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.
The sci-fi RPG continues to tear it up in the top grossing charts. Having beaten the mighty Honor of Kings to become May’s top grossing game, it has now earned Hoyoverse over $200m since launch in April according to Appmagic data. $207.5m as of today, to be precise.
Total lifetime downloads stand at 24.1m. Here’s daily revenue since launch that shows that on June 9, Star Rail earned over $8m:
The top five most lucrative markets are China ($72.3m), Japan ($55m), the US ($29.2m), South Korea ($15.3m) and Taiwan ($6.7m).
43% of top grossing US match-3 games use racing liveops
GameRefinery took a look at the trend for racing minigames this week, and said 43% of the top 200 grossing match-3 games in the US have some form of racing liveop (because they’re an easy way to get players to compete with each other).
Playrix is singled out as having some of the top examples of this mechanic in Homescapes and Township; Lily’s Garden has a multi-stage spin on the mechanic, and Royal Match has a winning streak system which is worth a look.
Scopely’s spin on Coin Master has now earned the publisher over $50m through in-app purchases, according to Appmagic.
Launched on April 12, lifetime revenue through IAP now stands at $52.1m, with downloads to date at 39.8m. Total game revenue will of course be higher through ad revenue.
Daily IAP earnings are now regularly over $1m, and reached an all-time high on June 18 with $1.2m:
The biggest market by far is the US, which represents $26.2m of that IAP spend. It is followed by the UK ($3.8m), France ($3.6m), Australia ($3m) and Germany ($1.9m).
This new report says, rather unsurprisingly, that mobile remains the most popular way to play, with younger generations increasingly more likely to play games in general.
There were some interesting cross-platform patterns too, with 50% of players surveyed playing games on more than one device or platform:
Game-players using all three – PC, console and mobile – are the biggest spenders, said Newzoo, with mobile players least likely to spend money on games. Of those that do spend across all platforms, players most commonly buy in-game currency, expansions or content packs and gear.
Goddess of Victory: Nikke fires past $300m
Tencent’s thirsty cover shooter Goddess of Victory: Nikke shot past $300m in developer earnings this week, according to Appmagic.
Released in November, Nikke has a relatively small but very high-spending audience with ‘just’ 9.2m downloads worldwide to date.
Daily revenue, below, peaked at $4.8m on November 12 2022:
Top grossing markets are Japan ($193m), the US ($48.5m), South Korea ($44.4m), Singapore ($3.5m) and Canada ($3.1m).
‘Traditional’ gaming now just 26.7% of the US market
GamesBeat‘s story on a study from accountancy firm PWC suggests that total US video game and esports revenue was $54.1bn in 2022.
‘Traditional’ gaming – PC and console – was shown to be just 26.7% of that figure at close to $15bn.
The social/casual gaming category (that includes mobile) was said to be worth $37bn. PWC also suggested the mobile games market was worth $17.6bn and the associated in-app advertising ecosystem generated $19.3bn.
Data.ai had some good stats around Diablo Immortal this week, suggesting that the Blizzard and Netease collab passed $500m in total consumer spending since launch.
That makes it the 15th fastest mobile game to cross the $500 million mark, placing it in an elite group that includes Pokémon Go, Candy Crush Saga and Genshin Impact.
Here’s data.ai’s top 20 fastest games to hit $500m:
Diablo Immortal ended its first year on the market with around 22m downloads and over $525m in player spending, said the data firm.
China represents around 37% of the total spend. The US is the second biggest market for Diablo Immortal, taking up 24% of that $525m.
