Hot Five: Uma Musume’s $22.8m overseas launch, Krafton’s record-breaking H1, and casual games’ strong market growth

To help get you primed and ready for another week in mobile gaming, we’ve curated the biggest stories you need to know from the last seven days.

1) Uma Musume: Pretty Derby makes 50.3% revenue outside Japan in first global month

In its first 30 days globally, Uma Musume: Pretty Derby generated over 50% of its mobile revenue outside of Japan.

According to AppMagic estimates, $22.8 million was generated internationally versus $22.6m in Cygames’ home country. The US contributed 68% of overseas spending during the timeframe.

2) Krafton generates $1.1bn revenue in record-breaking H1 2025

PUBG developer Krafton had a record-breaking first half of the year at ₩1.5 trillion ($1.1 billion) in revenue and ₩703.3bn ($508.5m) in operating profit.

Revenue was up by almost 12% and operating profit by almost 10% year-over-year.

3) Casual games market grows 3.6% amid a surge in strategy titles

AppMagic’s new live ops report revealed that casual strategy games downloads grew by 80% Y/Y during the first half of 2025.

At the same time, casual downloads as a whole rose by almost 4%, casino games by 8%, and hypercasual revenue jumped by 111%.

4) Ten billion installs later: Why publishing isn’t just publishing anymore

After Azur Games crossed 10bn installs, co-founder and CEO Dmitry Yaminsky discussed his journey since entering the games development space in the 2010s.

"Our first real step into game dev was nearly a decade ago, backing a team that made a midcore shooter. Feels kind of ironic that we’re doubling down on midcore again now, even though most people know Azur Games from our hypercasual hits," he said.

5) Playful.AI kicks off first Game Jam with a $7,000 prize pool, where AI features are must-have

Games startup Playful.AI is kicking off its first Game Jam later this week on August 8th, 2025.

The company is on the hunt for a project with "systems that start small but explode into infinite play loops", designed as a mobile-friendly web experience and featuring at least one AI-enhanced mechanic or feature.