Only 8% of mobile gamers in a 2,400-person TapResearch survey said they play with game sound on, and a GDC 2024 talk by King’s Head of Audio starts from the premise that casual games have up to around 50 percent of players who do not play with audio on. The habit has a clear driver: only 20% of mobile gamers are fully engaged with the game, while the rest are multitasking, most often in front of a TV (LoopMe PurchaseLoop Research 2022). That matters for a market where mobile generated $113.3bn in 2025 (Newzoo, reported by PocketGamer.biz 2026), and it reshapes everything from where game audio budgets go to how rewarded ads are built. We aggregated data from TapResearch, King, YouGov, Ubisoft, AP-NORC, Unity, Google, AppLovin, Verizon Media and Publicis Media, TVB, and peer-reviewed studies in Applied Sciences and JMIR Serious Games.
TL;DR
- Only 8% of surveyed mobile gamers say they play with game sound on (TapResearch, Sound Preferences Survey 2022).
- Casual games have up to around 50 percent of players who do not play with audio on (King, GDC 2024 Audio Summit).
- Only 20% of mobile gamers are fully engaged with the game; the other 80% multitask (LoopMe, PurchaseLoop Research 2022).
- 20% of US mobile gamers play during their commute or on mass transit (YouGov, survey of 600 US mobile gamers 2025).
- High-quality, unique sound design raised lifetime value by an average of ten percent in hypercasual games (Azur Games 2022, company data).
- 60% of Assassin’s Creed Origins players turned subtitles on, and 70% on PC (Ubisoft 2018).
- One third of US adults always or often use subtitles for TV and movies (AP-NORC poll, August 2025).
- 44% of US players would very likely stop playing a mobile game over a poor ad experience (Unity, Ad Experience Customer Survey 2025).
- 80% reacted negatively when feed mobile video ads played loudly without warning (Facebook internal data, 2015).
- 38% of US respondents watched TV with the video on and the speaker off in the past two months (TVB, Video Media Devices and Usage Study 2025).
1. How Often Mobile Games Are Played With the Sound Off
The honest answer is that nobody publishes a clean, current, industry-wide mute rate. What exists are three very different lenses: a self-reported survey, a studio’s view from inside one of the biggest casual franchises, and old device analytics. Read together, they show a direction more than a number: only 8% of gamers in the TapResearch survey said they play with game sound on, King puts the muted share of casual audiences at up to around half (GDC 2024 session listing), and one hypercasual publisher reports that more than half of its users turn the sound on at some point.
The gap between those figures is mostly about definitions. “Ever turns sound on”, “sound on right now” and “volume above 10%” are different questions, and the 2013 Appington numbers (volume measured by an analytics SDK, a piece of code inside the game that reports device settings) were collected long before today’s always-on second screens. Most recent available data for the analytics view: Appington, 2013.
| Metric | Value | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Mobile gamers who say they play with game sound on | 8% (survey of 2,400 people) | TapResearch, Sound Preferences Survey 2022 |
| Players of casual games who do not play with the audio on | Up to around 50 percent | King (Dominique Devoucoux), GDC 2024 Audio Summit session |
| Hypercasual players who turn the sound on during their gaming | More than half | Azur Games, sound design analysis 2022 (company’s own data) |
| Players worldwide with device volume at 10% or higher while gaming | 73% | Appington analytics, reported by TouchArcade 2013 |
| Players in the US playing with sound on | 78% | Appington analytics, reported by TouchArcade 2013 |
| Players in the UK playing with sound on | 58% | Appington analytics, reported by TouchArcade 2013 |
| Players in China and Korea playing with sound on | 90% | Appington analytics, reported by TouchArcade 2013 |
| Mobile games downloaded per minute in 2025 | 95,000 | Sensor Tower, State of Gaming 2026 press release |
Context note: the 2013 figures come from TouchArcade’s November 5, 2013 report, which does not describe sample size or collection method, so treat them as a historical baseline only. Sensor Tower’s State of Gaming 2026 release is included for scale: even a minority muted share is a very large number of sessions.
