Mobile Mavens on the biggest games industry trends of 2024 part two: Rewarded UA in vogue, generative AI, and hybridcasual success

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Once again it’s that time of year where we all start feeling reflective and look back on the year just gone.

So to that end, we thought we’d ask our Mobile Mavens – a collection of games industry experts – a few questions about the year gone by. Here we ask:

What were the biggest games industry trends of 2023?

You can read part one right here.

Discover more about the latest games industry trends at Pocket Gamer Connects London on January 20th to 21st, 2025.

There is no doubt that there were parts of the industry that struggled – and yet, there were also bright spots for game developers that embraced digitally-native, real-money rewards to drive engagement and retention. This is a trend I expect to continue.  

Rewarded UA has for sure been a big trend in 2024 and provided a bright spot in an otherwise bleak year for mobile gaming UA.

I’m not just saying that because we’re a part of that space and had a great year, other companies offering rewarded traffic also seem to be doing great, which I love to see, as we’re still in the big blue ocean phase of this market.

There’s so much potential for improving user engagement with rewards and I’m sure next year will be even better. 

This year’s key trend has been a decline in game retention rates coupled with rising traffic costs. In this context, Ludus has emerged as a true phenomenon. The fact that our product demonstrates growth even in today’s challenging market conditions is nothing short of miraculous.

On the development side, AI and generative technologies has been a dominant theme. Everyone has been looking for ways to integrate it into production and content creation.

However, it’s fair to say that no one has fully cracked the code yet. We’ve also been experimenting with these technologies and plan to incorporate them into our future games.

This year we witnessed a defining shift from hypercasual to hybridcasual games, revolutionising in-game monetization strategies. Studios moved away from a purely ad-based revenue model toward a balanced mix of in-app purchases and in-game ads.

This design transition brought new challenges, particularly around developing content and mechanics to support this hybrid approach effectively.

AI has been a powerful and fast-growing wave, with new, groundbreaking models and technologies making headlines almost every week.

The hype surrounding AI is immense, fueled by jaw-dropping advances in what AI models can achieve, from generating lifelike images to automating complex tasks. Yet, there is a noticeable dissonance between this hype and how AI is actually used in the games industry.

While companies are eager to adopt AI, they often struggle to integrate and monetise these sophisticated technologies into daily operations in a meaningful way. Practical, day-to-day applications of AI remain limited, with only a handful of use cases proving viable for immediate impact.

In reality, the main usage of AI in business is coming from the bottom up — from employees who leverage AI to streamline tasks and work more efficiently — rather than as top-down initiatives from companies directing employees on how to use AI.

Bridging this gap between AI’s potential and real-world implementation has become a key challenge for businesses aiming to harness the true power of AI.

As predicted, there’s no doubt 2024 has been a tough year for the games industry at large.

However, there’s also been plenty of positive changes within the free-to-play ecosystem: hybridcasual games are now firmly established and there’s been a visible mindset shift towards tracking lifetime value of players and long-term growth.

In our business – games distribution and monetisation – we see a clear trend of game developers and publishers investing in alternative distribution and monetisation. Alternative stores distribution, web payshops, etc. are just examples of a trend that we believe will grow in 2025. 

2024 has been an outstanding year for bringing authentic digital likenesses to games.

Titles like Justice League: Kill the Suicide Squad delivered remarkable facial animation, and I anticipate seeing similar high-fidelity facial performances in next year’s releases, such as Death Stranding 2 and GTA VI.

Third-party stores are starting to gain visibility due to legislative changes.

AI is becoming an integral part of everyday work life.