Following the 2026 World Cup and before the start of domestic football seasons, a typically quiet period for the sport has seen a surge in mobile sports games. This summer, demand was met by a variety of mobile games that allow players to engage with nostalgia and storytelling.

The trend was sparked by the viral success of the "82-0" basketball game, where players draft an all-time NBA starting five by spinning a random wheel for teams and decades. Inspired by this, Deniz Sancar, a hobbyist coder working in advertising, created the game "38-0-0" overnight using Claude Code, an advanced AI assistant designed to help with coding. Despite having no prior coding experience, Sancar's game reached number one in the UK App Store games charts in June.

After the World Cup, another developer, Pigne, released his version with the assistance of the AI assistant Claude. This iteration expanded on the original concept by offering more variety and career choices. According to Pigne, the decision to publish the free game earlier than planned was successful, with over one million players and 14 million careers created by the end of July.

AI has been involved in video game creation for years, but the smarter and faster AI technologies in 2026 offer a more financially efficient approach for developers, especially important in the challenging economic environment of free-to-play mobile games.

Mobile gaming is a significant industry: in 2025, approximately 50 billion mobile games were downloaded worldwide, generating $82 billion (€71 billion) in in-app purchases, according to digital market intelligence platform Sensor Tower. In Germany alone, the German Games Industry Association reported revenues of approximately $3.12 billion with 28.1 million players in 2025.

Kyle Kuscu, chairman of the German Mobile Gaming Association (DeMoGa), highlighted the importance of these developments to the industry.

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