There’s a deluge of new data and research to wade through in the mobile games business. Our regular data digest column breaks it all down into digestible chunks.
Read on for the numbers you need to know about minus the fluff.
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AFK Journey hits $2m in its debut week
The new game from the maker of AFK Arena, Rise of Kingdoms and Warpath has got off to a solid start. AFK Journey launched on March 28, and has earned Lilith/Farlight Games $2m in IAP from around 1.9m installs in just under a week. That IAP figure does not include the Apple/Google cut or local taxes.
The RPG-battler is most popular in terms of installs in the US, with a big gap down to Brazil, France, Germany and Canada. Same deal with IAP – the US is way out in front, with France, Canada, Germany and Australia some way behind.
Monopoly Go tops ad charts, Legend of Mushroom grows
Scopely’s smash hit Monopoly Go was the most advertised game in February on both iOS and Android according to data from SocialPeta. The company also notes that Legend of Mushroom was being aggressively marketed in February with 11k ad creatives. The game clocked in at number two on iOS and seventh on Android.
Hybridcasual releases up 40% in 2023
The number of hybridcasual titles rose by 40% between 2022 and 2023. That’s according to research from Sensor Tower – spotted by Shamsco’s Sara El Bachri on LinkedIn – which also shows that while downloads are stagnant year-on-year, revenue rose from $1.1bn to $1.4bn.
El Bachri says that live-ops are a strong way to make money in this competitive space; Hunt Royale’s Lunar New Year event saw revenue spike 1,000%, she says. Stumble Guys’ collaboration with The Smurfs also brought in $240k in revenue within three days and caused downloads to increase 160%.
Hypercasual subgenres “largely exhausted”
Japanese publisher Kayac says that many hypercasual subgenres are “largely exhausted” but the firm is still optimistic about the market’s future.
Speaking to Appmagic, the company said that unexpected viral content from social platforms like TikTok and YouTube will inspire fresh hypercasual games, while runners, ASMR and ‘io’ titles have been overdone.
Appmagic data shows that Kayac is the biggest player in Japan’s hypercasual space with 50.1m downloads to its name. That’s almost double the 27m installs that the second largest Japanese player, Goodroid, has. Kayac’s biggest release is Park Master, which has been downloaded 175m times, while Ball Run 2048 has 149m downloads.
44% of women are casual gamers, says Newzoo
Newzoo’s 2023 Global Gamer Study shows that 44% of women self-identify as casual gamers.
23% identify as core gamers, and 44% of women play exclusively on mobile devices, compared to 27% of men. 72% of women who are online play video games; half of women who play games also spend money, too.
US dominated on iOS in 2023, faced more competition on Android
AppsFlyer’s second Country Performance Index report breaks down how effective UA spend is in each market, and says the US is the place to target users most efficiently in most genres, aside from RPG, on iOS in 2023.
The US was the top country when it came to games on Apple’s platform, coming in ahead of the UK and Germany. Japan was the top country for the RPG genre, with a strong performance in the hypercasual, sports and strategy sectors, too.
Meanwhile over on Android, the US was still the top country but this lead was not as solid as on Apple’s platform. India was the second highest-performing region, scoring the top spot for racing, shooter and sports, while Brazil was the top dog for kids and party titles.
Overall, global app spend rose by 18% in 2023, driven by 25% growth on iOS.
Unity devs have their say
New research from Embrace shows that the biggest frustration Unity engineers have is that there are too many systems and processes to follow. That’s the biggest issue that 52% of respondents had, while 47% of devs feel they don’t have enough agency to impact change in their team or company.
Meanwhile, 43% of developers say that their main priority is finding software or tools more efficient; 40% say that ‘working on new and innovative features’ is their main focus.
