Three mobile growth trends emerging in 2026

We’re just under 3 months out for Gamesforum Hamburg 2026, which means the industry calendar is entering that familiar stretch where event agendas start doubling as signals for where the market thinks things are going.

So, naturally, this week I did a small exercise: a pre-mortem on the agenda to look out for sessions I think people will find genuinely useful – and if you’d like a quick overview of the format and who else will be there, the Attendee Brochure is here.

Specifically, I looked for the sessions that quietly reveal where the next set of mobile growth problems is forming. If you read the programme through that lens, three themes stand out: channel-native product design, rewarded UA as conversion engineering, and D2C as behavioural science.

With the top 10 mobile games generating nearly $50b since 2019, the market is increasingly dominated by long-running live-service titles – games that rely on continuous growth systems rather than one-off launch marketing. *AppMagic data

Growth by design is replacing the growth hack

For most of the 2010s, growth lived downstream of product. You built the game first, then figured out how to market it.

In 2026, that model is starting to break down. Speaking recently at Gamesforum Barcelona a month ago, two and a half gamers’ Jakub Remiar described how acquisition and product design are increasingly built together, noting that “UA testing and product templating operate as one system. Distribution is engineered, not reactive.”

Distribution environments now come with very specific constraints – and those constraints increasingly shape the product itself. As studios expand to channels like web platforms, H5, and services such as Netflix Games, the traditional mobile growth playbook doesn’t always translate. A monetization loop designed for free-to-play mobile, for example, won’t necessarily work in every distribution environment.

That conversation will be explored in the “Marketability Across Launch, Legacy and Alternate Distribution” session at Gamesforum Hamburg, featuring Supercell’s Minwoo Lee and Marketing and Creative Consultant, Dennis Brigelius.

As Dennis puts it: 

“The most successful studios treat marketability as a collaboration between game design and marketing from day one. Marketing insights about what players respond to, which creatives resonate, and which stories spread should actively inform how the game evolves through live operations.

When product and marketing move together like this, games stay relevant longer and adapt more easily to new channels.”

Rewarded UA is turning into conversion engineering

Rewarded UA has always had a reputation in the industry. For years, it was often framed as the cheap-traffic channel: turn it on, drop CPI, and let scale do the rest.

But that framing is starting to feel outdated.

Rewarded users are, by definition, there for the incentive. They clicked the ad because of the reward. Which means the product experience after the install has to do a lot of work very quickly.

• The first session has to teach something meaningful.
• The game needs a moment of genuine engagement before the reward psychology fades.
• The creative promise has to match the actual gameplay experience.

In other words: conversion engineering.

And that starts earlier than many teams assume – often at the reward structure itself.

The topic is central to the “Rewarded UA: Acquisition That Actually Converts” panel, where Jatin Mittal, Founder and CEO of INDOVIA, will discuss how studios turn incentivised installs into long-term players. As he puts it:

“One of the biggest mistakes in rewarded UA is over-optimising for CPI. When payouts are pushed too low, the reward structure becomes less compelling, and that often shows up later as weaker engagement and retention.

The real optimisation challenge is finding the right balance between efficient CPI and meaningful rewards.”

And that pushes rewarded UA closer to product design than traditional performance marketing."

D2C is becoming behavioural science

D2C monetization in games has gone through a familiar cycle.

First came the infrastructure phase: can studios actually build and operate webshops outside the app stores?

Then came the adoption phase: should they?

Now the conversation is entering a third phase: how do you actually change player behaviour?

The economic incentives are obvious.

According to Apple, digital goods sold through the Apple App Store typically incur a 30% commission, with reduced rates such as 15% in specific programmes. Google lists a similar structure for Google Play, including 15% on the first $1m in annual revenue before higher tiers apply.

When those are the default rails, it’s not surprising that studios explore alternatives.

Studios are experimenting with:

• How offers are framed
• How bundles are structured
• Which purchase paths feel “default”
• Where friction should be reduced, and where it shouldn’t

The topic will be discussed in the “D2C: Applying Behavioural Science to Drive Player Spend” roundtable at Gamesforum Hamburg, where Oliver Lindahl, Marketing Insights Partner, Supercell will outline how studios can reshape purchasing behaviour without drifting into dark-pattern territory:

"Moving purchase behavior from IAP to DTC is a behavior change and requires an intervention. Utilizing frameworks from behavioral science we can design the process to be easy, attractive, social and timely - driving DTC share and channel adoption.

Leveraging heuristics and cognitive biases in webshop design and utilizing scientific findings on pricing psychology and visual behavioral design, we can increase purchase intention, price perception and positive emotion in the webstore."

Growth is interdisciplinary

What ties these three themes together is that they all blur the traditional boundaries inside game studios.

• Marketing is shaping product design
• Acquisition channels are influencing onboarding systems
• Commerce teams are thinking like behavioural economists

In other words, growth is becoming interdisciplinary.

That’s the quiet shift showing up in this year’s Gamesforum Hamburg agenda. And if these sessions are any indication, it’s likely to define how mobile teams approach Q4, Q5 – and beyond.