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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Hypercasual downloads dipped 11% in Q2
Appmagic reports that downloads for hypercasual titles have dropped by 11% between Q1 and Q2 of this year. Year-on-year that’s a 9% drop, too. For Q2, the genre hit 3.38bn downloads.
Pizza Ready from Supercent was the most downloaded game in the genre for this quarter. The title saw its installs more than double quarter-on-quarter to retain the top spot with 56.7m downloads. Car Race 3D managed 31.4m downloads, a 22% increase on Q2.
My Talking Hank: Islands hits 10m installs
Cypriot games firm Outfit 7 has announced that My Talking Hank: Islands has hit 10m downloads within its first week in the wild. The game was released on July 4 and has been in the top ten on Google Play in over 40 countries.
NYT Games spikes, but Honor of Kings, Star Wars: Hunters and Tarisland tail off
GameRefinery’s June update includes performance updates on the NYT Games app, Tencent duo Honor of Kings and Tarisland, and Zynga’s latest launch Star Wars: Hunters.
It notes that the NYT Games app saw a 200% increase in daily revenue (chart above) on June 9, when a half-price sale went live on annual and monthly subscriptions.
It also says that in the US, both Honor of Kings and Star Wars: Hunters have failed to gather momentum after high-profile launches. Honor of Kings dropped out of the top 200 downloads and top grossing charts within a week of its launch. GameRefinery also notes that while Star Wars: Hunters topped download charts around launch and peaked at 77 in the top grossing rankings, it too has now disappeared from the top 200 downloads and earners.
New Tencent RPG Tarisland, is also not faring too well in the US. The game’s revenue has fallen by a massive 78.9% since its release, having arrived on June 21. Around launch it was making close to $18,000 per day, says GameRefinery, but this has since dropped to around $4,000. The game’s Chinese release saw a similar pattern, it adds.
Wuthering Waves hits $100m in under two months
Pocketgamer.biz reports that according to Appmagic, gacha RPG Wuthering Waves has now earned publisher Kuro Games over $100m since launch on May 22. 23% of those earnings are from players in Japan, with China on 22% and South Korea and the US each contributing 17%.
Zen Match veterans Grand Games lands $3m investment
Turkish startup Grand Games has secured $3m in pre-seed funding, which will be used to fund development on upcoming projects and bolster its team. The studio has been founded by veterans of Zen Match maker Good Job Games. The funding round was led by Earlybird Digital East Fund.
Only 4% of apps and games use subscriptions
AppFigures says just 4% of apps and games on the App Store and Google Play make their money from subscriptions.
The data firm also reports that this business model was behind 44% of all revenue across all apps in May.
Games were also behind 41% of all downloads on the App Store and Google Play – by far the largest segment – and made up 55% of revenue.
Embracer secures $652.7m credit facility
Troubled Swedish games giant Embracer Group has secured a new €600m ($652.7m) revolving credit facility with seven banks. CEO Lars Wingfors says this will help it become “leaner and more focused”.
Earn to Die Rogue hits 6.5m downloads
The newly released Earn to Die Rogue has already been downloaded 6.5m times. That’s according to the CEO and founder of developer Not Doppler, who posted on LinkedIn that the company’s new title had not relied on paid user acquisition so far. The game launched on May 9.
Mobile-first social gaming app Dusk scores $8m in funding
VentureBeat reports that social platform Dusk has raised $8m in investment led by Makers Fund and byFounders. The plan appears to be to use this cash to fuel development of its platform for indie developers. So far the platform’s beta has brought in over 50 games.
