The global mobile gaming market has entered a recovery phase, largely driven by live-ops strategies, with 2025 revenue projected to reach $82 billion (approximately 118.572 trillion KRW). Sensor Tower, a global market intelligence firm, released the '2025 Global Top Grossing Mobile Game Live-Ops Insights' report on January 28, 2026. The report analyzes how top-grossing mobile games have utilized live-ops to maintain and expand player engagement and spending, thereby driving market recovery.

The mobile in-app purchase market experienced a rapid growth spurt during the pandemic, followed by a period of adjustment, and has now returned to a growth trajectory. Annual downloads have stabilized at over 50 billion. As the market transitions from an initial phase of rapid expansion to a stage of structural maturity, publishers have shifted their strategic focus from increasing downloads to extending game lifecycles, improving user quality, and maximizing LTV (Life Time Value).

Amid these changes, revenue growth has tended to concentrate on a select few genres and top-tier titles. Among mobile games that saw an annual revenue increase exceeding $50 million (approx. 72.3 billion KRW) in 2025, the strategy genre accounted for nearly half of the total growth. Survival strategy games 'Last War: Survival' and 'Whiteout Survival' recorded annual revenues of $2.4 billion (approx. 3.4704 trillion KRW) and $2.2 billion (approx. 3.1812 trillion KRW) respectively, maintaining the top two spots in global mobile game revenue rankings.

In the report, Sensor Tower categorizes live-ops events into three types: regular, themed, and long-term events. Regular events maintain daily login and play habits with high frequency and periodicity, providing stable support for DAU (Daily Active Users). Themed events offer new goals and rewards on a weekly basis, providing continuous freshness to players and generating periodic spending demand. Long-term events operate on a monthly or quarterly basis, driving engagement among top-tier players through server-wide competitions and premium rewards.

Top mobile games have built multi-layered and highly integrated live-ops systems to maximize user value and monetization potential. 'Whiteout Survival' drove user engagement and spending growth through a Halloween event on October 28, 2025, while 'Monopoly GO!' successfully conducted a Star Wars IP collaboration event on April 30 of the same year. Additionally, 'Gossip Harbor' successfully rebounded its in-app purchase revenue by leveraging a persistent live-ops structure centered on season passes, album collections, and milestone rewards, securing a long-term revenue base.