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Mistplay highlights from the event
Announcing Mistplay for iPhone and LoyaltyPlay
Loyalty marketing insights presentation
3 key trends discussed at ChinaJoy 2025
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SubscribeFrom August 1st to 4, 2025, the 22nd China Digital Entertainment Expo & Conference (ChinaJoy) lit up the Shanghai New International Expo Center (SNIEC), reaffirming its status as Asia’s largest and most influential gaming and digital entertainment event. Bringing together over 300,000 industry professionals and fans across both B2B and B2C segments, ChinaJoy continues to be the go-to event in Asia for all things gaming, technology, and interactive entertainment.
This year’s show was massive in scale, with nearly 800 exhibiting companies from 37 countries and regions showcasing their tech and innovations to over 410,000 visitors – an 11.7% increase from ChinaJoy 2024.
Beyond the exhibition floor, ChinaJoy also hosted a varied lineup of forums and conferences, including the China Game Developers Conference, China Digital Entertainment Congress, Unity Global Developer Conference, Gaming & AI Developer Summit, and more.
Read on to see what Mistplay got up to at ChinaJoy 2025, plus the key trends and takeaways that were on everyone’s minds at this year’s event.
This year marked Mistplay’s third year attending ChinaJoy, and we went bigger than ever, officially announcing our two new products – Mistplay for iPhone and LoyaltyPlay – to the APAC market. The news was met with major excitement from the industry, gathering over 40 mentions in local media.
👀 Related reading: Welcome to Mistplay’s new era of rewarded advertising
On July 29th, Mistplay’s Chaonan Peng gave a presentation titled “Loyalty Marketing: An Efficient Guide to User Acquisition and Monetization in the Dual-Platform Mobile Game Market." The presentation highlighted insights from our 2025 Mobile Gaming Loyalty Index and introduced how Mistplay can help game publishers scale UA through Mistplay for Android and iPhone and non-gaming publishers monetize through LoyaltyPlay. The talk was a success, receiving a standing ovation from over 500 attendees.
👀Related reading: Mobile gaming loyalty in 2025: Genres driving monetization, engagement, and LTV
For the third time, Mistplay was out in force, representing loyalty-driven UA and monetization with a booth in the B2B area of the exhibition. During the event, more than 500 visitors came to discuss the power of play-and-earn and our new product offerings.
We ended Friday strong with our Prompt Night party, co-hosted with AppsFlyer, AWS, Mintegral, and BigoAds, where nearly 1,000 industry professionals gathered to enjoy drinks, music, and amazing conversations on the future of the industry.
The Chinese mobile gaming market is showing no signs of slowing down, and continues to generate stellar revenue from both the local and overseas markets. From January to June this year, China’s domestic game market generated 168 Billion yuan in actual sales revenue – a YoY increase of over 14%, marking a record high. This is alongside an all-time high playerbase of nearly 679 Million users, up nearly 1% from 2024.
On the flipside, the overseas market has generated $9.5 Billion dollars in revenue, marking a YoY increase of 11%. For Chinese publishers, the US, Japan, and South Korea remain the primary target markets overseas, accounting for a combined 55% of the total $9.5B overseas sales revenue generated in H1 of 2025. In addition, the combined total for the German, British, and French markets accounted for 8.78%, indicating that Europe continues to be an important region for Chinese games going overseas.
All the above data was gathered from the China Game Industry Report from January to June 2025 by China Audiovisual and Digital Publishing Association.
Talks at ChinaJoy 2025 highlighted that while AI may have begun as just a tool for optimizing games, it has now become a critical piece of infrastructure that can 10x the efficiency of gaming and anime production. For example, after integrating its own large-scale AI model, the production cost for a single character in Justice Online, a game produced by NetEase, plunged from $5K+ USD to $1K USD, and the development cycle was reduced from 5 weeks to just three days.
Beyond production, AI is revolutionizing the consumer experience. In Perfect World's World of Jade Dynasty, AI-driven characters are no longer rigid, script-bound "robots." Instead, they've become "intelligent souls" that interact with players dynamically and emotionally.
👀Related reading: The AI awakening: How artificial intelligence is revolutionizing mobile gaming
Mini games on platforms like WeChat and TikTok (Douyin) continue to flourish. Domestic mini game sales revenue reached 23.276 billion yuan, marking a significant 40.2% year-on-year increase. Of this, in-app purchases accounted for 15.303 billion yuan (65.7%), while advertising monetization brought in 7.973 billion yuan (34.3%).
This remarkable growth can be attributed to three primary factors. First, their lightweight nature perfectly suits fragmented demand, enabling growth in mature markets. Second, technologies like AIGC are empowering industry upgrades, accelerating a shift towards intelligent and efficient development. Finally, social sharing drives rapid traffic growth, leading to widespread adoption.
All the above data was gathered from sessions during ChinaJoy 2025 and the China Game Industry Report from January to June 2025.
With a successful MAU, GDC, and ChinaJoy behind us, you can catch us next at Tokyo Game Show in September, followed by G-STAR in Busan, South Korea in November.
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