What's going on with mobile gaming? Up or down?

For over a decade, gaming has served as the darling of the mobile industry, continually eclipsing record highs and giving FOMO to all who found themselves outside the exclusive circle of explosive growth. But times have changed. By most measures, 2023 was "brutal for folks in the industry" and halfway into 2024, there have already been more layoffs than all of last year. SensorTower’s newly published data shows universal, year-over-year declines in downloads and revenue.

This isn't a mobile-wide problem. Overall U.S. consumer spend is up on apps, but down on games. So what's going on with gaming? The reasons are immensely complicated — rising costs, falling revenue, and shifting consumer attention to name a few — but the outcome certainly makes for a tough market.

Consensus says this is a temporary rough patch and gaming is still — and will continue to be — a powerful sector. After all, $1.5 billion dollars is spent on mobile games every single week, which is great news for anyone wanting to create a viral, breakout business with nearly 1 million concurrent users, aggregating 250 million user hours of playtime, by simply repeatedly clicking on a picture of a banana.