A visitor tries out a smartphone game during a high-tech expo in Shanghai in July. [Photo/China Daily]

AI injects new impetus into gaming sector

Artificial intelligence has dramatically increased the speed and volume at which games reach the market, according to a recent report released by mobile analytics firm AppsFlyer.

AppsFlyer said that AI-enabled production coincided with a sharp increase in advertising across iOS and Android in 2025, while creative output scaled rapidly across all spending tiers, with top gaming advertisers producing between 2,400 and 2,600 creative variations per quarter, up 25 to 30 percent year-on-year.

The report is based on anonymized, aggregated data from 9,600 gaming apps worldwide, analyzing 24.8 billion total installs across iOS and Android during 2025, AppsFlyer said.

To manage rising marketing volume and fragmentation, AI-enabled tools became a common part of daily workflows, with 46 percent of AI assistant queries focused on reporting and performance breakdowns, reflecting the need for faster visibility as data volumes grew.

"AI has dramatically increased the speed and volume at which games and marketing assets reach the market," said Adam Smart, director of product, gaming at AppsFlyer. "The result is not a shortage of creativity, but a surplus of it. As paid activity and creative supply expand faster than player attention, marketing success depends on how effectively teams can measure, interpret and act on an increasing volume of fragmented signals."

China-headquartered publishers captured 35 percent of global gaming user acquisition cost outside China. Their share grew by 22 percent year-on-year, with gains strongest on Android and across competitive Western markets including the US, the UK, Germany and France, the report stated.

The trend is in line with the growing overseas influence of Chinese gaming companies. Income generated by Chinese independently developed games in overseas markets exceeded $9.5 billion in the first half of 2025, up 11.07 percent from a year earlier, according to the China Game Industry Report released by the Game Publishing Committee and Expert Committee on Game Industry Research.

The United States was the biggest overseas market for Chinese games, taking up 31.96 percent of the market share, followed by Japan and South Korea. China-developed simulation games were the most popular among overseas users, bringing in 43.33 percent of the total overseas income.

Eyeing the big opportunities, local governments are moving rapidly. Hainan province, for instance, is quietly transforming into an important hub for the country's digital cultural industry, particularly in the realm of game exports. The Hainan Free Trade Port Digital Cultural Export Industrial Park located in Chengmai county, Hainan, is already home to nearly 2,000 gaming companies.

Xu Tao, magistrate of Chengmai county, said Chengmai will further intensify its efforts in the "overseas expansion" sector this year, scaling up operations across five key areas, including gaming and cross-border livestreaming e-commerce.

In the field of game exports, the county will upgrade the public service platform for global market expansion of Chinese games, aiming to have over 20 million overseas registered users of the platform, Xu said.