Strafe Theory mobile gaming report, vol. 01, June 2026. By Syed Sayam, CEO, Strafe Theory Software.
The evergreen mobile simulation market, decoded
What actually lasts in mobile simulation games, who is winning, and eight Unity-ready concepts for a solo or small-team studio.
- 20% of all 2024 mobile game installs were simulation, tied with puzzle as the top download genre.
- $4.8B simulation-genre revenue in 2025, up 11.2% year over year.
- Farming, idle tycoon, narrative merge and avatar/life sims show multi-year durability; most hypercasual "simulators" spike and die.
- Teen virality lives on Roblox and avatar/dress-up formats; classic farming and merge sims skew older and grow through paid acquisition.
- For a small Unity team, arcade-idle and cozy sims are the highest-return targets.
Read the full report as text: Markdown version. More posts: Strafe Theory blog.