Pixel P&L: India's Gaming Market Grows to $1.5 Billion as IAP and Ad Revenue Offset RMG Ban

Welcome to another Pixel P&L edition. This issue takes 5 minutes to read. If you only have one, here are the 5 most important things:

• India's gaming market grew 17% to $1.5 billion despite a government ban on real-money gaming.

• Saudi Arabia's Savvy Games Group is acquiring Moonton Games from ByteDance for $6.75 billion, adding Mobile Legends' 110 million monthly players to its portfolio.

• CD Projekt's net profit jumped 33.7% in 2025, with Cyberpunk 2077 still doing the heavy lifting.

• A £50 million Minecraft theme park is coming to London in 2027. with the world's first Minecraft rollercoaster.

• Pearl Abyss confirmed AI-generated art shipped in Crimson Desert without disclosure, an audit and patch are now underway.

Let's get into it.

India's Gaming Market Grew 17% After Real-Money Gaming Ban, Lumikai Finds

India's video games market grew 17% year-on-year to $1.5 billion in CY2025, according to Lumikai's State of India Interactive Media Report. The growth came despite the government's August 2025 ban on real-money gaming, a category previously valued at $2.3 billion.

The gamer base contracted 9%, from 609 million to 555 million, but payer conversion held steady at 25%. Combined in-app purchase and advertising revenue grew 17%, with rewarded ads generating an eCPM of $2.43 against an aggregate $1.1 across all formats. Mid-core games posted an average revenue per paying user of $15, compared to $3 for casual titles.

Consumer research firm VTION, tracking roughly 100,000 smartphone users, found that former real-money gaming players shifted time toward music streaming, micro-drama apps, and free-to-play shooters like BGMI and Free Fire MAX after the ban. The same data flagged a rise in VPN usage among former players, with an estimated one in three potentially migrating to offshore betting platforms.

All ten of India's top-grossing titles remain global franchises. Gaming accounts for 36% of India's top 25 app revenue but only 8% of downloads, against global figures of 44% and 16% respectively.

Lumikai projects the market will reach $3.2 billion by 2030 at a 17% CAGR, with IAP growing at 19% and ads at 13%.

Savvy Games Group Acquires Moonton Games From ByteDance in $6.75 Billion Deal

Savvy Games Group has signed an agreement to acquire Moonton Games from ByteDance for over $6 billion, with the deal valued at approximately $6.75 billion, the company confirmed. The acquisition gives Savvy ownership of Mobile Legends: Bang Bang, a MOBA title with more than 1.5 billion installs and 110 million monthly active players.

Moonton, founded in 2014, employs more than 2,000 people. Zhang Yunfan will remain CEO following the close, which is expected within months.

The purchase extends a run of major acquisitions by Savvy, the gaming investment arm of Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund. The group previously bought Scopely for $4.9 billion in 2023, and Scopely acquired Niantic for $3.5 billion last year. PIF is also part of a consortium pursuing Electronic Arts for $55 billion and Warner Bros. Discovery for $110 billion.

Savvy CEO Brian Ward said last week at GDC that he had no plans to slow the pace of acquisitions.

⚡️Quick Bytes

CD Projekt Posts 9% Revenue Gain as Cyberpunk Drives Growth

CD Projekt reported 867 million PLN ($235.2 million) in sales revenue for 2025, up 9% year-on-year, with net profit rising 33.7% to 594 million PLN ($161.4 million). Cyberpunk 2077 was the top revenue driver, growing 12%, boosted by a Nintendo Switch 2 release and a PlayStation subscription rollout.

Merlin Entertainments and Mojang to Open £50 Million Minecraft Theme Park in UK

Merlin Entertainments and Mojang Studios will open Minecraft World at Chessington World of Adventures in Greater London in 2027, backed by a £50 million investment. The attraction will include the first Minecraft rollercoaster, the world's largest Minecraft retail shop, themed food, and interactive experiences.

Pearl Abyss Admits AI Art Slipped Into Crimson Desert's Final Release

Pearl Abyss acknowledged that AI-generated 2D prop assets were unintentionally shipped in Crimson Desert, violating Steam's disclosure policy. The Korean developer has since added an AI content disclaimer to its store page and launched a full asset audit. Replacement assets will roll out in upcoming patches.

⚔️Side Quest

🤣Laugh:

📺 Watch: Gamers Nexus tears apart DLSS 5 and the 30-minute runtime earns its keep. Steve Burke goes well past "the graphics look bad." The real argument is that Nvidia's 95% market share means developers will optimize for DLSS 5 simply because the math demands it, regardless of what it does to artistic intent. The section on algorithmic consumer exploitation is where it gets genuinely uncomfortable: if generative AI is trained on your data profile and plugged directly into your games, "engagement optimization" stops being a marketing term. Worth watching before the fall 2026 launch makes this a live issue.

🎮 Play: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Splintered Fate is Hades with a sewer aesthetic, and at 90% off there's no reason to sit on it. Each turtle plays differently, no two runs share the same build, and the drop-in multiplayer actually works — three friends can join mid-run carrying their own unlocks. The loop is tight: clear rooms, pick upgrades, fight the boss, lose or win, go again.

📚 Read: Marathon Players Are About To Solve Its Weeks-Long ARG by Nicole Carpenter for Aftermath tracks how Bungie hid a puzzle inside a weapon sticker and watched a thousand-person community spend weeks on algebraic equations, book ciphers, and 19-page technical manuals to unlock a new map. The current step is killing 500 million enemies. It's a good reminder that the best marketing Bungie ever did was I Love Bees in 2004, and they still haven't lost the instinct.

💡Did You Know

In 1990, a young Shinji Mikami applied to two game companies on the same day: Capcom and Nintendo. Convinced Nintendo would never hire him, he accepted Capcom's offer without looking back. He spent his first few years designing Game Boy and Super Nintendo titles, mostly licensed fare, before catching the attention of Capcom's upper brass. In 1993, they handed him the director's chair on an untested horror project. That project became Resident Evil. Nintendo's loss turned out to be the survival horror genre's gain.

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