"2025 was a banner year for direct-to-consumer revenue"

Pocket Gamer Connects, the leading international conference series for the global games industry, returns to London on January 19th to 20th, 2026. 

The must-attend conference will bring together 3,000 delegates from 70+ countries, including decision makers from key international games hubs across the globe. Companies set to join the show include Supercell, Epic Games, Duolingo, CD Projekt Red, Tencent, PlayStation, EA, AppLovin, TikTok and many more.

PGC London will host 32 tracks across two days, including at the Apps Business Summit (January 19th) and the Beyond Games: Transmedia Summit (January 20th).

One of the speakers set to join the conference is FastSpring head of gaming Chip Thurston. He has over a decade of games industry experience, with his current role seeing him support publishers define their strategy to monetise and market their games direct-to-consumer.

Most recently, Thurston acted as director of product at Scopely, driving strategy and execution across several verticals in casual and midcore games including D2C, live ops, community management, player support, UA, and monetisation. Prior to that, he led teams at SciPlay in both marketing and monetisation.

Thurston will be hosting a session entitled 'You Grew D2C in 2025. Now What? How to Level Up D2C in 2026', as well as joining the 'Industry Health Check: Trends, Opportunities & Challenges In 2026' panel.

We caught up with Thurston to discuss the D2C boom and why this trend is still in its early stages.

PocketGamer.biz: Please give us a summary of what you’re speaking about and why it’s important.

Chip Thurston: I'll present a forward-looking perspective on how D2C will change in 2026 and strategies to drive continued growth in the space.

2025 was a banner year for direct-to-consumer revenue, with new rulings and regulations transforming the gaming landscape. It's clear that D2C is now here to stay as a pillar of marketing and monetisation in gaming.

Those same rulings and regulations will inevitably change in 2026, however, as Apple and Google continue to push back. In this talk I'll share how I expect this to evolve in 2026 and how studios can prepare for the changes to come.

Where are the next big opportunities in the mobile games market?

D2C, of course. While it's been a significant topic of discussing in 2025, it's still a nascent space. When we surveyed studios in Summer 2025, we learned that 43% of those surveyed did not yet have a D2C solution.

For those that did have a D2C solution, the vast majority were seeing <20% of their revenue being driven via D2C. These data points tell me that we're still in the early days of D2C, so I definitely see it as the biggest immediate opportunity in the market.

What’s the most important key performance indicator (KPI) for you - and why?

The volume of players engaging with your game every day without lapsing. I learned at Scopely the value of daily engagement. If a player lapses from your game for even a single day, it's quite detrimental. If you can keep them playing daily and cultivate that habituation, however, you'll be laying the foundation for a strong, successful game.

What’s the best piece of advice you’ve ever received that you can pass on to others?

Don't evaluate decisions entirely based on their results. If you consistently make the best decision you can with the information you have available at the time, you're doing a good job (even if the decision doesn't always work out like you planned).

What company do you most admire in the mobile games world?

Supercell. The way they've driven growth in legacy games in recent years has been incredible. Brawl Stars experienced massive growth in 2024, and Clash Royale did the same in 2025.

Creating multiple hit games is already an impressive endeavour, but driving transformative growth in games that have been around for 5+ years? That's redefining what's possible in mobile gaming.

What’s your favourite ever mobile game?

Pokémon Go. I played it at release, enjoyed it, and stopped playing after a few months. When I came back years later, I was blown away by how many different engaging mechanics that had successfully layered on top of the core gameplay without disrupting what originally made the game unique.

Then when the pandemic hit in 2020 and everyone was forced to socialise less, I expected it to be very detrimental to the game. Instead, the team modified game mechanics to suit the new state of the world, and the game had its best year to date.

It's a wonderful combination of a brilliantly managed and wildly successful game. Plus, my eight-year-old and I love playing it together.

What sessions/speakers (apart from your own) are you planning to attend?

For this event I'm looking forward to learning more about key trends heading into 2026. I have the privilege of being on an "Industry Health Check" panel where I'll speak to what's happening in D2C, and I look forward to learning from my co-panelists about other trends and opportunities in the industry.

Can people get in touch with you at the event? What sort of people would you like to connect with?

Of course! I'd love to chat with anyone looking to learn more about what's going on in D2C. You can find me at the FastSpring booth or in either of my speaking engagements.