2026 Full Agenda

The mobile gaming ecosystem is shifting. While indie teams thrive on creativity and blockbuster publishers leverage scale, many mid-sized studios face tighter margins, rising user acquisition costs, and plateauing lifetime value — making sustainable monetization more challenging than ever.

This session explores how intrinsic in-game advertising is emerging as a powerful monetization lever that complements existing revenue models, enhances the player experience, and unlocks new monetization potential without taxing gameplay. Drawing on industry insights, player feedback, and firsthand experience from a publisher, we’ll show how mobile games can grow revenue while staying player-first.

Attendees will leave with both strategic insight and practical guidance for expanding their monetization toolkit.

Key Takeaways:

1. Why diversification matters: Understand how indirect revenue models, like intrinsic in-game ads and brand sponsorships, fit into a scalable monetization strategy without replacing IAPs or rewarded ads.
2. Player experience first: Learn how intrinsic ad formats are designed to complement gameplay and preserve immersion.
3. Real application: A game case example showing how intrinsic ads were integrated alongside existing monetization methods with positive player and business outcomes.
4. Creative economics: Framework for deciding when and where to introduce intrinsic ads and how it can empower studios to experiment rather than compromise.
5. Actionable alignment: Practical, product-aligned roadmaps for monetization teams to introduce intrinsic ads without redesigning core loops.