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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Dream Games’ Royal Match passes $3bn
Data from Appmagic suggests that developer Dream Games has made over $3bn in user spend to date. Almost all of this comes from Royal Match, while less than 1% comes from its second highest performing title, Royal Kingdom.
A look at the match 3 genre at large shows that Royal Match’s revenue rose by 84% year-on-year, helping it become the highest-performing entry in the category by the end of 2023.
That was helped by Candy Crush Saga and Homescapes seeing an 11% and 13% dip in their revenues, respectively.
Outlets Rush hits 50m downloads
Idle management game Outlets Rush has been downloaded over 50m times, according to publisher Supercent. The title was released in June 2023.
Rush Royale hits 83m downloads
MyGames has revealed that its hit tower defence title Rush Royale has been installed over 83m times to date. The game launched back in 2021 and has brought in over $300m in revenue over its lifetime.
Singular’s monster marketing trends report
Singular’s huge trends report for Q1 2024 shows that people are 4.1% more likely to allow App Transparency Tracking in games than non-gaming apps.
The genre most likely to attract a positive response to ATT was racing, followed closely by music and adventure titles.
Looking at cost-per-install, over on Android this has increased by $0.12 to $0.73. Card games have the highest CPI at $3.39. Singular notes that CPI for strategy games has dropped from $2.01 to $1.74.
Meanwhile on iOS, CPI for games rose $0.51 to $2.74. Card games have almost doubled in cost, rising to $6.52, while board games have shot up from $2 to $5.30.
The hypercasual genre saw a 15% decline in install share on Android for the quarter, falling from 36% to 21%. This was coupled with a 5% increase in the casual genre, which rose to account for 18% of game installs on Android.
Over on iOS, hypercasual downloads fell from 18% in Q4 to 9.7% in Q1, though action games doubled to 6% quarter-on-quarter.
NetEase made $3bn from games in Q1
Chinese tech giant NetEase reported a 7% increase in revenue from its games arm. For the quarter ending March 31st 2024, the company brought in RMB21.5bn ($3bn).
78.6% of net revenue for games came from mobile, a slight increase year-on-year. NetEase says that titles such as Eggy Party helped drive net revenue.
Squad Busters hit 5m downloads faster than any other Supercell game
Newly-launched Supercell game Squad Busters reached 5m downloads in just 18 days, according to Sensor Tower. That makes it the fastest Supercell game yet to reach this milestone; for comparison, Clash Royale hit 5m after 59 days, while Clash of Clans took 149 days.
Embracer’s mobile arm up 2% for 23/24
Swedish games firm Embracer made SEK5.9bn (~$560m) from mobile games in the 12 months ending March 31st 2024. That’s a 2% increase year-on-year, though the company notes that the division saw a 9% decrease in organic growth.
Mobile’s adjusted EBIT hit 32%, up from last year’s 24%, while the company’s UA cost dipped from 50% of net sales to 42%.
For Q4, Embracer reported a 50% increase in adjusted EBIT growth for its mobile business, with a 4% increase in revenue year-on-year. The company says that while Easybrain boasted “high single-digit” organic growth, DECA Games actually saw negative growth as it moved from releasing hypercasual to hybridcasual games.
Flexion revenue up 13% in Q1
App store distributor and marketing firm Flexion has reported £18.3m ($23.4m) in revenue for Q1 2024, a 13% increase. The firm’s gross profit rose by 58% to £4m ($5.1m) and adjusted EBITDA shot up 121% to £1.6m ($2m).
Apple removed 17.8k games from the App Store in 2023
iPhone giant Apple has revealed it removed 17,853 games from the App Store during 2023. This category had the largest number of apps removed from the platform, accounting for 15% of the 116,117 releases axed last year.
Ten Square sees 8.1% bookings drop for Q1
Poland’s Ten Square Games brought in PLN 99.7m ($25.5m) in net bookings for the first quarter of 2024. That’s an 8.1% decrease compared to Q4 of last year.
Ten Square’s second highest-performing game Hunting Clash hit 3.4m average monthly active users, something the company claims is related to partnerships and a new approach to marketing. Meanwhile, the firm’s third main game Wings of Heroes brought in PLN2.9m (~$741,646) for the quarter.
Gameloft closes Cluj studio, axes 136 jobs
Game Developer reports that Gameloft is closing down its studio in Cluj and laying off 136 people. The company says that this follows a review of its “production capacities”.
