Our data digest column breaks down the latest data, research and financial results into digestible chunks.
Read on for the numbers you need to know about minus the fluff.
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Braindom and Vita Mahjong lead January’s ad charts
Braindom was the most advertised game on iOS in January, marketing data firm SocialPeta reports. Matchington’s game came in ahead of Scopely’s Monopoly Go, which topped December’s chart, and Habby’s Archero 2. GameBeans’ Soul of Dragon and Kidding Box’s One Line: Drawing Puzzle Game rounded off the top five.
Vita Studio’s Vita Mahjong was the most advertised title on Android for a third consecutive month, ahead of Braindom, which moved up two places from December’s chart. Oakever’s Jigsawscapes and Monopoly Go both fell one place, to numbers three and four respectively. One Line: Drawing Puzzle Game was also fifth on the Android chart.
A total of 4,000 creatives were deployed across various campaigns in January, according to SocialPeta.
Pokémon TGC Pocket clears 100m downloads
Pokémon TCG Pocket has surpassed over 100m downloads since its release on October 30, 2024. As we’ve previously reported, Appmagic estimated last month that the game had earned The Pokémon Company over $350m, including over $7.7m in a single day on February 1.
The download milestone was announced alongside the news that the game will introduce a highly requested feature, ranked matches, at the end of March.
Triple Tap Games raises $1.2m
Triple Tap Games has secured $1.2m in a pre-seed funding round led by Eximius Ventures and Kalaari Capital, PocketGamer reports. The Mumbai-based mobile studio said it plans to use the investment to develop hybridcasual puzzle titles with global appeal. It also intends to hire new staff and to bolster its prototyping, data analytics, distribution and monetisation capabilities.
Triple Tap Games was founded last year by former Crazy Labs head of India studio Karan Khairajani. He previously established Soap Cutting, Acrylic Nails and Hair Dye maker Firescore Interactive, which was acquired by Crazy Labs in 2021.
US puzzle revenue up 30% since 2022
US puzzle game revenue has grown 30% from Q3 2022 to Q3 2024, with the UK and Germany also showing notable growth, says a creative trends report from Sensor Tower and Meta, though it also notes that downloads have remained fairly flat since Q3 2022, with a 2% rise up to Q3 2024. The top market by downloads, India, saw downloads decline during that period.
It also broke out the top contenders in each of the major puzzle subgenres, as above. The data suggests Toon Blast is the most dominant title in its category, taking up 56% of the revenue share in ‘match blast’.
Elsewhere in the report Meta and Sensor Tower note that merge games have overtaken blast games to become the number two puzzle subgenre by revenue, behind expected leader match swap. Match Factory also helped the ‘match pair’ category overtake ‘match blast’ games.
Hypercasual puzzlers have also recently overtaken casual puzzlers by downloads, says the data, as casual puzzle downloads continue to fall post-IDFA. Hybridcasual puzzle downloads had been growing consistently over the last few years, but have also tailed off in recent quarters.
Just 1% of casual games hit $100k in monthly IAP revenue, says Appmagic
In most casual genres, no more than 1% of games generate $100k of in-app revenue per month. And the same is true for hybridcasual and hypercasual games, according to data from AppMagic. Using a lower benchmark for success, it has also found that no more than 5% of games achieve 100k installs per month.
The figures were published in an article AppMagic co-produced with mobile app growth platform Appodeal. The pair say it’s designed to serve as a guide for identifying whether a game is on the road to success, how to pivot effectively if it’s not, and when developers should cut their losses and walk away from a project.
It includes a rundown of warning signs indicating when a game is underperforming and that changes are required. While not an exhaustive list, these include CPI being higher than LTV, and poor ARPU even after marketing efforts, for example less than $0.10 vs $0.30–$1 for games with ad monetisation.
If fewer than 75% of players complete a game’s tutorial, this suggests the game is confusing and players don’t understand how to play. And broadly speaking, the report calculates low retention rates at less than 40% on Day 1, below 15% on Day 7, and under 7% on Day 30.
