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The market has become tougher, more demanding, and competition has become faster. That’s why we asked industry leaders a simple but important question: what three trends have they already incorporated into their strategy, what do they plan to completely rethink this year, and what are they willing to give up for the sake of growth?
From crash games and dynamic personalization to ecosystem partnerships and global expertise. Only concrete decisions that are shaping 2026, right now.
In 2026, we are not just following trends; we are shaping them, based on three fundamental shifts in player behavior:
I think trends are about new formats, not meanings or values.
The first is personalization. This is a personalized approach to each partner in working with traffic, marketing, and all processes.
The second is flexible KPIs. This is a general trend for 2026, because it has become more difficult to get traffic. Everyone’s results are different, so it is necessary to move to new formats of cooperation.
The third trend is expertise. A superficial approach no longer works. Without a deep understanding of the niche, methods, and tools, it will be practically impossible to stay in the market in the first quarter of the year. It is expertise that will allow you to stay afloat and scale up in 2026.
We are completely rethinking localization. Previously, it was the final stage — translating the game into 20 languages and adding 50 currencies. Now it’s the first stage. We start development by analyzing the cultural codes of a specific market. For Brazil, it could be a theme related to soccer, for Asia — mythology, for Africa — local symbols of good luck. This applies not only to graphics, but also to the mathematics of the game, sounds, and even the speed of spins. We are moving from translation to cultural adaptation because the game should feel “at home” in every market.
We are currently structuring our processes because good communication is a system. Together, we are rethinking strategies and looking for new solutions because it is always better to do this with a team. In general, we are showing more live content: in One Media Chat, even in the life of the holding company, you can see our working conditions by visiting the One Cowrex page. It’s great that this is not only a space for collaboration, but also a place where you can relax among like-minded people.
We try to make sure that no one gets bored in the space. When it comes to the partner network and in-house buying, we connect new traffic sources and add new verticals, so we are happy to consider multi-vertical candidates for the team.
2026 is about planning, personal achievements, and the results of many years of work. It is a year when the accumulated knowledge base, experience, and systematic work begin to bear tangible fruit.
Our focus is on innovative efficiency. With a portfolio of 140+ top games and operations in dozens of regulated markets, simple efficiency is a matter of survival. But we go further.
We use innovation (primarily AI and MLOps) to achieve this efficiency: automated adaptation of games to regulatory requirements, accelerated localization, and predictive QA. We don’t just make more games — we make them smarter, faster, and less expensive.
At One Partners, the focus for 2026 is on partner growth. Because when a partner grows, we scale up too.
Our focus is on scaling all the knowledge, resources, and opportunities we have accumulated. Everything we have built over the past few years is entering a phase of active growth. We are scaling campaigns, teams, and partnership opportunities.
We are giving up on “universal mathematics.”
Gone are the days when you could create one successful mathematical model and endlessly “dress it up” in different skins. Players have become more experienced. We are consciously complicating our portfolio by creating games with fundamentally different mathematics: from classic low-volatility slots to extremely risky crash games.
This requires more resources, but it allows us to cover different player segments and not compete with ourselves.
We are finally giving up the pursuit of quantity.
The focus is on efficiency, margins, and strong partnerships. This applies to everything, from content created in SMM to the number of partnerships and planned meetings at conferences.
We are completely abandoning toxic people — both among employees and partners. Toxicity slows down processes.
We focus exclusively on what brings opportunities and income. Everything else is outside our focus. We consciously clear the space of this.
Both, but with a clear priority: AI for creating new value. Optimization is a hygienic minimum (for example, for compliance). But the real magic of AI is in creating a unique gaming experience. We use it to generate unique bonus rounds, adapt the soundtrack to the pace of the game, and, as I mentioned, for dynamic personalization of volatility.
AI is our tool for creating a “wow effect” in every session. Needless to say, our Brainrot Mania slot was created with the help of AI.
For us, AI is not only about optimizing costs, as we allocate budgets for testing various AI programs, but also about creating new, unique, and interesting value. We use it to test hypotheses faster, select solutions for partners, and scale what already works. But the key is not savings, but the speed and quality of decisions.
AI is integrated into virtually all of our processes: from creating and optimizing our work to searching for and analyzing information sources. We use AI to create content, ensure its uniqueness, and track trends.
We are looking for “unicorns” at the intersection of three areas:
There are many such competencies, but the main thing is what they are in total, how they combine in a particular person. For example: creativity + speed of reaction + independence give the team stability and room for further scaling. Of course, it is important not to stand still, but to constantly improve.
I value everyone’s ideas. If the proposal is cool, then it’s just one step away from implementation.
Our main focus is global expertise. We work with all international markets, all GEOs, and most sources.
Our expertise is deep, broad, and systematic. That is our main focus. And, of course, our publicity and expert opinion play an important role.
Our main KPI is Session Depth. We measure more than just the number of spins or time spent in the game. Our metric takes into account how many unique mechanics the player has used, whether they have participated in tournaments, and whether they have reached peak emotional engagement (for example, a big win or a near-loss in a crash game). This indicator tells us how exciting and meaningful the gaming session was, not just how long it was.
We focus on three key competencies: speed, analytics, and communication. To make decisions based on data from in-house team tests, new application development,
The ability to listen to partners, respond quickly to their requests, and build an active dialogue.
The most important KPI for us is growth. The entire company strategy is built around this indicator.
Our strategy is “regulatory flexibility.” Our platform is built on a modular architecture, where everything related to jurisdiction (RTP, betting limits, responsible gaming rules) is placed in a separate, easily replaceable module. If tomorrow the maximum bet requirements change in Germany, we will update the module for that market without affecting the core of the game.
This allows us to be 100% ready for any changes and enter new markets faster than our competitors.
We are fully prepared for seasonal fluctuations. There are traditionally periods of growth and decline in the market, but our experience shows that we always adapt to changes in a timely manner. We do not expect 2026 to be an exception.
A signal would be a decrease in the Player Diversity Index. This is our internal metric that tracks how different types of players (high rollers, casuals, bonus lovers) play our games. If we see that our portfolio is starting to attract only one segment, it will mean that we are losing the market and our “diverse math” strategy is not working. This is a signal to immediately review our product approach.
Our main indicator is our partners. If the effectiveness of our partners declines, the scale slows down, or we see that our solutions are no longer delivering the same results, it means that we need to review our strategy.
If we do not achieve our planned KPIs within two months, we will review our strategy and adjust our approach. Overall, we are not deviating from our goals for this year.
In a year, I would like to say, “We launched the industry’s first crash game with a team progressive jackpot and proved that even in such an individualistic genre, it is possible to create a strong community.”
We have shown that NGM Game is not just a game provider, but an innovator that changes the rules of the game and creates new niches in the market.” This will mean that we are not just growing, but also leading the industry.
I would say that our main achievement at One Media is the expansion of our ecosystem.
We have launched new areas, new traffic sources, and verticals that reinforce each other. New projects, new tools, and new growth points that together form a strong and scalable holding company.
Our main achievement is maximum scaling. I wish to achieve the desired result. Scale up by at least 10 times. I wish everyone success.