Mobile Mavens' New Year's resolutions for 2026: Fewer bubbles, stop doomsaying, and sustainable growth
As the year comes to a close, we've been taking a look back at the top games and trends of the year, reflecting on a year of change in the industry.
As part of our 2025 retrospective, we asked our Mobile Mavens - a collection of games industry experts - a few questions about the year gone by.
Here we ask:
What's your New Year's resolution and what resolution would you enforce on the industry?
You can read part one here.
Learn about the latest industry trends and what's in store for the year ahead in the games industry at Pocket Gamer Connects London on January 19th and 20th. Not in town? Check out our other global events here.
Wenfeng Yang
My personal New Year’s resolution is that by 2026 I want to have invested in an AI + games company that can realistically reach a $1 billion valuation driven by profits, not by hype.
People keep saying the games industry is the “testing ground” for AI, and we’re certainly seeing that in our deal flow. We’ve looked at a lot of AI projects sitting at the intersections of games, tools, UGC, and new content formats.
I’m deliberately keeping an open mind, listening carefully, trying to understand these new business models, and thinking about where AI can create real, defensible value.
If I could set one resolution for the industry, it would be: by 2026, let’s have fewer bubbles and more outstanding, profitable AI-in-games case studies.
As large models continue to iterate, I hope the industry shifts from chasing buzzwords to building concrete products and companies that can scale sustainably and prove that AI in games is not just a narrative, but a business.
Gil Tov-Ly
My resolution is to travel less for work and spend more time with my wife and kids. Hopefully this will be possible as we continue to grow the team and share the load.
The industry resolution I would enforce is to stop doomsaying and acting like we are in a permanent apocalypse. The market is growing again (hey D2C!), new models are working, and players still love this medium.
Diana Korkina
I’d love to see the games industry put players first and be more transparent, especially around monetisation and user acquisition. To my mind, if we focus on listening to players and building for long-term engagement, everyone wins – developers, publishers, and the players themselves.
Dmitry Kachmar
Try new things. And yes - sometimes “new” is just the well-forgotten old (hello, HTML5).
Seriously: if you’re in mobile games and still underestimating cross-platform gaming, 2026 is the year to catch up. There’s a lot of growth sitting there in plain sight. And also don’t get comfortable. Momentum is a trap if you stop pushing. That’s the one I’m taking personally, too.
Günay Azer
Personally, my resolution is to stay more focused on long-term thinking instead of short-term wins: fewer distractions, clearer priorities.
For the industry, I’d push for sustainable growth: prioritising player experience, clean monetisation and profitable user acquisition that actually rewards quality over quantity.
Christian Lövstedt
2026 is the 10th anniversary of The Battle of Polytopia, and we are currently thinking about how we celebrate that. So my New Year’s resolution for the game is to make this celebration, whatever we decide to do, the best it can be for our community.
As for the games industry itself, I hope to see opinions on mobile games open up and change for the better. If it does, that should hopefully allow for more creatively motivated, smaller teams to find success.
Mainstream mobile gaming has become very stuck in its ways. The same titles that have dominated the charts for the past five-to-10 years. Live ops will undoubtedly continue to frame how most mobile games are designed and delivered.
With growth across the mobile sector, there is now increased space for sustainable niches that should be able to deliver interesting games while rejecting aggressive, intrusive monetisation methods. That’s really exciting and I hope they find success.
Kelly Vero
Mine: More, more, more! How do you like it?
For the industry: Stop worshipping your senior leadership teams (and their dreadful management consultants) and invest in your communities instead. They’re the ones keeping you alive. Senior management will be fine: they always are.
Vladimir Markov
My New Year’s resolution is to keep making fun, addictive games, and, of course, continue developing Ludus. I want players to experience that “just one more round” moment without feeling forced.
For the industry, my resolution is simple: stop chasing revenue first and start focusing on the moments that truly make players happy. When the experience is right, success naturally comes.
People