Sensor Tower has released its "2026 Overseas Gaming Market Insights" report. From the second half of 2025 to the first half of 2026, global mobile, PC, and console games accumulated a total of 48 billion downloads. Mobile downloads accounted for 95.6% of this total, leveraging high smartphone penetration to reach a vast mass audience. PC and console downloads made up only 4.4% of the share, but users in this segment demonstrate higher stability, with far superior monetization efficiency per paying user. This makes it a key battleground for retaining core players, mining long-term revenue, and building a game's brand influence.

During the same statistical period, global revenue from mobile in-app purchases and PC/console premium game sales exceeded $110 billion. Mobile in-app purchase revenue reached $80.9 billion, still firmly holding the dominant position in overall revenue. As the industry matures, mobile game revenue growth has gradually slowed, trending toward stability. Revenue from PC and console game sales continued to rise, generating $29.6 billion in the past year, underscoring the strong market resilience of this sector against economic cycles. Looking at overseas markets, mobile in-app purchase revenue in the second half of 2025 climbed to $35.2 billion, hitting an all-time high. Entering the first half of 2026, due to several top-tier titles entering operational adjustment phases, overseas mobile in-app purchase revenue saw a slight decline, falling 6% quarter-on-quarter to $33.1 billion. The downward pressure on user acquisition continues: the overall scale of overseas mobile game downloads kept shrinking, declining 4% quarter-on-quarter in the first half of 2026 to a total of 22.2 billion downloads. However, the market exhibits clear structural resilience, as the total playtime of overseas mobile gamers has remained stable.

Puzzle games become the top revenue-generating mobile game category overseas, with the merge sub-genre showing the most prominent growth. The growth momentum of puzzle mobile games continues to deliver: in the first half of 2026, their overseas in-app purchase revenue increased by 7% quarter-on-quarter to $7.9 billion, setting a new historical record. This officially surpassed strategy games to become the highest-grossing mobile game category overseas. Strategy games hit an overseas revenue peak of $8.4 billion in the second half of 2025. In the current period, their revenue fell 12% quarter-on-quarter, mainly because top blockbuster titles entered a phase of stable adjustment after a previous period of explosive growth. The casual game track demonstrates a strong anti-cyclical nature and market resilience. In the first half of 2026, total overseas revenue approached $15 billion, with only minor fluctuations. At this stage, the overseas revenue scale of casual games has almost caught up with mid-core and hardcore mobile games. The hybrid casual sub-genre grew the fastest, with overseas revenue surging 18% quarter-on-quarter to $2.2 billion. Combining a casual base with diverse gameplay and a composite monetization system has become a popular growth paradigm in the current mobile gaming industry. Focusing on specific mobile game segments, 4X strategy remains the highest-grossing sub-category overseas, with revenue close to $5 billion in the first half of 2026. The merge sub-category added over $500 million in revenue this period, leading the growth chart for overseas mobile game sub-categories with a 37% quarter-on-quarter increase. The sorting puzzle sub-category also experienced explosive growth, with overseas revenue surging 130% quarter-on-quarter, adding $320 million in revenue. Benefiting from the concentrated launch of several major new titles like "Arknights: Endfield" and "Ananta," overseas revenue for open-world adventure mobile games surged 70% quarter-on-quarter, adding $200 million, ranking third in revenue growth across all sub-categories.

Mobile game ad revenue surpasses $11 billion across 19 core global markets in the past year. From the second half of 2025 to the first half of 2026, based on Sensor Tower's ad monetization monitoring across 19 major core global markets, total mobile game ad revenue exceeded $11 billion, with an average eCPM of approximately $51. AppLovin and AdMob combined accounted for over 60% of total mobile game ad revenue. Regionally, in the US market, AppLovin's ad revenue share reached 41%. In contrast, in South Korea, India, and various Southeast Asian regions, AdMob's ad revenue share exceeded 40%. In the first half of 2026, across the 19 core global markets covered by Sensor Tower's ad monetization data, the block puzzle hyper-casual game "Block Blast!" led ad revenue with $150 million, averaging nearly $26 million in monthly ad revenue over the past year.

Steam platform premium game sales revenue has risen rapidly in recent years, with average revenue per download strongly leading. Against the backdrop of gradually stabilizing overall mobile game revenue, Steam's premium game sales revenue has seen rapid growth: revenue climbed from $4.55 billion in 2019 to $10.7 billion in the statistical period from H2 2025 to H1 2026. The platform's average revenue per download has remained consistently high, averaging $14 over the past five years, which is 9.3 times that of mobile games. This data fully confirms that cross-platform products continue to hold strong appeal for global players. In the first half of 2026, the action genre firmly held the top revenue spot on Steam. While overall sales volume for this genre fell 7% quarter-on-quarter, premium sales revenue bucked the trend, rising 13% to $2.02 billion, accounting for 40% of the platform's total revenue. Relying on the premium pricing power brought by a host of AAA titles, action game revenue achieved counter-cyclical growth, forming Steam's most fundamental revenue base.

A high-frequency, multi-tiered concurrent operational event system effectively boosts game revenue and long-term retention. In the first half of 2026, the top eight overseas mobile games by in-app purchase revenue ran an average of 235 operational events per month. A single game hosted an average of 56 different themed events monthly, spanning 29 event categories. This high-frequency system of multiple concurrent events at different levels can effectively drive game revenue and user retention over the long term. In the first half of 2026, the hybrid casual puzzle-solving and town-building game "Mystery Town" achieved an ARPDAU of $1.30, which is 4.6 times that of competitor "Merge Mansion" and 5.2 times that of "Travel Town." Its dense and diverse operational events, combined with a composite monetization structure, are the core pillars supporting its ultra-high monetization efficiency. Sensor Tower's Playliner operational event insights show that in June 2026, the game launched 237 events, including 63 events with different names (events with the same name launched multiple times in a month are only counted once). Thanks to this efficient operational strategy, "Mystery Town's" in-app purchase revenue approached $15 million in May 2026, surpassing "Merge Mansion" in scale. Top games continue to innovate with operational events. "Whiteout Survival's" new gacha event "Dead Shot" innovatively combined a "strategic" opening mechanism with flexible multiplier betting, greatly stimulating player participation and spending enthusiasm, resulting in a 71% increase in event revenue. The "Meteorite Iron War" event launched by "Last War: Survival" introduced multi-dimensional innovation to the classic tournament format. This cross-server tournament used a combination strategy of "extreme time compression + free high-frequency teleportation + zero real battle losses," significantly lowering the player participation threshold and battle loss anxiety, giving the SLG game the instant thrill of an esports match. The development team also cleverly introduced a "high-risk loot plunder + secure box guarantee" mechanism similar to "Escape from Tarkov," ensuring both a tense "hunt and plunder" experience for hardcore PvP players and protecting the participation benefits of average players through the guarantee mechanism. The event's "red and yellow zone" risk isolation design, using a "reward and risk lever," allowed players to self-select, building an extremely healthy in-game ecosystem.