September saw a significant platform evolution from Roblox and a series of notable launches and events from leading titles. User-generated content (UGC) and time-limited events are emerging as popular strategies for mobile games, while new movements from publishers are signalling shifts within key genres.
The past few months have been eventful for Roblox. By rolling out noteworthy features, including the “Moments” short-form video tool that’s proven powerful for discovery, and the Rewarded Ads feature that allows creators to have various rewarded ad placements in their games, Roblox is gaining major traction in the casual market. Unreal Editor for Fortnite (UEFN) is now allowing developers to receive the full revenue from their own in-app purchases (IAPs) for the next year, which is creating some rivalry between Roblox and UEFN in the UGC space.
The market has also seen many innovative engagement strategies materialize: a clever, limited-time gacha has driven a major revenue spike for Pokémon TCG Pocket, and Wild Rift and Free Fire saw significant success with exclusive skin gachas and a new blind box system, respectively. We also saw the merge2 genre being contested by several China-based publishers, with Century Games and Happibits achieving notable success. Quietly in the background, Nintendo shadow-dropped Fire Emblem Shadows, which is a unique mix of grid-based RPG battles and asymmetric survival gameplay. This notable yet arguably experimental entry into the mobile landscape has seen a soft performance, perhaps suggesting a proof-of-concept approach rather than a full-market release.
Check out our latest analyst bulletin below for more information about these updates and titles, as well as the latest trends in the mobile market.
September’s Casual Game Updates
It is rare to see the Roblox platform getting new features or updates, but on September 5, their own in-platform short-form video tool, “Moments”, was launched. It is functionally similar to TikTok and Instagram Reels: players can capture, edit, and share clips directly from their gameplay in Roblox. However, the key differentiator here is the “Join” button, which allows players to hop into the experience where the clip was recorded. This feature has positioned “Moments” as a potent tool for organic game discovery, effectively turning UGC into a direct user-acquisition channel. Roblox has indicated that the underlying technology is built for future applications, hinting at further opportunities for “growth, monetization, and brand integrations”.
At the same time, Rewarded Ads are finally gaining traction on the platform. While Rewarded Ads were announced in April and then implemented in July, popular games like RIVALS, Driving Empire, and Natural Disaster Survival have now begun implementing them on a larger scale. This is a good step forward for Roblox, and while they have previously utilized immersive ad tools (though with little success), adopting in-app advertising (IAA) monetization is now proving to be a better strategic move to monetize their audience.
With Roblox announcing and implementing these new features, UEFN has decided to enable developers to monetize their own games in response. This is a decision that will stoke the fire in the UGC war, but it is also a massive win for indie developers who work with the platform. UEFN developers used to earn money by just a revenue share of cosmetics sold in the store – Epic would share the specific revenue with the creator community, distributed by engagement and retention on each of the creators’ games. Now that developers can add their own IAPs and receive a full revenue share from them the first year (2026), it suggests that Epic are trying to win over as much of the market share from Roblox as possible and persuade people to move over to their ecosystem.
This movement between platforms is interesting to see, especially now that UGC games have been pulling significant numbers lately – a 2025 UGC Study reports that games with UGC support show a 31% revenue advantage over other titles from 5 years after release. Some of the most-played standalone titles, such as Counter-Strike 2 (which averages approximately 1 million concurrent users (CCUs) on Steam), are seeing competition from notable Roblox titles that are averaging over 1 million CCUs: 99 Nights in the Forest, Steal a Brainrot, and Grow a Garden. These three titles at their highest peak had over 10 million CCUs, and the impact of UGC here is undeniable. Steal the Brainrot, Fortnite’s copy of Roblox’s Steal a Brainrot, has quickly become a popular fan-made experience that rivals even the standard battle royal mode. The CCU is still far behind Roblox, though Epic may be able to start closing the gap now that they are incentivizing developers to build on their platform instead.
Additional Casual Gaming Highlights and News
A new update to Solitaire Grand Harvest has introduced Mystery Crates. These will be available in a “pop-up” style bundle, which builds on one of their previously proven monetization tactics. The contents of the bundle will be split into seven Mystery Crates, maintaining the mystery element while revealing the total potential value. The smart dual-purchase option, which allows players to buy crates individually or secure the entire bundle at a discounted price, caters to both impulse and value-seeking spenders.
This mechanic blends gacha-like engagement with bundle value, which is a trend we’re seeing in top-grossing casual games. Features like Mystery Crates are designed to boost conversion rates and increase average revenue per user, establishing them as a steadfast tool in modern freemium games.
Microfun has updated Gossip Harbor’s 7-day task event with a 2.0 version, which now includes a new long-term “Star progression” mechanic. Restaurant Goals 2.0 will still see players finishing their daily tasks over seven days to earn event points and milestone rewards, but fully completing all weekly tasks will now also grant Stars. These Stars contribute toward a separate, cumulative Grand Prize track, rewarding a player’s continual participation. However, failing to finish a week can result in lost Stars, adding a strategic consistency challenge to this popular recurring event. This layer of progression is a clever move designed to sustain a player’s investment and engagement by incentivizing weekly completion. It has created a great retention loop that is sure to benefit both a player’s progression and the game’s overall health metrics.
Gossip Harbor launched back in July 2022, and since then, Microfun has scaled it to become the leader of the merge2 market. However, other China-based publishers are now vying for that top spot in the genre, and some of these publishers’ titles even reached their all-time high revenues in September.
