TLDR
- AI’s value for game studios now lies in practical use, especially in game development and creative production.
- Having a webstore doesn’t mean you have a direct-to-consumer strategy; players still need a reason to use it.
- Better retention starts with understanding why players lose interest, not with adding more content.
- App store featuring is no longer the most or the only reliable growth strategy, so studios need to create their own demand.
- Every studio is at a different stage, so there’s no one-size-fits-all approach to growth.
At PG Connects Nordics 2026 in Helsinki on October 20–21, I met studios from all over the world, working across different verticals and at very different stages of their business. Almost all of them wanted the same thing: more players and users. But each company saw growth differently, and there was a growing interest in retention over acquisition and installs.
Four mobile growth trends stood out across our meetings and the wider event coverage: practical AI, direct-to-consumer (D2C) sales, retention, and early creative testing. All four point back to the same lesson.
AI has moved from experimentation to practical use
AI has settled in. Much of the conversation has moved away from whether it will replace development teams and toward how studios can actually use it to work faster: in workflows and marketing, but particularly in game development and creative production.
In an interview on player research and AI, Wooga’s Holger Wurst discussed how AI is speeding up prototyping. Wooga estimated that AI tools were making some of its game prototyping processes around 70% faster. He was also clear about why you still need real players to test whether something actually works.
Creative production is an area where we have deep experience at yellowHEAD. It’s also why we recently launched Mona, our software for producing and testing creative assets.
D2C gaming: a webstore is only the starting point
More publishers are looking at ways to sell directly to players rather than relying entirely on app stores. The interesting part is that it’s no longer just about setting up a webstore, but about actually getting players to use it. As Xsolla’s Ola Dokun put it, simply having a webstore doesn’t mean you have a proper D2C strategy.
Gamesture is a good example. According to a breakdown of Gamesture’s webstore strategy, the studio increased the share of sales coming through its webstore from 32% to around 70% across three live games. Interestingly, it wasn’t simply about bigger discounts, but about changing the offers available through the store.
As webstores become more important, a game needs more than App Store Optimization (ASO) to be found. That’s why search engine optimization (SEO) for apps is now something every studio should consider.
Retention and monetization over chasing installs
Getting people to download a game is one thing. Getting them to stay and spend is another. At the conference, there was a lot of focus on making existing games more profitable rather than just chasing more installs.
Outfit7’s Urska Leskovar made an interesting point about retention: sometimes adding more content isn’t the answer. You need to understand why players are losing interest in the first place.
Creative testing and creating your own demand
Game development has become more accessible, but breaking through in the mobile app stores has become increasingly difficult. Rovio’s Wille Miljas explained that getting featured in the app stores is no longer something studios can rely on as their main growth strategy. They need to create their own demand.
The data points the same way. Unity’s 2026 Game Development Report found that competition is the biggest hurdle mobile game developers face today, cited by 33% of respondents.
That’s why studios are investing more in marketing, and why the different disciplines need to work together. At yellowHEAD, we cover ASO, SEO, paid UA, creative, and UA cohort funding, they all need to work together rather than being treated as separate things. In one of our client partnerships, doubling down on ASO in tandem with UA helped organic installs on Google Play more than double year over year.
Smaller developers deserve more attention
Personally, I’d like to see more discussion around smaller developers and how they actually make the jump from building a game to growing a sustainable business. We met people who were still testing their first games, looking for publishers, or trying to figure out when it makes sense to start investing in marketing.
There’s a big difference between making a good game and knowing how to get it in front of the right people. Sometimes it comes down to strengthening the app’s relevance signals. I think it’s an interesting area to explore.
PG Connects Nordics 2026: no one-size-fits-all approach to growth
My main takeaway is that every studio is at a completely different stage. You need to understand the actual business and its challenges before deciding what the right growth strategy looks like.
You can have two companies that both want more players, but one is still testing whether its game works, while the other already has millions of users and wants to improve profitability. Their challenges are completely different, so the conversation needs to be different too.
At yellowHEAD, we’ve worked with small, mid-sized, and large studios, and that has taught us to listen and recognize those different needs. With competition this intense, marketing carries more weight, and that’s where I think our approach makes sense.
The trends will keep shifting, but understanding the studio first is a good place to start. If you’re working through your next growth decision, take a look at yellowHEAD’s growth services.
Frequently Asked Questions
PG Connects Nordics 2026 was a mobile games industry conference held in Helsinki on October 20–21, 2026. It brought together studios from all over the world, from smaller developers testing their first games to established publishers focused on scaling.
The four main trends were practical AI use, D2C sales through webstores, retention and monetization of existing games, and early creative testing. Together, they reflect a growing interest in retention over acquisition and installs.
No. A webstore is the starting point, while a D2C strategy also has to get players to use it.
Early creative testing helps studios work out whether a game has potential before they put serious money behind UA. App store optimization alone may not be enough, studios need to create their own demand.
