Gaming continues to take up an outsize share of the mobile app space, in terms of both consumer spending and downloads. But in 2022, gamers started hitting pause on play trends that developed during the pandemic, and overall numbers for the year reflect it.

Get a sense of this year’s landscape with the five charts below—and dig further into the gaming market with our US Gaming Users 2023 report.

The Gaming App Spending Spree Finally Slowed Down

Gaming app spend worldwide dropped for the first time in 2022, according to Sensor Tower. The pandemic fueled spend in 2020 and drove growth through much of the following year, with spend peaking at $22 billion in Q3 2021. Since then, consumer shifts due to inflation and economic concerns, plus a departure from pandemic behaviors, have cooled that growth. Even so, spending sits around 25% higher than the pre-pandemic levels of 2019.