APEX Content Market 2026: Anuvu Explores Potential of Cloud-Based Gaming In-Flight
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Anuvu Gaming is exhibiting as a standalone entity at the 2026 APEX Content Market in Dubai for the first time, marking a shift in the company’s strategy as it more heavily focuses on the importance of games in in-flight entertainment. The company also announced its first cloud-based game at the event and is looking for feedback from airlines on the viability of the product.
It’s no secret that gaming is a highly profitable industry. In 2023, the global gaming market made $180 billion in revenue, compared to $40 billion at the global box office and $29 billion in the global music industry. It is expected to grow at a rate of three to four per cent annually and is forecasted to reach $300 million by the end of this decade.
“Anuvu’s view is clear: gaming should no longer be treated as a niche add-on within IFE.”
Gaming is an attractive pastime for all demographics. According to Anuvu Gaming, the average age of a gamer comes in at 35 years old, and 45 percent of women say they play games. Indeed, in 2023, 3.38 billion people, effectively half of the world’s population, played games at some point.
The genre already performs very well in terms of engagement on in-flight entertainment (IFE) systems. Anuvu Gaming conducted some research on PAXUS data that showed games ranked as the “most played” items on flights across North America, Latin America, Europe and the Middle East, outranking films in every region.
The dwell time for games is around 25 minutes, versus 45 minutes for films. Anuvu VP Sales Media & Content Guillaume Baudry stated, “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 typically only account for such a small portion of an airline’s IFE offering? Baudry said today’s IFE ecosystems remain dominated by video, with a typical 2025 content mix consisting of approximately 75 percent video (movies and TV), 20 percent audio, and 5 per cent games. He believes this is partially because while you only watch a film once, you can play the same game 50 times and have a different experience. This means games offer a very compelling return on investment.
Airlines Currently Underestimate In-Flight Games
Anuvu Gaming currently offers a catalog of over 120 games in more than 25 languages across Android, Linux and HTML 5 operating systems. Its games span multiple different categories, including word, trivia, arcade, board, adventure, casino, action and puzzle. The company is already providing its games to more than 80 global airlines, and works with all carriers regardless of whether they have Anuvu as their content service provider.
“Better bandwidth and better latency are the two main factors for gamers.”
The traditional games, such as solitaire, mahjong, are developed in-house by Anuvu Gaming’s developers based in Montreal, Canada, specifically for the IFE market. Baudry explained, “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 classic games offering, Anuvu Gaming is following a similar strategy to the broader company in terms of going after licenses for big-name brands. Just as Anuvu works with brands like Pokémon, Anuvu Gaming distributes 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 games can be customized for airlines, with Baudry giving the example of a Monopoly game where the tokens include a pilot, and instead of train stations, there are airports.
While they’re not as easy to update as other airline IFE programming like TV, films and audio, games don’t need to be refreshed as often. For example, Baudry highlighted that Angry Birds is still at number one in terms of hits even though it’s been onboard for seven or eight years. Licensing games is also simpler, because it is calculated as a cost per aircraft per month.
He suggests the genre is often underestimated by airlines, with games sometimes positioned less prominently within GUIs. This may stem from historical technical constraints that have made it challenging to deploy high-quality, larger-format games onboard. As he notes, legacy embedded systems have typically required compact file sizes, often under 100MB, whereas today’s mobile games frequently exceed one gigabyte. As platform capabilities continue to evolve, so too does the opportunity to elevate the gaming experience in flight.
Is Cloud-Based Gaming a Compelling Offer for Airlines?
However, Baudry continued on to say that in-flight connectivity (IFC) offerings like SpaceX’s Starlink have the potential to change this.
“[Gaming] represents a scalable, engagement-rich category that complements video and audio while delivering superior efficiency per title.”
Anuvu wants to be ahead of the curve when it comes to the future of gaming onboard, so it launched its first cloud-based game at APEX Content Market with a view to getting feedback from airlines to explore whether it is a viable business model. “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 noted.
The cloud-based game it has designed is in partnership with GeoGuessr, a geography game which takes you on a journey around the world and challenges your ability to recognize your surroundings. After being shown an image of a certain street, users have to zoom in on Google maps and pinpoint its location. The closer they are to the landmark, the more points they receive. GeoGuessr is already played by 100 million people.
“We did pick this game specifically because it doesn’t require a lot of bandwidth or latency,” Baudry said. “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 read more about which new titles companies attending APEX Content Market 2026 have on offer, click here.