2. Why Players Mute: Multitasking, Second Screens and Public Places
Muting is less a verdict on game audio than a consequence of where mobile play sits in the day. Only 20% of mobile gamers are fully engaged when they play; everyone else is doing something at the same time, and the most common companion is television (LoopMe PurchaseLoop Research 2022, survey page, results reported by PocketGamer.biz). The survey covered 5,468 consumers in the UK, 6,192 in the US and 6,680 in Singapore from October 13 to October 17, 2022. When a TV, a podcast or a playlist owns the speaker, the game’s soundtrack is the first thing to go.
Location adds a social reason. One in five US mobile gamers plays on public transport (YouGov, September 2, 2025), where sound is either rude or impossible to hear. The 2013 analytics data also found only 3% of players wearing headphones, which suggests that, at least then, the alternative to the speaker was silence rather than earbuds.
| Metric | Value | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Mobile gamers fully engaged with the game (doing nothing else) | 20% | LoopMe, PurchaseLoop Research 2022 (18,340 consumers) |
| Multitasking mobile gamers who watch TV while playing | 43% | LoopMe, PurchaseLoop Research 2022 |
| Multitasking mobile gamers who watch TV while playing, by market | US 52%, UK 48%, Singapore 28% | LoopMe, PurchaseLoop Research 2022 |
| Multitasking mobile gamers in Singapore who listen to music while playing | 23% | LoopMe, PurchaseLoop Research 2022 |
| Gamers who listen to music or watch TV while playing | 60%+ | TapResearch, Sound Preferences Survey 2022 |
| US mobile gamers who play during their commute or on mass transit | 20% | YouGov, survey of 600 US mobile gamers 2025 |
| Players worldwide who play with headphones in | 3% | Appington analytics, reported by TouchArcade 2013 |
Outlier note: Singapore is the market where TV is least likely to compete with the game (28%) but music is most likely to (23%), so the reason for muting differs by country even when the outcome is the same. The YouGov figures are self-reported, and the survey notes that some gamers may not have felt comfortable admitting to some of their play locations.
3. What Sound-Off Play Means for Game Audio Design and Revenue
If half or more of a casual audience is muted, the business question is whether sound still pays for itself. The best public numbers say it does, through the players who do listen. Azur Games reported that high-quality, unique sound design increases LTV by an average of ten percent across its hypercasual titles. LTV (lifetime value) is the total revenue a player generates over their time in the game, and in the State.io case study the same work added sixty seconds of average playtime (PocketGamer.biz, September 15, 2022).
Lab evidence points the same way. In a 2024 study in Applied Sciences, people played League of Legends under four sound conditions; in the second experiment, character sounds (sounds from the avatar’s own actions) had a significant effect on immersion, avatar identification and fun, while the effect of ambient sound on flow was only a non-significant trend (Haehn, Schlittmeier and Böffel, 2024). The 2022 survey in section 1 adds a monetization angle: muted players skew toward non-spenders. For studios, the implication is to treat audio as a feature that has to earn the unmute, which is the exact framing of King’s GDC 2024 talk.
| Metric | Value | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Average lifetime value (LTV) increase from high-quality, unique sound design | 10% | Azur Games, sound design analysis 2022 (company’s own data) |
| LTV increase in State.io after adding a sound designer | 7-10% | Azur Games, State.io case 2022 (company’s own data) |
| Average playtime change in State.io after the sound work | +60 seconds | Azur Games, State.io case 2022 (company’s own data) |
| Day-1 retention (R1, share of players who come back the next day) and day-7 retention (R7) changes in State.io | R1 increased by 2 percent, R7 rose by 0.5 percent, as reported | Azur Games, State.io case 2022 (company’s own data) |
| Gamers who rarely or never have sound on who have never made an in-game purchase | 58% | TapResearch, Sound Preferences Survey 2022 |
| Effect of character sounds on immersion, avatar identification and fun (experiment 2, N = 32) | Significant | Haehn, Schlittmeier and Böffel, Applied Sciences 2024 |
| Global mobile games revenue in 2025 | $113.3bn, up 10.7% year on year | Newzoo, reported by PocketGamer.biz June 2026 |
Context note: the 2022 sound preference survey behind the 58% figure also found that simulation players and players with longer, more frequent sessions are more likely to keep sound on, while puzzle and casual players and older players are less likely to. The 58% figure shows a correlation, not proof that muting causes lower spending. The revenue figure is from PocketGamer.biz’s June 19, 2026 summary of Newzoo’s market update.
