4 takeaways from RovioCon and Slush 2025: AI reimagining game dev, China's growth threatens Western studios, and EU regulation concerns

• Developers share how they are using generative AI technologies right now for game development.
• China's advantages, from team size and expertise to capital, threatens the future success of Western studios.
• Slush 2025 got political as industry investors and founders champion the removal of regulations they say are stifling the region's tech industry in face of competition from the US and China.
• Founders are struggling to find investment, while investors are expanding into non-gaming.

This week saw RovioCon return once again with talks from mobile games industry experts discussing some of the hottest topics going right now - and how the biggest companies are navigating the latest trends and finding success.

It also saw Slush, the big tech show connecting investors and startups, descend on Helsinki, Finland, providing the opportunity to take the temperature of Europe's tech sector.

Here we round up a few of the big takeaways from a big week.

1. The AI revolution

Supercell AI lead Otto Söderlund hosted a session at RovioCon entitled ‘How AI is reimagining the future of game development’. During the talk, he described AI as in its fourth hype cycle - and this time he thinks that hype is real.

Söderlund described AI’s potential impact like the industrial revolution, except instead of bringing automation to manual labour, the technology is replacing repetitive knowledge work.

Right now, Supercell AI implementations include anything from coding copilots, bots for balancing, ChatGPT and prompting training to creative AI toolsets for 2D, 3D and video, AI in live ops, UA asset creation pilots, AI for player support, and more.

He concluded the session by saying he doesn’t envision AI replacing creativity, but rather it can boost it. Check out our full rundown of the session here.

Deconstructor of Fun founder Michail Katkoff provided an analysis of where he thinks AI tech is currently at in his opening keynote for the conference. He said while more than a third of leaders have replaced workers with AI over the past year, the tech’s productivity promises have not materialised.

Katkoff highlighted headlines that AI search and summaries were distrusted by about half of consumers, while one referenced an MIT report that claimed 95% of generative AI pilots at companies are failing.

That doesn’t mean AI doesn’t work, he said, highlighting tech like world models and AI agents such as Google DeepMind’s Scalable Instructable Multiworld Agent (SIMA).

Katkoff split how companies are integrating AI into two buckets. Firstly, those that are all-in on becoming AI native.

Katkoff used AppsFlyer as an example of a company implementing this effectively. It trained staff in how they can use AI by giving them the tools and time to learn the technology, with employees then able to decide themselves how they can implement it in their work effectively. This week, AppsFlyer announced a suite of eight new products, including a new agentic AI suite, to underscore its evolution from a mobile attribution firm to a “modern marketing cloud”.

Elsewhere, he said companies like Zynga are taking a more “measured” approach to use AI as a tool. This means  that existing pipelines remain intact, with AI integrated where it works, resulting in incremental productivity gains.

One developer PocketGamer.biz spoke with at the event said they are currently spending a couple days each week building AI tools alongside game development, given the productivity benefits, especially for smaller teams.

2. China's rapid growth threatens Western mobile studios

Chinese publishers are dominating the mobile games industry. As Katkoff noted in his session, Chinese companies have big team sizes, build monetisation at the core of their games right off the bat - as higher user value can lead to higher UA budgets - and have a bigger home market, among other advantages.

With large teams - Katkoff said 1,000 was a relatively average team size in China - big budgets and substantial expertise, Chinese publishers have grown into global market leaders. Showing a chart of the top 20 publishers by IAP revenue from the past 12 months, six were from China, while others were based in other Asian countries like Japan and Singapore.

Top Chinese publishers have overtaken Western competitors. Katkoff displayed revenue charts showing Whiteout Survival developer Century Games has overtaken Supercell during the past year, while Microfun’s Gossip Harbor has become the leading merge game - bigger than Travel Town and Merge Mansion combined.

One industry expert PocketGamer.biz spoke with during the event aired their concerns over how Western developers can compete with their Chinese counterparts, particularly given their expertise in both design and marketing. These companies will continue to grow and could kill the Western games industry over the next few years, they suggested.