Century Games, the studio behind successful 4X strategy titles Whiteout Survival and Kingshot, is branching out into casual genres. The release of Tasty Travels, a merge2 game, follows their match3 title, Truck Star, highlighting their deliberate strategy to create a highly genre-diversified portfolio. Similarly, Merge Cooking is Happibits’ first major scalable success, and has shown reliable monthly growth since the beginning of the year.
September’s Midcore Game Updates
PUBG Mobile has covered almost every event type possible, and the game currently has multiple live modes that are like minigames themselves. However, in September, PUBG Mobile received the 4.0 update, which included the announcement of the new mode: Unfail. This 1v4 mode heavily draws inspiration from Dead by Daylight, which is based on a pursuit and escape dynamic. Players will assume the role of either the lone, formidable predator, or one of four survivors cooperating to secure their escape. The predators’ goal is to hunt down the survivors, while the survivors must avoid being captured and complete their objectives.
The Unfail mode has been perfectly introduced before Halloween, and while seasonal events are common for mobile games, Unfail is joining PUBG Mobile as a permanent mode, which is creating much more hype than your typical Halloween event.
For the first time ever, Pokémon TCG Pocket has launched a limited-time gacha with their Deluxe Pack. This will mainly consist of already existing cards, as well as Parallel Foil versions of them, and each pack will contain four cards (this is down from the usual five or six cards in previous packs). You may be asking why players would be interested in packs that contain older and fewer cards than before, but the catch is that each pack is guaranteed to include at least one exclusive card. Rare cards would previously only be found in a few standard packs, so particularly for newer players or those missing a few exclusive cards, this is incentivizing purchases to help complete collections.
Combining this with the limited-time element, the game has seen its highest daily revenue spike since April 30 in the US and also a noteworthy performance in its most successful market, Japan. Due to this success, we’ll likely see this being utilized again as a key strategy for Pokémon TCG Pocket, as it will help steer away from the inevitable problem of players running out of the current +1000 Pokémon with the game’s current pack release pace.
Wild Rift has seen its largest single revenue spike to date with its Dual Calligraphia Collection event series. The event celebrates the release of the new 2025 Calligraphia skins while incorporating them with the popular 2024 lineup through a specialized two-part gacha system, meaning players can draw from both new and existing skin collections.
Two key components also helped to amplify player engagement: the “Calligraphia Milestone Rewards,” which incentivized participation with free and premium tracks based on bundles opened, and the “Calligraphia Membership Rewards,” which offered additional tokens and items via themed missions. This interesting but strategic combination of new content with nostalgic favorites has been a commercial success for Wild Rift.
Free Fire is also seeing significant success with its new type of limited-time gacha: Blind Box. Unlike traditional systems, this limited-time event allows players to open Blind Boxes containing exclusive, non-repeating emotes, guaranteeing a set of six unique rewards upon clearing the pool.
The defining feature, however, is the ultra-rare “Flutter Dash” emote. This reward isn’t a guaranteed drop and is rare to receive, but it is a tradable asset available with premium currency, which has created a unique and player-driven marketplace. Obtaining this grand prize blends a curated gacha with player-to-player trading, which has created a dynamic economic layer within Free Fire’s event structure.
Additional Midcore Gaming Highlights and News
We don’t often see new MOBAs being released into the mobile market, and those we do see tend not to perform well or fail entirely. In September, Bandai Namco dropped DRAGON BALL GEKISHIN SQUADRA. This is Dragon Ball’s first team-oriented F2P game, a 4v4 battle with cross-platform compatibility, meaning mobile and PC players can play together. It simplifies the typical MOBA mechanics in an attempt to appeal to a broader audience: items cannot be purchased in a match, and the 4v4 structure eliminates the jungle or mid-lane position from the usual 5v5. While this does simplify the gameplay and team dynamics, it arguably minimizes character build variations, and finding a fight with a player advantage may be harder.
Despite this, DRAGON BALL GEKISHIN SQUADRA is currently in the top 20 downloads. It was initially released to DL 1, peaked at GR 129 soon after, and has so far seen a relatively stable performance. Perhaps this is due to the popular Dragon Ball IP? Mechanically, the game is very similar to typical mobile MOBAs, such as Pokémon Unite, and monetization seems very focused on cosmetics. Characters can be unlocked for free with shards that players receive through gameplay, but since these shards are randomized, finding specific characters can take a long time. Because of this, they can also be unlocked with premium currency purchases.
Unfortunately, since launching on mobile, the game has experienced many connectivity issues, with some players reporting that they’re unable to rejoin their matches after losing connection. The developer claims to have solved this with a maintenance update, though time will soon tell. We’ll keep a close eye on this MOBA to see if it can survive and what features it utilizes to retain player engagement.
Nintendo has shadow-dropped a new mobile game, Fire Emblem Shadows, using the major Fire Emblem console IP. There’s very little monetization in the game: there are no gachas, characters are obtained by playing the game, and premium cosmetics are only available for purchase with the premium currency through player-to-player marketplace trading.
The core of the game is a hybrid of grid-based RPG gameplay that Fire Emblem is known for, and Asymmetric Survival deduction seen in Among Us. It’s a pretty compact package – a small and straightforward game with very little to distract players from the core gameplay. The meta elements of Fire Emblem Shadows are quite basic, and as a result, the initial release has felt more like a soft launch or a proof of concept. The game has quickly dropped out of the charts, even in Japan, where Nintendo usually performs better. In the US, Fire Emblem Shadows didn’t even break into the top-grossing 200. This poses the question of why Nintendo has been so quiet in the mobile space, and why they decided to drop Fire Emblem Shadows now and with this IP. Are they perhaps testing the market for something bigger?
