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We sat down with industry leaders from Game District, Playrix, and Supercent to discuss the future of gaming and how the industry is evolving. Their insights reveal four critical areas shaping global growth: prioritising behaviour over borders, avoiding the growth fallacy in user acquisition, winning the attention war against non-gaming platforms, and leveraging the AI advantage for monetisation and scaling.
Q: As the gaming landscape expands globally, where do you see the most strategic opportunities for growth in the coming years?
Saad Hameed (Game District): I think India, MENA, and Africa are expanding rapidly with increasing internet penetration and robust infrastructure. I expect many new players to join—perhaps a billion entering the mobile gaming market. As mobile gaming grows, more players are also becoming paying users.
Aleksandr Bajev (Playrix): I believe the untapped audience will not come from a specific geography, but from non-gamers. Companies and studios that learn how to acquire users from paid social platforms and YouTube will introduce a new audience of gamers to the ecosystem, grow the overall market, and achieve success.
Lucio Im (Supercent): The untapped opportunity does not come from the US, Europe, or specific regions; it comes from deeper insights into user behaviour. Users in the same country may behave differently, while users across different countries might exhibit the same behaviour. If we look deeper into these behavioural segments, we can uncover more opportunities.
KEY INSIGHT: BEHAVIOUR OVER BORDERS
Focus on player behaviour, not just geography. Segmentation should be based on engagement metrics to ensure sustainable growth.
Q: When you look at casual games today, what drives sustainable growth?
Saad Hameed (Game District): Whenever the word ‘growth’ comes up, everyone assumes it is User Acquisition’s (UA) job to generate it. However, looking at the market overall, true growth stems from originality. When a good product and a strong game align with an exceptionally successful creative concept, significant growth follows.
Aleksandr Bajev (Playrix): I recently looked at the top 10 most downloaded games, and the list is dominated by ad-monetised or hybrid-monetised titles—a major shift from a few years ago. I believe more publishers, even those traditionally focused on IAP, will experiment with hybrid monetisation and successfully introduce ads. It won’t be easy, but it is certainly a direction most will experiment with.
KEY INSIGHT: THE GROWTH FALLACY
User Acquisition alone cannot save a weak product. True growth requires strong, original content concepts aligned with product design.
Q: What is the biggest strategic challenge for the gaming industry, and how do you navigate that?
Lucio Im (Supercent): The gaming industry isn’t just competing within itself anymore; we are competing with non-gaming industries. Short-form video is a clear example, as everything competes for the same minutes of user attention. This shift has already occurred in China, where non-gaming apps have overtaken games in both user time spent and overall revenue generated. We need to recognize who our real competitors are and focus more on capturing user attention time.
KEY INSIGHT: THE ATTENTION WAR
We aren’t just fighting other games for attention; we are fighting the non-gaming industry—specifically short-form video platforms.
Q: Beyond efficiency, how do you see AI changing game development?
Aleksandr Bajev (Playrix): The question I ask myself is how many people will be needed to create and support a casual hit. I don’t know the exact number, but I anticipate that in a few years, teams will be much smaller than they are today. Consequently, I think far more studios will try to enter the market and produce amazing games.
Saad Hameed (Game District): Beyond efficiency, I think AI significantly aids in understanding the overall game lifecycle. Efficiency is just one aspect during development, but the games business encompasses much more. It involves monetisation, UA, and datasets—areas where AI is actively transforming processes. It is changing how we view data, monetise players, acquire new users, understand churn, and scale.
Lucio Im (Supercent): AI is transforming all of our processes, and our entire game development workflow is now powered by AI. We eliminate repetitive tasks so we can focus on creative work. The human role shifts to decision-making, while AI and creators collaborate to build great products.
KEY INSIGHT: THE AI ADVANTANGE
The impact of AI in gaming goes beyond simple efficiency. It is fundamentally transforming monetisation and user acquisition, allowing leaner teams to launch and scale global hits.
This article is based on interviews conducted with Aleksandr Bajev, Lucio Im and Saad Hameed at Google Think Games event.
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