Meanwhile an investor at a large gaming VC told PocketGamer.biz that they are also monitoring China’s growth and dominance in the market that could impact Western success. Both sources said China had yet to crack the match-3 model, where hubs like Turkey are finding substantial success, but it is only a matter of time before Chinese developers crack this at a global scale.

3. Tech is mad at Europe

As you enter Slush, you are greeted with a big sign that says “Still doubting Europe? Go to Hel”.

So it was surprising that as soon as the show kicked off, the presenters hinted at potential problems ahead for Europe’s tech industry, specifically around the subject of regulation.

Then came Atomico’s talk, led by Atomico partner and head of intelligence Tom Wehmeier and principal Sarah Guemouri. A video stated a trillion euro future is at stake, while the speakers said Europe is standing at a crossroads, friction (red tape) is frustrating, and structural barriers are threatening competitiveness and putting trillions of euros of future unrealised GDP at risk. It was all very dramatic.

While at once providing data on how vibrant Europe’s tech hub has become, it could all come crashing down at any moment, they suggested.

Guemouri said while there are rumours of founders leaving, the reality is that 80% still build here in Europe. Yet the session continued to get political on the subject of regulation and how the US and China could race ahead without European change.

“Our capital still simply doesn’t scale as fast as our talent, because our operating environment still slows progress and because our wider business culture is still too risk averse,” said Wehmeier.

The key is to fix the underlying drivers, they claimed. For example, public procurement should be one of the most powerful tools that government has to stimulate industry, Guemouri said, “but here the instrument is blunt”.

She highlighted that in 2014 the EU set a target of 20% of all public procurements to go toward innovative solutions. A decade later, that number is stuck at 9%. There’s also a push for the 28th regime, which would create shared company formation rules in the region.

Signed by 18,500 people, Wehmeier said the ball is now in the court of policy makers to deliver a “transformational” change and avoid a missed opportunity and talent exodus. Generally, less regulation and red tape (and mentions of stock option reform at the show) were seemingly key to keep Europe competitive.

“Europe’s first trillion euro company is not a question of if, it’s who is it going to be and how fast will they get there,” said Wehmeier. “And that timing question is also ours to shape. Let’s not make European founders do it in hard mode. Let’s fix Europe for our founders and for our future.”

The concern with European regulation comes not too long after Supercell CEO Ilkka Paananen (who was on stage at Slush) sounded the alarm about the EU’s Digital Fairness Act which could have a substantial impact on the region’s mobile games market and industry. Specifically, how they are able to monetise.

4. Games investment challenges as non-gaming rises

Despite a return to growth for the mobile games industry, there was still concern around the challenges developers face from a number of people we spoke to.

One key issue was the lack of investment available to games companies. While lots of investors and startups were in town - the whole point of Slush - games was not a key focus of the show, with side-event Rebooting Play the main area for industry networking and discussion. Of course, there were gaming companies around in Slush, including from a Games London trade mission.

One founder and investor we spoke to said there seems to be a dearth of startups right now, having received far fewer pitches for investment this week than just a few years ago.

One partner at a major investor said there are only a limited number of VCs active in gaming right now. Another founder starting a new games company highlighted that issue, stating it was tough to find multiple investors to complete a fund. Some VCs, they said, had become less risk-taking and focused on the same types of startup.

During Katkoff’s talk, he highlighted how non-gaming apps have overtaken games for IAP revenue on the App Store, per Sensor Tower estimates. He pointed out a case where a founder had a strong and growing mobile games business, but they couldn’t find an exit.

While games companies generally sell at a 1.5x to 3x multiple, app companies can sell at 10x.

One investor source we spoke to said while they continue to fund games, they are expanding into non-gaming. They noted, for example, the fast-growing micro drama space as an area for investment, while highlighting AI firm Perplexity was recently valued at a 100x multiple.

From simply a returns perspective, that could be one reason why game founders are struggling to raise or find an exit compared to other industries.