4. Subtitles, Captions and Haptics: Designing for the Muted Player
When sound is optional, information carried only by sound is at risk. Subtitles are the most direct fix, and players use them in large numbers: 60% of Assassin’s Creed Origins players turned subtitles on, rising to 70% on PC (Ubisoft, May 17, 2018). Most recent available data for a large publisher’s subtitle usage: Ubisoft, 2018.
Viewing data outside games explains why. AP-NORC found that one third of US adults always or often use subtitles for TV and movies, and younger adults are far more likely than older adults to cite a noisy environment or multitasking, which are the same conditions that mute a phone game (AP-NORC, September 2025). Hearing loss is the other driver: the WHO projects that by 2050 nearly 2.5 billion people will have some degree of hearing loss, and that over 1 billion young adults are at risk of permanent, avoidable hearing loss from unsafe listening (WHO fact sheet, March 3, 2026). Haptics (vibration feedback from the phone’s motor) is the second non-audio channel, and the early research is about stated preferences rather than measured outcomes; our haptic and tactile audio roundup covers the hardware side.
| Metric | Value | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Assassin’s Creed Origins players who turned subtitles on (all platforms) | 60% | Ubisoft, accessibility feature 2018 |
| Assassin’s Creed Origins players on PC who turned subtitles on | 70% | Ubisoft, accessibility feature 2018 |
| US adults who always or often use subtitles for TV or movies | One third | AP-NORC poll, August 21-25, 2025 (1,182 adults) |
| Subtitle users who cite a noisy environment, adults under 45 vs adults 45 and older | 40% vs 25% | AP-NORC poll, August 2025 |
| Subtitle users who cite multitasking, adults under 45 vs adults 45 and older | 30% vs 19% | AP-NORC poll, August 2025 |
| Consumers in five markets who use subtitles at least sometimes, while 81% report no hearing difficulty | 80% | XR Extreme Reach, Global Accessibility Report 2026 (3,000 consumers) |
| Older adults who liked the slight haptic feedback mode in mobile card games | 63.2% (158/250) | Huang, Mohamad Ali and Sahrani, JMIR Serious Games 2025 |
| Older adults who believed haptic feedback could reduce their reliance on visual information | 73.6% (184/250) | Huang, Mohamad Ali and Sahrani, JMIR Serious Games 2025 |
Context note: the haptics study surveyed 250 adults in Dangtu County, Anhui Province, China, between October and December 2024 (JMIR Serious Games via PMC); it measures attitudes, not gameplay results. XR Extreme Reach is an advertising platform, so its survey is a vendor’s own research (CSI Magazine, May 21, 2026).
5. Ad Audio: Rewarded and Video Ads in a Muted Environment
Ads are where muted play collides with money. Rewarded ads (video ads a player chooses to watch in exchange for an in-game reward) and interstitials (full-screen ads between levels) are built as video, yet they land in sessions where the player may have the sound off, or may be listening to their own music. Consumer research has been consistent on unrequested sound: the Coalition for Better Ads tested 104 ad experiences with more than 25,000 consumers, and auto-play video ads with sound fell below its standard on both desktop and mobile web (News Media Alliance, March 22, 2017).
The cost of getting it wrong is churn: 44% of US players say they would very likely stop playing a mobile game because of a poor ad experience (Unity, August 27, 2025). The plumbing also matters. In Google’s SDK, an app that reports itself as muted stops receiving the video ads that are not eligible to run muted (Google AdMob documentation), and AppLovin’s mediation docs (mediation is software that picks which ad network fills each slot) warn that muting ads may result in lower ad revenue and that the mute state must be set before ads load (AppLovin MAX documentation). Muted-friendly creative, with captions and clear visuals, is the practical answer.
