Content Market 2026: Anuvu Explores Potential of Cloud-Based Gaming In-Flight

Anuvu Gaming is exhibiting as a standalone entity on the 2026 APEX Content Market in Dubai for the primary time, marking a shift within the firm’s technique because it extra closely focuses on the significance of video games in in-flight leisure. The firm additionally introduced its first cloud-based sport on the occasion and is on the lookout for suggestions from airways on the viability of the product.

It’s no secret that gaming is a extremely worthwhile business. In 2023, the worldwide gaming market made $180 billion in income, in comparison with $40 billion on the international field workplace and $29 billion within the international music business. It is predicted to develop at a price of three to 4 per cent yearly and is forecasted to achieve $300 million by the top of this decade.

“Anuvu’s view is clear: gaming should no longer be treated as a niche add-on within IFE.”

Gaming is a horny pastime for all demographics. According to Anuvu Gaming, the typical age of a gamer is available in at 35 years outdated, and 45 p.c of girls say they play video games. Indeed, in 2023, 3.38 billion folks, successfully half of the world’s inhabitants, performed video games in some unspecified time in the future.

The style already performs very properly when it comes to engagement on in-flight leisure (IFE) techniques. Anuvu Gaming performed some analysis on PAXUS information that confirmed video games ranked because the “most played” gadgets on flights throughout North America, Latin America, Europe and the Middle East, outranking movies in each area.

The dwell time for video games is round 25 minutes, versus 45 minutes for movies. Anuvu VP Sales Media & Content Guillaume Baudry said, “The difference reflects fundamental consumption behaviour: films require a longer, uninterrupted session and compete within robust libraries, while games are instantly accessible, replayable, and adaptable with fragmented in-flight time.”

So, why does gaming sometimes solely account for such a small portion of an airline’s IFE providing? Baudry stated right this moment’s IFE ecosystems stay dominated by video, with a typical 2025 content material combine consisting of roughly 75 p.c video (films and TV), 20 p.c audio, and 5 per cent video games. He believes that is partially as a result of when you solely watch a movie as soon as, you possibly can play the identical sport 50 occasions and have a special expertise. This means video games supply a really compelling return on funding.

Airlines Currently Underestimate In-Flight Games

Anuvu Gaming presently presents a catalog of over 120 video games in additional than 25 languages throughout Android, Linux and HTML 5 working techniques. Its video games span a number of totally different classes, together with phrase, trivia, arcade, board, journey, on line casino, motion and puzzle. The firm is already offering its video games to greater than 80 international airways, and works with all carriers no matter whether or not they have Anuvu as their content material service supplier.

“Better bandwidth and better latency are the two main factors for gamers.”

The conventional video games, reminiscent of solitaire, mahjong, are developed in-house by Anuvu Gaming’s builders primarily based in Montreal, Canada, particularly for the IFE market. Baudry defined, “It’s for quality purposes, because every single vendor has a different IFE system with different operating systems and a different size screen. That’s why we also have a team of over 20 people in Orange County close to the OEMs, to test the quality and so forth.”

In addition to its basic video games providing, Anuvu Gaming is following an identical technique to the broader firm when it comes to going after licenses for big-name manufacturers. Just as Anuvu works with manufacturers like Pokémon, Anuvu Gaming distributes video games like Angry Birds, Monopoly, Uno, Marvel and Guess Who. “We started this 10-15 years ago with Tetris and Pacman,” Baudry claimed. The branded video games could be personalized for airways, with Baudry giving the instance of a Monopoly sport the place the tokens embody a pilot, and as a substitute of practice stations, there are airports.

While they’re not as straightforward to replace as different airline IFE programming like TV, movies and audio, video games don’t must be refreshed as usually. For instance, Baudry highlighted that Angry Birds continues to be at primary when it comes to hits despite the fact that it’s been onboard for seven or eight years. Licensing video games can also be less complicated, as a result of it’s calculated as a value per plane per 30 days.

He suggests the style is commonly underestimated by airways, with video games generally positioned much less prominently inside GUIs. This might stem from historic technical constraints which have made it difficult to deploy high-quality, larger-format video games onboard. As he notes, legacy embedded techniques have sometimes required compact file sizes, usually beneath 100MB, whereas right this moment’s cell video games often exceed one gigabyte. As platform capabilities proceed to evolve, so too does the chance to raise the gaming expertise in flight.

Is Cloud-Based Gaming a Compelling Offer for Airlines?

However, Baudry continued on to say that in-flight connectivity (IFC) choices like SpaceX’s Starlink have the potential to alter this.

“[Gaming] represents a scalable, engagement-rich category that complements video and audio while delivering superior efficiency per title.”

Anuvu desires to be forward of the curve on the subject of the way forward for gaming onboard, so it launched its first cloud-based sport at APEX Content Market with a view to getting suggestions from airways to discover whether or not it’s a viable enterprise mannequin. “Better bandwidth and better latency are the two main factors for gamers. You can try to play any cloud-based games on IFC systems today and it won’t work, but it starts to work with Starlink or other LEO services,” he famous.

The cloud-based sport it has designed is in partnership with GeoGuessr, a geography sport which takes you on a journey all over the world and challenges your capacity to acknowledge your environment. After being proven a picture of a sure avenue, customers must zoom in on Google maps and pinpoint its location. The nearer they’re to the landmark, the extra factors they obtain. GeoGuessr is already performed by 100 million folks.

“We did pick this game specifically because it doesn’t require a lot of bandwidth or latency,” Baudry stated. “The great thing is that it can be customized for an airline, showcasing the destinations across their route network or highlighting their airport hubs. The connected aspect means you can also have a leaderboard to show who is playing in-flight and where they’re ranking.”

Baudry concluded, “Anuvu’s view is clear: gaming should no longer be treated as a niche add-on within IFE. Instead, it represents a scalable, engagement-rich category that complements video and audio while delivering superior efficiency per title, making it a critical pillar of the next generation of connected IFE.”

To learn extra about which new titles corporations attending APEX Content Market 2026 have on supply, click on right here.