2025’s unexpected games industry disruptor (clue it’s not AI)

• Non-core emerging game markets have continued to grow, while a shift towards multi-platform games is burgeoning.
• Although AI has taken centre stage, the big disruptor in 2025 in terms of the Western game sector is proving to be UGC and particularly Roblox.

As we prepare to enter the final quarter of 2025, it's interesting to take a broader look at the state of the games industry, with analyst Matthew Balls’s predictions of 2025's "growth engines" providing a useful lens.

In February, Ball published a report identifying several key factors he thought would propel market growth, potentially turning the tide on its stagnation. 

Non-core emerging markets, such as the rapidly growing Middle East and North Africa (MENA), as well as parts of Asia, are examples of where “emerging market developers may take most of future growth - and more of current spend”. 

Backed by government incentives and favourable policies in combination with lower costs, these markets are evidently becoming hubs contributing increasingly to the global games industry's future growth.

Indeed, the broader Middle East games market is projected to hit $9.6 billion in revenue by 2030, according to Mordor Intelligence. As for the MENA-3 sub-region, including Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and Egypt, it’s projected to grow to $2.8 billion by 2029, surpassing 84 million players, with a CAGR of 6.8%.

The stronghold of old games

Ball also highlighted the issue of massively inflating game development budgets. As he points out, only a small fraction of total game time is now spent on new titles, with the majority dominated by older games, many of which are more than eight years or older.

To counter the lack of competition and increase discoverability, he pointed out that more competition in mobile app stores - specifically the opening up of Apple’s iOS marketplace - could create new opportunities, especially for smaller developers.

At least on paper, much has changed during 2025, including Apple’s 30% App Store tax and other policy adjustments, potentially unlocking significant changes over the next few years. 

More generally, mobile games continue to dominate, accounting for 49% of all kinds of games. But Ball highlighted the growth in PC, indicating a broader multi-platform shift. 

Data from Newzoo confirms this trend, showing that games market revenue for PC increased by 4.4% in 2024; however, this is largely thanks to China, and to a lesser extent, Western markets. The same report also found that although console market revenue is declining, the pace has eased. Despite mobile games still leading the charts, this supports the prediction of multi-platform games burgeoning.

What about genAI?

However, the most notable disruptor in terms of the overall game sector in 2025 is its intersection with AI technology. 

Of course, the integration of AI in game development is nothing new, but it’s gained both more recognition and investment in recent years due to its rapid advancements in generative functionalities and other use cases.

While, as Ball argues, “many would-be growth engines have yet to drive real revenue” such as cloud gaming, esports, crypto/web3/NFT games, there’s no doubt that AI has the potential to spark significant game innovation, albeit one that’s still in its infancy when it comes to revenue growth. 

Instead, the perhaps-surprising disruption in the Western game sector in 2025 has been the broad adoption of user-generated content, overtaking triple-A games, most forcefully in the shape of Roblox.

With games such as Steal A Brainrot and Grow A Garden - the latter now holding the record for the highest number of concurrent players: 22 million - replacing Fortnite as the talk of the playground for young teens and tweens, the UGC gaming platform has grown its revenue by 25%, with full-year sales expected to be around $4.4 billion. 

Shareholders are fully on board, too, with the company's share price up 110% during 2025, valuing the enterprise at $85 billion, double that of EA and Take-Two. 

As ever, the only conclusion to draw is that the internet era continues to reward the virality of the experience, not its fidelity.  

Discover more about recent industry trends and the state of game markets by attending one of the upcoming events from the global B2B game conference series, Pocket Gamer Connects.