| Metric | Value | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Ad experiences tested on desktop and mobile web by more than 25,000 consumers | 104 | Coalition for Better Ads, Initial Better Ads Standards 2017 |
| Mobile web ad experiences that fell below the standard (including auto-play video ads with sound) | 12 | Coalition for Better Ads, Initial Better Ads Standards 2017 |
| People who react negatively when feed-based mobile video ads play loudly without warning | 80% | Facebook internal data, January 2015 (reported by B&T) |
| Average increase in video view time for captioned video ads | 12% | Facebook, reported by B&T at the launch of automated captions for video ads |
| US players who would very likely stop playing a mobile game due to a poor ad experience | 44% | Unity, Ad Experience Customer Survey July 2025 (2,200 respondents) |
| US players who would very likely uninstall a mobile game due to a poor ad experience | 47% | Unity, Ad Experience Customer Survey July 2025 |
| Ad volume range an app can report to the Google Mobile Ads SDK | 0.0 (silent) to 1.0 (current device volume) | Google AdMob developer documentation |
| UK viewers who say subtitles make them pay more attention to ads (18-24-year-olds) | 34% (49%) | XR Extreme Reach, Global Accessibility Report 2026 |
Context note: the Facebook figures are the company’s own and come from B&T’s report; most recent available data for this measure: Facebook, 2015. The Coalition research covered web pages in North American and European markets, not in-app game ads, so it describes attitudes to unrequested sound rather than rewarded video specifically.
6. Comparable Sound-Off Data From Mobile Video and TV (Not Game-Specific)
Because game-specific mute data is thin, mobile video is the closest comparable, and this section is clearly labelled as video and TV viewing, not gameplay. The pattern matches the game data: 92% of US consumers view videos with the sound off on mobile (Verizon Media and Publicis Media 2019, the most recent available data, reported by NextTV and StreamingMedia). The reasons respondents gave (a quiet space, no headphones, waiting in line, multitasking) are the same ones that silence a phone game.
The newest number shows the habit spreading to the living room. TVB found that 38% of respondents had watched TV with the video on and the speaker off in the past two months, more so among adults 18-34 (Advanced Television, November 14, 2025). For game teams, that is a warning that the TV playing in the background of a mobile session may itself be silent, so the absence of game sound is not always about competing audio. Our short-form video caption roundup tracks the captioning side of the same shift.
| Metric | Value | Source |
|---|---|---|
| US consumers who view videos with the sound off on mobile | 92% | Verizon Media and Publicis Media survey 2019 (reported by NextTV) |
| US adults who watched video with the sound off in public areas | 69% | Verizon Media and Publicis Media survey 2019 (5,616 US adults aged 18 to 54) |
| US adults who watch videos with no sound even in private | 25% | Verizon Media and Publicis Media survey 2019 |
| Caption users who do not have a hearing impairment | 80% | Verizon Media and Publicis Media survey 2019 |
| Consumers more likely to watch an entire video when captions are available | 80% | Verizon Media and Publicis Media survey 2019 |
| Consumers who say captions are important because they often watch videos with no audio | 50% | Verizon Media and Publicis Media survey 2019 |
| US respondents who watched TV with the video on and the speaker off in the past two months | 38% | TVB, 2025 Video Media Devices and Usage Study (5,000+ respondents, GfK/NIQ) |
Context note: the sample size and the public-versus-private split come from StreamingMedia’s May 20, 2019 report; the original study page now redirects to a corporate homepage and could not be read.
Summary: Mobile Game Audio-Off Play Rate by the Numbers
| Metric | Value | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Mobile gamers who say they play with game sound on | 8% | TapResearch, Sound Preferences Survey 2022 |
| Casual game players who do not play with the audio on | Up to around 50 percent | King, GDC 2024 Audio Summit |
| Players worldwide with device volume at 10% or higher (historical baseline) | 73% | Appington analytics, 2013 |
| Mobile games downloaded per minute in 2025 | 95,000 | Sensor Tower, State of Gaming 2026 |
| Mobile gamers fully engaged with the game | 20% | LoopMe, PurchaseLoop Research 2022 |
| US mobile gamers who play on public transport | 20% | YouGov 2025 |
| Average LTV increase from high-quality sound design | 10% | Azur Games 2022 (company’s own data) |
| Global mobile games revenue in 2025 | $113.3bn | Newzoo, via PocketGamer.biz 2026 |
| Assassin’s Creed Origins players who turned subtitles on | 60% (70% on PC) | Ubisoft 2018 |
| US adults who always or often use subtitles | One third | AP-NORC, August 2025 |
| Consumers in five markets who use subtitles at least sometimes | 80% | XR Extreme Reach 2026 |
| Older adults who liked slight haptic feedback in mobile card games | 63.2% | JMIR Serious Games 2025 |
| Mobile web ad experiences below the Better Ads Standard | 12 | Coalition for Better Ads 2017 |
| US players who would very likely stop playing over a poor ad experience | 44% | Unity, Ad Experience Customer Survey 2025 |
| US players who would very likely uninstall over a poor ad experience | 47% | Unity, Ad Experience Customer Survey 2025 |
| People reacting negatively to loud, unexpected feed video ads | 80% | Facebook internal data, 2015 |
| US consumers who view videos with the sound off on mobile | 92% | Verizon Media and Publicis Media 2019 |
| US respondents who watched TV with the speaker off in the past two months | 38% | TVB 2025 |
Methodology and Sources
- TapResearch: How Sound Preferences Impact Player Engagement (May 18, 2022; 2,400 census-balanced respondents from a panel of mobile app gamers).
