China's game makers, the state of UK games jobs and Pokémon Go's record run | Week in Views
The games industry moves quickly and while stories may come and go there are some that we just can't let go of…
So, to give those particularly thorny topics a further going over we've created a weekly digest where the members of the PocketGamer.biz team share their thoughts and go that little bit deeper on some of the more interesting things that have happened in mobile gaming in the past week.
Craig Chapple
The Top 30 China Game Makers of 2026
We recently published our list of the Top 30 China Game Makers of 2026. Researching the list revealed a lot about the key trends coming out of the market.
For starters, Chinese games companies have truly gone global. A lot of fuss has already been made about this - Game Science’s Black Myth: Wukong was a landmark release for triple-A games out of China.
Meanwhile, Century Games, First Fun and Microfun are dominating the 4X strategy and Merge categories - even taking these genres to new heights. River Game continues to succeed in 4X strategy, while FunPlus appears to have found a new success with Tiles Survive. The hits just keep on coming.
Bubbling under the top 30 were also a few other casual game developers busy scaling their titles, such as Happibits and Vertex Games. The Top 30 really is just the tip of the iceberg for China’s vibrant and highly competitive games sector.
The breadth of games also stood out - Hungry Studio’s Block Blast, Habby’s hybridcasual blockbusters, Infold Games’ Love & Deepspace, Grypline’s RPG Arknights: Endfield, Moonton’s MOBA MObile Legends, X.D. Network’s cosy game Heartopia - there are few genres left untouched for global success.
One other interesting finding came out of the research - a number of Chinese companies have created a curious corporate web. Infold is the international name for Papergames, HoYoverse is the global publishing brand for miHoYo and First Fun is also known as FunFly.
Meanwhile, some studios operate under multiple names. And not only that, some also claim to have their headquarters in other countries like Singapore.
I encourage you to check out the full list, as well as our full region report on the sector, filled with insightful data and commentary from local experts. You can download it for free here.
Paige Cook
This week, a stat from the 2025 UK Games Industry Workforce Demographics stood out to me. It stated that 81% of respondents said they are proud to be part of the UK games industry, but only 38% said they would recommend it as a place to work.
I found that quite disheartening because it shows that people clearly still love making games, but many aren’t convinced that the industry itself offers the kind of stability or environment they would encourage others to join.
There are likely a number of reasons behind that. It’s hard not to imagine that years of layoffs throughout the industry don’t play a big part. Studio closures and wider uncertainty are tough to deal with and we’ve seen this impact studios and developers of all different levels.
It's good to see that Ukie has already said it will work with its Raise The Game partners to develop a long-term action plan in response to the report. That’s important because surveys like this shouldn’t just highlight a problem, they should help to direct incoming change.
The games industry has so much to offer creative people and I’d like to think that, over time, we can get to a point where those two figures are much closer together and people can feel encouraged to join the industry.
Aaron Astle
Pokémon Go revenue skyrockets towards a record high during Go Fest 2026: Global
Pokémon Go had one of its most lucrative days in history on July 11th, 2026. In fact, it might have been its very best day ever.
Player spending began to skyrocket with the tenth anniversary last Monday, up 129% day-over-day on July 6th. The five-day Road of Legends event clearly enticed players to spend with its vast range of Legendary raids.
From $1.2 million in spending at the start of the month, AppMagic estimates that players were spending over $10m per day by the 10th.
Then, spending surged by another 50% as Go Fest 2026: Global commenced on the 11th, resulting in $15.1m in spending between Google Play and the App Store. It was Go’s second most-lucrative day ever on those stores, and its best single day since 2021, just 15% shy of a record $17.4m.
Considering that past record came two years before Go's web shop launched, it doesn’t seem unreasonable to speculate that the difference was compensated for by players who've since migrated to direct-to-consumer. After all, AppMagic's estimates suggest Go made $745.1m between the two major app stores last year, meanwhile Scopely officially confirmed the game surpassed $1 billion in 2025.
That's a difference of 29%.
As for what's caused this potential new record, July 11th marked the first free iteration of Go Fest, called Go Fest 2026: Global.
Since no one had to pay upfront for tickets, every player in the world had the chance to participate and thus feel the allure to spend on extras - even more Legendary raids, limited-time bundles, Poké Balls to catch the "most diverse variety of Pokémon species ever observed in the wild" and elusive Shiny Pokémon at boosted odds.
I personally suspect a lot of player spending went on Raid Tickets, as trainers sought out returning favourites, Legendary meta picks and the new Mega Mewtwo X and Mega Mewtwo Y.
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