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.
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Diablo Immortal has now earned Blizzard and Netease $400m
Appmagic data suggests that Diablo Immortal has now earned Blizzard and Netease over $400m since the game’s two-step launch in June and July 2022.
As you can see in the monthly revenue graph below, the China-only edition launched a month after the rest-of-world version of the game. The combined SKUs got off to a strong start, earning around $87m in August 2022 combined.
The game has declined since then and both editions combined earned just under $7m last month. The China-only app has now earned Blizzard and Netease $159m to date, with the rest of world edition earning $248m, bringing the total to just over $407m. Combined lifetime downloads are now around 28.5m.
53 of the top 100 grossing games run Unity
Data.ai had its own spin on the Unity saga in its newsletter this week. It ran the numbers on the top 100 grossing games of the year to date and found that 53 of them are built on Unity.
Those 53 games “account for 52% of all expenditures in the top 100, or approximately $16 billion in consumer spend,” says Data.ai, and includes the likes of Honor of Kings, Genshin Impact and Pokémon Go. It added that “some form of software developed by the company is present in 71 of the 100 titles studied”, too.
Where and how to spend your UA budget, according to Adjust
The game-specific part of Applovin-owned Adjust’s latest market report estimates a global D1 retention rate of 28%, and a D2 of 13% across the games category.
It also gives a ‘growth score’ to each game genre, placing action, hypercasual and sports games in the top spots. Adjust’s growth score metric is essentially a shorthand for how effective UA is, and is based on a calculation of “installs, effective cost per install (eCPI), and lifetime value (LTV)”.
There’s also a breakdown of each region and genre through the lens of that growth score. Starting with APAC, India is out in front, considerably ahead of second and third placed nations Indonesia and Japan. AUNZ has the least attractive growth score.
India, Japan and Indonesia all lead the way in the region terms of average D1 retention rate too – 27% – though they differ on D7 with Japan on 12%, India on 10% and Indonesia on 9%.
In Europe, hypercasual is the leading genre in terms of UA value, ahead of card and casual games. The growth score spread in terms of nations is pretty similar, though Denmark, Finland and France lead the way.
D1 retention rates by nation show Finland ahead with 29%, with France, Germany and the UK on 26%. Finland’s D7 retention drops to 10%, however, lower than France, Germany and the UK, which retain 12% of players.
Simulation games are top in the LATAM region – just – ahead of card and casual games.
Brazil and Mexico are the dominant markets here. Adjust estimates that Brazil has D1 retention of 23% and D7 of 8%, while Mexico has a D1 of 26% and D7 of 10%.
Adjust says Saudi Arabia, Turkey and UAE are the key markets in the MENAT region. Strategy games are notably ahead of the other genres here, with simulation and action in second and third.
Saudi Arabia, Turkey and UAE are all estimated to have 25% D1 retention. On D7, Saudi Arabia and UAE have 9% and Turkey has 8%.
In North America, hypercasual is significantly ahead of RPGs and action games.
D1 and D7 retention is estimated to be the same for both the US and Canada, 26% and 12% respectively.
Cover shooter Agent Hunt has hit 5m downloads following its launch in early August, according to Turkish developer Gnarly Game Studio. It is published by Homa, and according to Appmagic data it is significantly more popular on Android. India, the US and Brazil are its top three markets.
League of Legends: Wild Rift hits $1bn
A Data.ai blog says that Riot’s mobile edition of League of Legends, subtitled Wild Rift, is the latest game to have earned over $1bn in total global consumer spend since launch.
It reached the milestone three years after launch, and joins 101 other games to have hit $1bn. Data.ai also took the opportunity to drop some numbers on the MOBA genre based on downloads, active users in H1 2023 and lifetime downloads:
It also provided more context on Wild Rift’s success, stating that naturally China is its biggest market for downloads, followed by Vietnam and Brazil. The game now has over 111m lifetime downloads worldwide, and made over $188m in the first half of 2023 alone. China accounts for $141m of that spend, and the US was the distant second largest market with $8.2m.