- King (Dominique Devoucoux): GDC 2024 Audio Summit session listing.
- Azur Games: Azur Games breaks down the benefits of sound design (PocketGamer.biz, September 15, 2022; company’s own analysis).
- Appington analytics: 73% of mobile gamers play with the sound on (TouchArcade, November 5, 2013).
- Sensor Tower: State of Gaming 2026 press release (February 26, 2026).
- LoopMe: PurchaseLoop Research survey page and PocketGamer.biz coverage of the results (December 16, 2022).
- YouGov: survey of 600 US mobile gamers (September 2, 2025).
- Haehn, Schlittmeier and Böffel: Exploring the Impact of Ambient and Character Sounds on Player Experience in Video Games (Applied Sciences, January 9, 2024).
- Newzoo: market update reported by PocketGamer.biz (June 19, 2026).
- Ubisoft: How Ubisoft is putting the spotlight on accessibility (May 17, 2018).
- AP-NORC: Closed captioning on? It’s a generational thing (poll fielded August 21-25, 2025; 1,182 adults; margin of error +/- 3.8 percentage points).
- World Health Organization: Deafness and hearing loss fact sheet (March 3, 2026).
- XR Extreme Reach: Global Accessibility Report coverage in CSI Magazine (May 21, 2026; vendor research, 3,000 consumers in the UK, US, France, Germany and Spain).
- Huang, Mohamad Ali and Sahrani: Haptic-Driven Serious Card Games for Older Adults: User Preferences Study (JMIR Serious Games, May 27, 2025).
- Coalition for Better Ads: Initial Better Ads Standards release (News Media Alliance, March 22, 2017).
- Facebook: internal data reported by B&T.
- Unity: Ad Quality press release with the Ad Experience Customer Survey (August 27, 2025; 2,200 US respondents, July 2025).
- Google: AdMob global settings, video ad volume control.
- AppLovin: MAX advanced settings, mute audio.
- Verizon Media and Publicis Media: NextTV report (May 14, 2019) and StreamingMedia report (May 20, 2019).
- TVB: 2025 Video Media Devices and Usage Study, reported by Advanced Television (November 14, 2025; 5,000+ respondents, fielded by GfK/NIQ).
- Data watch: no current, independent, industry-wide measurement of muted mobile play exists; the figures above use different definitions (self-reported habit, studio estimate, device volume above 10%) and should not be averaged. The 2022 TapResearch write-up gives two figures that do not quite match: 8% playing with sound on, but “over 91%” with sound off (8% on would imply about 92% off); we use the 8% figure. The 2013 Appington numbers (73% sound on) conflict sharply with TapResearch and King and are more than a decade old. Azur Games reports R1 and R7 changes as “percent” without saying whether these are relative changes or percentage points. The 2019 NextTV coverage also quotes “83% watch with sound off” without naming the device, so we left it out. Several sources are older than three years (Appington 2013, Facebook 2015, Coalition for Better Ads 2017, Ubisoft 2018, the 2019 caption survey, and the 2022 multitasking, sound preference and sound design data). The King figure is an approximate value from a public session description, not a published dataset. Newzoo’s 2025 totals have been revised several times, and a new estimate is expected with its next Global Games Market Report update.
Last updated: November 7, 2026. We update this roundup quarterly, and the next refresh is expected when Sensor Tower publishes its State of Gaming 2027 report.