5 takeaways from Pocket Gamer Connects London 2026: Industry optimism, rising UA costs, and the state of the UK games sector

What a way to kickstart the year.

Pocket Gamer Connects returned again to London for our biggest show of the year. In fact, it was our biggest and best event ever, with c. 3,000 industry professionals descending on the capital for two days of networking, deals and insights.

It really feels like PGC London grew to a new level this year as a key part of the games industry event calendar. But we’re just getting started. PGC is set for a world tour this year, heading to San Francisco (March 9th), Dubai (May 20th to 21st), Barcelona (June 15th to 16th) to Shanghai (July 30th), Helsinki (October 13th and 14th), as well as other destinations. You can check out the full PGC event lineup here.

As we head into 2026, we put together some key trends and insights from our chats and the top sessions at PGC London to get an idea of what we can expect from the year ahead.

1) A return to industry optimism

In many of my event takeaway articles this year, I’ve written about how people in the industry have vented their concerns for the sector, whether quietly or openly. But PGC London felt different.

The industry still faces challenges. Layoffs will continue to happen this year, while studios are likely to still struggle to garner investment interest, particularly from VCs, if the past year is anything to go by.

However, this week’s event, we saw a lot more optimism for the mobile market in 2026. Relatively gone was the doubt, the snark and the pessimism of an industry under the cosh. In London, there was a buzz, a positivity that the game industry at large, and particularly mobile, of course, would get back on its feet for everyone - not just the largest publishers.

Arcadia Gaming Partners founder Akin Babayigit even said now is the best time to invest in games during our fireside chat at the show.

No one is saying things will be easy. But for the first time in a long time, there was real positivity.

2) UA financing and AppLovin’s dominance

There was an undercurrent - sometimes peaking its head openly in talks - around one of the industry’s biggest challenges right now: the rising costs of user acquisition.

UA has long been a linchpin of the mobile games market. I first joined PocketGamer.biz in 2016 and frankly, since then, one of the key industry concerns each year has been rising marketing spend.

After another 10 years, that same challenge continues to rear its ugly head. But this time, there is a company that appears to be at the centre of it all: AppLovin.

Now, some will say AppLovin is a fantastic ads platform that acts as a key and necessary growth engine. Others will say they’ve traded the likes of Apple and Google and their 30% fees (now cut or under severe pressure depending on the region) for a new master.

On stage, Stillfront Group CEO Alexis Bonte called the high costs of UA effectively a "tax on success".

“Apple and Google, at least they were taking only 30%. Many people have 50% of their budgets, or 55% or 60% of their budgets going to UA, or 70%. So you’re left with no margins or very low margins.

“So if you’re spending 70% on UA, you understand why we need direct-to-consumer right? You’re kind of stuck.”

So while there’s a direct-to-consumer revolution, a significant cut of that sales stream is being lost to the leading UA channels like AppLovin.

3) The D2C revolution marches on

It feels a bit like a running joke almost in these roundup articles that I mention the direct-to-consumer revolution. I noted in our 2025 trends article and podcast that last year felt like the period in which regulation and legal battles finally caught up with the mobile platform holders.

That was proven in Q3 financials for some of the world’s top public mobile games publishers, who reported record D2C revenue for the quarter.

At PGC London, the D2C movement was hard to miss. The likes of Appcharge and Xsolla had big booths on the show floor, also joined by the likes of Tebex, Digital Turbine, and others.

It’s perhaps one of the hottest spaces in the market right now, helping developers and publishers increase their earnings and combat those rising UA costs.

I’m curious to see whether that growth is maintained this year or whether new regulations and legal rulings - like the App Store’s recent win - will cause a slowdown in the D2C movement, or whether it's too late for platform holders to maintain a significant share of IAPs.

4) The UK faces a challenge to compete on the world stage

There was a scathing assessment from members of the UK’s Video Games Council - formed to build closer links with the country’s decision makers - of the historical lack of support the industry has had.

While countries around the world receive various avenues of support, whether that’s generous tax credits, funding schemes or even UA financing, the UK’s options are much more limited.

Miniclip CEO Saad Choudri said during the show that if he was starting a 100-person studio in gaming today, he would not do that in the UK. It’s a “damning indictment” of where we are today in the UK, he said.

JECO co-founder Emily Bailey said she wouldn’t start a two-person game development studio in the country.

We’ll see if the Labour Government starts taking note and takes action. In a show of recognition for the sector, the Minister of State for Trade Policy Sir Chris Bryant visited PGC London for a fireside chat on stage and a tour of the expo floor.

While there was a show of support for the industry, he didn’t directly answer questions from PocketGamer.biz on when the sector can expect any new initiatives to boost growth and compete with what other countries are offering.

But he did call for the industry to be louder about its needs, which according to what UKIE CEO Nick Poole has heard, is perhaps something the industry doesn’t do enough of.

5) Non-gaming app opportunities

For the past year, there has been talk of the growth of non-gaming apps on mobile. Part of that discussion centres on apps overtaking games for IAP revenue on the App Store, according to Sensor Tower estimates.

Meanwhile, apps are using techniques perhaps more often seen in games. A top example often cited of this is Duolingo, which made an acqui-hire of the NextBeat team last year, followed by the establishment of its European HQ in London.

We caught up with Duolingo’s Simon Hade at the show, who said: “I think five years ago, there wasn’t really a role for game developers to move into apps at all because no one was really focused on the core experience at all, outside of a few.

"They were more thinking about how can we slap a social feature on it or add a friends list, add badges and achievements. They are good, no shade on my PM and live ops friends, but that’s not the heart and soul of game development. So now those opportunities are really available in app development. So I think it’s a good thing.”

We of course also hosted an entire day dedicated to the world of apps with the Apps Business Summit at our new venue in the Barbican Centre. Companies like TikTok, Duolingo, Booking.com, Rakuten Viber, Bitjust and others were all at the show to share learnings, strategies and offer insights from outside the games sector.

See you at the next show

At a bustling show of around 3,000 industry professionals and across a packed schedule, numerous other topics were of course discussed, not least including AI, UGC, transmedia (we had a whole summit dedicated to that!), the growth of Asian publishers, and much more.

We discuss more trends on the Week in Mobile Games podcast, coming soon. If you missed the show or want to see your favourite sessions again, we’ll be releasing a number of video recordings from the show in the coming weeks on the PocketGamer.biz YouTube channel.

PGC London is just the start for the conference series this year. We’re heading to San Francisco on March 9th, Dubai on May 20th to 21st, Malmö on May 27th, Barcelona on June 15th to 16th, Shanghai on July 30th, Helsinki on October 13th and 14th, and Bangkok on October 27th. Then later in the year we’ll be heading to Jordan and the Canary Islands too, dates TBC.

Perhaps we’ll see you there?