As part of our yearly tradition in the new year, here are some of Game Doctors’ consultants’ quick takes on what happened in 2025 and what they expect in 2026.
Dave Rohrl: Game Designer, CEO and founder of Game Doctor
2025 marked a significant turning point for mobile and overall gaming, rebounding strongly from the slump of 2023 and 2024. The sector appears to have fully moved past the “COVID hangover,” once again poised for substantial growth. While the post-IDFA landscape continues to present a formidable challenge for user acquisition—demanding that developers be exceptionally smart and agile in bringing in new players—the audience remains large and ready.
In an environment as complex as this, a game’s ability to retain players is its most powerful asset. When acquiring new users is difficult, mastering the skill of keeping your audience engaged for months—even years—is the single most crucial factor for success in the industry. We view this mastery as a deliberate mix of craft, science, and art:
- Craft: Understanding and applying the design principles proven to succeed in the current market.
- Science: Rigorously measuring your outcomes and using data to relentlessly iterate on your product.
- Art: Gaining a deep, intuitive understanding of your game and your audience, and focusing on the core elements that will truly delight them.
Like a chair, a game cannot stand securely without all three essential legs in place.
Tadhg Kelly: Game Designer, Product Manager, and Strategist – Senior Consultant for Game Doctor
2025 has been a tale of attitudes to risk. In the West, investors and publishers keeping seeing their shadows and declaring six more months of winter. On every front the question is “How small can you be? How little can you spend?” and rounds of speculation. All eyes for costs have turned to Türkiye, Vietnam, Latin America.
Then there’s China, which is taking big bold risks, making amazing games and conquering the world. They clearly see opportunity where the West only sees hazard. Just this week, for example, Where Winds Meet is dong the thing that every western developer considers impossible in launching a huge expensive-looking RPG on mobile.
The difference is a bit to do with costs, but mostly about competence. For a long time the perceived difference in the US especially was talent quality. Sure, people cost more here but they’re generally thought to be better game makers. At least, they were.
Now the playing field became level in terms of code and visual quality of games some time back, and the financing situation is generally better. Key developers in Asia have become much sharper game designers and have been learning how to win in America and Europe.
Meanwhile game design practices in the West continue to languish. The methods of design are not evolving with the times, and the message out of the West looks increasingly creaky. Stories of inflated budgets for insane projects are everywhere, tales of bad practices and the return of the sort of egomania of the 90s. A litany of high profile failures.
So I guess what I’m saying is we’ve got to get our groove back. It can be tempting to blame investors, but honestly I think it’s more to do with the Western industry finding better ways to work. The players are out there, as is the revenue etc. But both will continue to drift overseas until North America and Europe rethink some things.
Mike Kanarek: Marketing Strategist, Ad Creative, and UA – General Manager and Senior Marketing Consultant
2025 cemented what we’ve been feeling since IDFA: the algorithm is the audience, and the ad is the targeting. As performance data gets blurrier, the creative has become the sharpest tool we have left. This year, the studios that thrived were the ones that treated ad testing like game design with rapid iteration, strong themes, and clear emotional payoffs. Going into 2026, I expect that line to blur even more. The best UA teams won’t just “optimize ads,” they’ll build small playable stories that market themselves. A lot of the data is foggy but the impact of effective creative is very clear.
- 2025 was the year of “creative first.” – art and story are the new form of targeting
- Influencers continue to gain importance and professionalize. Finding “true believers” is getting more expensive, and more vital.
- AI can pitch a thousand headlines, but it can’t read the room. As AI becomes ubiquitous figuring out how to use the same tool as everyone else to still stand out will be the big challenge.
Leona Jasa: Marketing Strategist, Ad Creative, Community and Influencer Marketing – Lead Marketing Consultant
2025 is shaping up to be the year marketing gets a little more personal, and a lot more intentional.
AI-driven personalization has moved past surface-level targeting and into something that actually feels useful. Players expect experiences that adapt to them, not just their age, location, or device, but their behaviour, preferences, and where they are in their journey. When it works, it feels seamless. When it doesn’t, it’s instantly obvious.
At the same time, influencer and creator partnerships are evolving. The shift is away from quick, transactional posts and toward longer-term relationships built on trust and genuine alignment. Audiences are better at spotting forced promotion than ever, and they respond far more to creators who are clearly part of the product’s world, not just passing through it.
Together, these two trends are pushing marketing in 2025 to feel less like a broadcast and more like a conversation. Relevant, human, and a bit smarter about when to speak and when to listen.
Dave K: Strategic Marketing, Live Ops – Marketing Consultant
This year, more teams came to me asking for help getting the basics right instead of “big swings”. 2025 was about clear positioning, sharper audience definition, and messaging actually backed by data. There’s noticeably less patience for flashy bets without proof, and more respect for the unglamorous work of understanding who a game is for and why it deserves to exist. That shift alone made the year feel more grounded.
Dave E: Product Management – Product Management Consultant
2025 was another challenging year for those who make games, with a silver lining at the end of the year with estimates of increased revenue across most sectors of the industry.
Layoffs continued throughout the year, continuing the trend of the last few years with major publishers like NetEase and Embracer closing or divesting multiple studios, and other studios reducing headcount or closing altogether, due to canceled games or lack of runway.
Generative AI became even more of a divisive tool in 2025, with developers being asked if they are going to use AI to help speed up the development process or make the process cheaper. Indie Game of the Year Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, had their Indie Game of the Year award rescinded the use of AI in the development of the game..
In 2026 teams will be asked to do more with less, and as such, using tools beyond GenAI will be explored to make processes and content generation quicker and cheaper. Outsourcing will continue to increase, with companies continuing to look for cheaper ways to generate the content in their games as cheaply as possible.
There will be further acquisitions of studios by private equity, although none to the same level as the acquisition of EA. And, finally… GTA 6 will ship in 2026!
Dr. Cat: Senior Design Consultant
In 2025, the trend towards more sub-genres of “roguelite” games has kept diversifying. (These are games where players earn persistent unlocks for future sessions.) Two new genres I’ve checked out are Raccoin, a coin pusher, and CloverPit, a slot machine with some inspiration from Balatro, 2024’s poker-based roguelite. The meta-games of roguelites are versatile, with at least four clear design benefits.
- Players can enjoy a short session when needed, but are motivated to play multiple sessions when they have time.
- Total playtime of a game is extended, since most content starts locked. Unlocking features & levels becomes a core part of the fun.
- Players enjoy developing mastery. Frequent power-ups, simulates the feeling of mastery increasing faster than it really is, as players keep advancing further and scoring higher.
- Many combinations of abilities offer players lots of strategies to explore, increasing replayability.
