• Segmentation complexity, especially for smaller teams forced to do more with less.
• Ad quality, privacy shifts, and mediation hurdles, all reshaping monetization fundamentals.
• Cross-team alignment challenges, as Product, UA, and Monetization become increasingly interconnected.

The report also highlights what worked in 2025, including:

• Rapid, high-volume creative iteration backed by intelligent testing.
• AI used as an accelerator for insights, creative production, and optimisation.
• Region-specific UA strategies grounded in cultural nuance - not just translation.
• Hybrid monetization models that maximise revenue without damaging player experience.
• Strong LiveOps calendars that keep engagement and retention stable across the year.

Featuring case studies from Kingshot, Block Blast!, Free Fire MAX, Love & Deepspace, Subway Surfers, and more, the report shows exactly how top studios navigated the same challenges facing the broader market.

If you want a clear view of where mobile game growth is heading in 2026, and the strategies that actually worked in 2025, this report is your essential starting point.