Mobile Game Advertising Monthly Report: August 2026

1. The headline numbers

Active ad volume moved up slightly month over month while new ad launches eased back. Average run time fell 2.5 days to 20.9 days, so August's slightly larger active base also turned over faster.

2. The top five genres

Puzzle led all genres with 1.46M active ads — 24.1% of the August total and 2.6 times the size of the fifth-largest genre (RPG, 557.8K). The five largest genres together accounted for 4.26M active ads, or 70.3% of the market.

Two structural details stand out in the format mix. Simulation ran the longest average run time of the five genres at 22.8 days, and RPG was the clear outlier on format: 30% of its active ads were static images, roughly double the 15–17% image share of every other top-five genre, with playables at just 1%.

3. Puzzle: Oakever Games sweeps the board

Oakever Games took all five Android spots and the top three iOS spots in the August puzzle ranking, with Zen Word – Relax Puzzle Game at number one on both stores.

4. Match: Vita Mahjong's wide lead

Vita Studio's Vita Mahjong topped both store rankings. Its Android lead was wide: 85.9K active ads, 3.3 times the number two title.

5. Simulation: the longest-running creatives

Simulation ran the longest average run time of the five genres at 22.8 days. Playrix's Township appeared in the top five on both stores.

6. Strategy: shorter cycles, two Century Games titles

Strategy's average run time of 17.8 days sat 3.1 days below the market-wide 20.9 days, the second-shortest of the top five genres. Century Games placed two titles in the Android top five (Kingshot and Lordrush), and Lordrush also took fourth on iOS.

7. RPG: the image-heavy exception

RPG was the only top-five genre where static images carried 30% of active ads, and it also ran the shortest average run time at 16.8 days. The Android top five totaled 45.3K active ads — 3.5 times the iOS top five's 12.9K — with Hero Wars, Gangstar Mirage City, and Genshin Impact each clearing 10.5K.

8. Creative age: 53% of ads had been live for a week or less

More than half of all active ads had been in delivery for seven days or fewer, and ads aged 14 days or younger made up 68% of the total. Ads that ran 30 days or longer accounted for 18%.

Share of active ads by run-time band, all genres, August 2026. Bars are scaled to the largest band.

The genres that held on to older creatives sat mostly outside the top five by volume. Kids education led with 30% of its ads older than 30 days — 12 percentage points above the 18% all-genre baseline — followed by card & board games and music & rhythm at 26%, with match and simulation at 20%.

9. Puzzle by region: North America leads by a third

Puzzle creative volume concentrated in five regions, led by North America at 630.8K creatives — 154.1K more than second-place Western Europe (476.7K), a 32.3% lead. Southeast Asia, Central Europe, and East Asia followed within a 43K range of each other.

Puzzle creatives by region, August 2026, top five regions shown. Bars are scaled to North America.

Track the market yourself

CreativeScope tracks mobile game advertising across genres, stores, and regions with monthly rollups like this one, plus per-game teardowns on the CreativeScope blog. To pull the same category, store, and region breakdowns for your own competitive set, start from the CreativeScope platform.