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With the US cracking open each the App Retailer and Google Play in 2025 (in strikes that might probably change, notably if Epic has its approach), how are the highest publishers taking benefit?
The final time we reviewed D2C income share at key cellular video games firms, there was a mixture of development and stunning stagnation. Playtika, whereas elevating its D2C income share goal from 30% to 40%, noticed these gross sales improve simply 1.3% year-over-year to $175.9 million in Q2. That quarter, 25.3% of the agency’s income got here from D2C earnings, the bottom it had been over the earlier yr.
Playtika Q3 D2C income
The image has modified significantly. D2C income grew 20% Y/Y and 19% quarter-on-quarter to a file $209.3m in Q3. That pushed the entire share of participant spending by itself platform to 31%.
Playtika Q3 earnings
MTG additionally broke firm data with 26% of income coming from D2C platforms. That’s its highest level for the previous yr and up from 19% in Q3 2024. President and CEO Maria Redin mentioned D2C was now “an necessary half” of the group’s enterprise.
Over at Stillfront, the corporate revealed that 44% of web income now comes from D2C initiatives, versus 33% in Q3 2024.
There’s a warning on the market although – regardless of all of the income development as publishers take again a big piece of the pie from Apple and Google – that D2C doesn’t exchange actual development.
Fishing Conflict maker Ten Sq. Video games noticed bookings fall by 16.9% Y/Y in Q3 to zł85m ($23.4m). The share of D2C bookings amounted to twenty.3% in September 2025. Notably, TGC Retailer income was decrease in every month in Q3 than Q2, although it was up on prior quarters.
TGS pinned the blame on a decline in bookings in Fishing Conflict and Searching Conflict – which each noticed D2C share decline – plus the expansion in bookings in titles and not using a TGS Retailer provide.
Take-Two CEO Strauss Zelnick mentioned D2C ought to assist its cellular enterprise, which incorporates Zynga, broaden web bookings and margins “meaningfully” in future and famous the division had “outperformed considerably” throughout the quarter. With that development, the agency is investing extra in consumer acquisition – highlighting that a few of that additional income increase goes straight again into UA.
There’s nonetheless extra to come back on the regulatory entrance world wide that might give publishers an additional D2C increase. Japan’s Truthful Commerce Fee beforehand handed the Act on Promotion of Competitors for Specified Smartphone Software program and it formally got here into power from December 18th, 2025, enabling direct hyperlinks to net outlets and native D2C funds.
For now, the D2C practice retains shifting.
Be taught extra about the best way to maximise your D2C technique at Pocket Gamer Connects London 2026 on January nineteenth and twentieth.
