State of Game Advertising 2026: Three Trends to Know

Game advertising got busier in 2026 rather than bigger. Sensor Tower's State of Game Advertising 2026 report tracks how game publishers bought media across 41 markets from October 2025 through September 2026, using Pathmatics digital advertising data alongside Sensor Tower app and ad intelligence. Three findings stand out across mobile, PC/Console, and cross-platform games:

• The top US mobile game advertisers roughly tripled the number of new ad creatives they put into market, and growth was almost entirely in low-budget video tests. 

• Nintendo now holds 55% of US console platform advertising and 74% of hardware advertising, while PlayStation leads subscription advertising for the first time. 

• The biggest cross-platform franchises run their mobile and console arms as separate campaigns, with different channels, calendars and creatives.

Looking for the full report? Download it here.

Mobile creative velocity stepped up in 2025 and stayed there.

Across a cohort of 49 of the top mobile game advertisers across tier 1 markets, the number of new ad creatives entering the market each month detected by Sensor Tower Pathmatics climbed every quarter of 2025, peaking near 220 in Q1 2026. Output eased through 2026, but that is still more than double the 2024 run rate. The shift was a one-time step up across 2025, not a growth rate that keeps compounding.

While video, image, and playable creative counts all increased, video drove the trend, growing at a blistering pace and peaking in March 2026. Growth was also uneven by budget. Comparing Q1 2026 with Q1 2025, creatives that never passed $100 of lifetime spend grew more than six times over, while creatives that earned $10K or more grew 1.7x. The test tier exploded; the number of winners grew more slowly.

Nintendo now owns console hardware advertising; PlayStation owns console subscriptions.

Nintendo, Xbox and PlayStation spent on US advertising for their own platforms in very different proportions this year than at the start of the decade. Nintendo held 27% of combined first-party console platform ad spend in 2020. It has led every year since 2022 and reached 55% in the first nine months of 2026, its largest share in the seven years we tracked. Switch 2 is the reason: Nintendo accounted for 74% of US console hardware advertising in 2026, and Switch and Switch 2 make up about 96% of its own hardware and subscription spend.

PlayStation's move is the sharper one. Its overall share rose from 20% in 2025 to 32% in 2026, and for the first time it leads three-platform subscription advertising, at 61%. In every prior year PlayStation had never passed a third of subscription spend. Nintendo and PlayStation together now account for 87% of US console platform ad spend, up from 69% a year earlier.

Cross-platform games run different playbooks on different platforms

Fortnite, Roblox, Call of Duty, EA Sports FC, Delta Force, PUBG and Genshin Impact all sell the same game on phones and on PC and console. Their advertising does not look like one campaign.

On mobile, the install channel sets the plan. Fortnite, Call of Duty, EA Sports FC and Delta Force each put between 49% and 60% of their US mobile ad spend into mobile app networks, with YouTube or Instagram as the secondary channel. The same franchises put none of their PC and console spend there. That side is built on YouTube and Instagram and, for the two biggest launch brands, on television: Call of Duty routes 45% of its PC and console spend to OTT, linear TV and desktop video, and Fortnite routes 18%. Roblox is the one franchise whose two plans look alike, running Instagram on both arms at 44% of mobile and 79% of PC and console spend. Delta Force is the opposite case: an even spread across app networks, Instagram, YouTube and TikTok on mobile, and 75% YouTube on PC and console.

The two arms also run on different clocks. Black Ops 7 spent across five months, most of it in November 2025, then went quiet, and Modern Warfare 4 repeated the shape in 2026. The mobile line did not dip when the console campaigns ran. EA Sports FC shows the same rhythm with the weights reversed: FC Mobile is the franchise's biggest US advertiser at $17.1M, with its own $5.3M peak in July 2026, while FC 26's $7.1M sat in the September to December launch window. Mobile carries the year; the annual release carries the autumn. Console launches add a burst on top of the mobile baseline rather than pulling budget away from it.

The full State of Game Advertising 2026 report covers much more than these three findings.

Download the full report, including:

• Mobile and PC/console ad spend by channel group across 41 markets

• Paid versus organic download mix for licensed IP and original IP games

• Reveal and launch campaign timelines for nine premium PC and console releases, from Battlefield 6 to ARC Raiders, with Steam wishlist response

• Placement shifts toward Reels and Chat Feed on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube and Snapchat

• Fortnite's September 2026 linear TV and OTT campaign