Global data firm Sensor Tower has released its State of Gaming 2026 report, which looks back at the video game industry in 2025 across a wide range of metrics, including where publishers are spending their marketing money and which publishers have the most downloaded portfolios. Last year, Microsoft was the publisher that spent the most on marketing for its PC and console games, but it came second in terms of cross-platform game downloads for its portfolio of titles, behind Electronic Arts (EA) in first, while Take-Two came in third.
At least that's how it shakes up when you're not including the mobile industry. The number of downloads across PC and console markets, data which Sensor Tower pulls from Steam, PlayStation, and Xbox, is, as you might expect, far smaller than the scale of what's happening in mobile. If you include the mobile downloads, it's Tencent that stands above the rest.
The only reason the graph below shows Embracer Group at the top is that the data used for the graph does not include data from Supercell or Miniclip.com. Without those numbers, Tencent sits in fifth place with its PC, console, and mobile downloads combined.
EA was the number one publisher in terms of PC and console game downloads with 206M, followed by Microsoft in second place with 148M and Take-Two in third with 92.8M. The rest of the PC/Console top five is rounded out by Ubisoft at 80.1M and Sony Interactive Entertainment at 73.9M.
As for where the rest of the top five PC and console publishers stand in their ad spend, Take-Two sits behind Microsoft in second, EA is in third, Epic Games is in fourth, and Tencent is in fifth. Ubisoft, Nintendo, and Sony take the next three spots, respectively, with the top ten getting rounded out by Roblox and Wargaming.net, in that order.
Even with Epic Games coming in fourth for overall ad spend, Fortnite takes the top spot for the most money spent on ads for a single game. Battlefield 6, the only game on the list from EA's portfolio, and the best-selling game of 2025, had the fourth biggest marketing spend to take top spot on the sales charts.
Microsoft, meanwhile, was spending most of its ad budget on Minecraft, though it also spent a fair chunk of change on Call of Duty: Black Ops 7. Interestingly, 1047 Games spent enough money trying to market Splitgate that it made the top ten list for PC and console games with the most ad spend in ninth place. The peak concurrent player count on Steam for Splitgate: Arena Reloaded, the game that started out as Splitgate 2 and gained its 'Arena Reloaded' subtitle following a relaunch, remains at just under 26K.
A clear example of how you can't just throw marketing money at a game to get it back on its feet, with its numbers more regularly sitting around and under 1K. Not that Steam is the whole picture, of course.
With all of these portfolio downloads and marketing spend, the games that actually kept players engaged in terms of monthly active users (MAUs), the top five of that list is about what you would expect, especially considering the top five most-played games on PS and Xbox in the US alone for 2025 (and 2024). Counter-Strike is the only wrinkle, bumping Roblox out of the top five.
EA is also the only publisher to have more than three games in its portfolio on this list, between Battlefield 6, EA Sports FC 25, Apex Legends, and Skate. The next publishers up are Microsoft with Minecraft, Call of Duty, and Forza Horizon 5 and Take-Two with Grand Theft Auto V, NBA 2K25, and Red Dead Redemption 2. Epic Games and Valve have two each, while every other game is that publisher's sole inclusion.
About the author: David has been writing about videogames, technology, and culture since 2020, with a focus on reporting daily news across multiple publications, including GameDaily.Biz, GameSkinny, and PlayStation Universe before joining Wccftech in 2025. David started contributing as Canada/US reporter for Wccftech's gaming section in 2025. Besides being up-to-date on the industry's movements, he loves interviewing developers, reviewing games, and writing intricate essays about the symbolism and layered meanings to be found in rich narratives as he's done for publications like GamesIndustry.Biz, LostInCult, and others. Outside of games he loves movies, music, theatre, his hometown, and his family, though not necessarily in that order.
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