There’s a deluge of new data and research to wade through every week.
So every Wednesday we’re here to break it all down into digestible chunks: data drop has just the numbers you need to know about, minus the fluff.
Unity boycott flies past 530 signatures
The Unity boycott group’s open letter had 16 signatures on it when we published this story on Friday. Last night, we were told by its organiser Nikita Guk that over 530 companies have now signed the open letter, which represent 25bn downloads between them. The group has turned off all IronSource and Unity ad monetisation in their games until Unity revises its plans.
It seems to have worked. Unity apologised on Sunday, and said that it would be announcing changes to the proposed Runtime Fee policy in the next few days. A Bloomberg report has since suggested that “Unity will limit fees to 4% of a game’s revenue for customers making over $1 million” and that “installations counted toward reaching the threshold won’t be retroactive”. It also says Unity will rely on “users to self-report the data.” But we’re still waiting for Unity to officially confirm what those revised plans are.
Playtika acquires Animals & Coins maker Innplay Labs
Israeli studio Innplay Games, maker of ‘luck battle’ game Animals & Coins, has been acquired by Playtika for an “upfront consideration” of $80m and a “maximum consideration” of $300m.
It’s Playtika’s second recent buy after it snapped up Governor of Poker maker Youda Games in a deal worth up to $165m in August.
Data.ai says Supercell’s Brawl Stars just passed $2bn in global player spending.
It joins 39 other games and 13 apps that have seen over $2 billion in lifetime spend, and is Supercell’s fourth title to reach $2bn after Hay Day, Clash of Clans and Clash Royale.
Brazil leads the downloads chart by country in the last year, says Data.ai, followed by Turkey and the US. It was downloaded 37m times in the last 12 months, bringing lifetime downloads to 376m.
The US was the top earning territory in the last year with nearly $40m in consumer spend, followed by South Korea where it generated $16.7m.
There’s some useful demographic info in a new report from Video Games Europe and EGDF, with help from Ipsos Mori and GSD.
The topline findings:
- 76% of game players in Europe are adults and the average age is 31.3
- 53% of Europeans play games
- The games industry workforce is up 12% YoY from 98,000 to 110,000
- Women in the workforce increased 7.4% YoY
- Revenue has increased by 5% to €24.5bn ($26.2bn) YoY
53% of the population surveyed aged between 6-64 played games, and the report estimates that European players totalled 126.5m in 2022.
45-64 year olds are the largest age group of EU gamers, totalling 31.3m. That category also saw the largest increase in new players (1m).
The average age of a game player in Europe is 32, with 76% of players 18 or over.
Close to 60m women play games in Europe, and 46.7% of European players are women. 33 is the average age, and 7.5 hours is the average play time.
Mobile is the preferred platform for women in Europe, representing 51% of those players.
The above average playtime graph shows that time spent playing games is more or less back to pre-pandemic levels. 74% of European players surveyed play for at least one hour per week, 17% play an hour per month and just 9% play once a year.
The split with other media types suggests an average of 24 hours per week watching TV, 14 hours a week on social media and 9 hours playing games.
The top game genres by playtime on mobile were puzzle, trivia and word games across the sexes, though a higher proportion of women play puzzle games.
Elsewhere, the report says just 17% of overall games spend is on physical discs and cartridges, with 41.5% described as online revenue. App revenue has the same figure, 41.5%.
A grim look at the ‘ugly beauty’ trend
Data firm Appmagic has a look at ‘Ugly beauty’ games in its latest blog. Cleaning up waxy ears, weeping sores and gruesome toenails seems to be particularly effective on the UA front, and three games in the category have reached over 20m downloads: Happy Hospital: ASMR, Makeover Salon and Makeover & Makeup ASMR.
Whiteout Survival hits $120m in IAP
We’ve been keeping an eye on this one ever since we noticed it was creeping into the top 20 earners last month. It has also got some attention from the Two and a Half Gamers crew.
Appmagic‘s numbers suggest that Whiteout Survival has just passed $120m in lifetime IAP from 17.3m downloads to date. That figure does not include ad revenue either, so it’s safe to say Century Games has a pretty big hit on its hands.
A brief guide to the Indonesian market
Research firm Niko Partners recently urged studios to think about localising into Indonesian. Why? It’s the fourth largest population in the world and has 130m active gamers, according to Niko’s research.
It also estimates that Indonesia’s games market will be worth over $1.5bn by 2027. Though it notes Indonesian players have the lowest ARPU in Southeast Asia, it says game revenue grew 10.5% YoY in 2022, and Indonesia is among the top three fastest growing video game markets in Asia.
