For the longest time, free-to-play mobile games dominated the market, being the most common type of game that developers create. While that's still largely the case, there's an unprecedented increase in the number of premium games coming to the small screen.
As GamesIndustry.biz reports, based on exclusive findings from AppMagic, 2025 saw a 77% increase in premium titles coming to iOS and Android devices, with nearly 750 hitting the market. However, the sector is still miles behind the free mobile games division, which accounted for 96% of mobile game downloads last year. Still, even with only 4% of downloads, the rising trend in premium options is encouraging to see.
It turns out that 2024's Mobile Game of the Year, Balatro, is one of the driving forces behind the growth, reaching 3.1 million downloads on mobile and achieving $21.3m in revenue from that platform alone. However, it's not just the port of the poker game that's doing some work, with one of the hardest games you can play on mobile, Dead Cells, generating $6.5m across iOS and Android.
The puzzle game Human Fall Flat is another premium port that's seeing success on mobile, generating $7.8m on the platform, while the roguelike deck-builder Slay the Spire boasts earnings of $13.7m. Considering how poorly triple-A ports like the horror series Resident Evil are doing on mobile, it's nice to see that there is still a market for premium games in your pocket.
Seemingly, it's games that have a strong reception on PC that seem to be transitioning well to mobile, but, as the report points out, this isn't the first time we've seen a huge increase in premium games releasing on mobile. Back in 2022, there was a huge surge, with over 1k titles from the sector hitting the market, only for that number to drastically drop to a measly 422 in 2024.
Hopefully, this isn't another rogue increase and instead indicates there is still a good amount of room for premium mobile games alongside free ones, particularly as subscription services like Apple Arcade offer access to a good selection of them.