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’s mobile growth and monetisation 2023 report
A juicy starter stat: Unity’s data says 77% of players who buy IAP convert in the first two weeks. So players who haven’t bought an IAP in their first 14 days should be pushed towards ads or an offerwall.
Unity also says $1.01–5.00 is the sweet spot for IAP pricing to convert first-time buyers, and 56% of IAP revenue for iOS and 58% for Android comes from currencies, limited sales events and bundles, so they should be a big part of your IAP strategy.
There was also a breakdown of the most effective ad placements within your game:
Later Unity said that the top three types of rewarded video ad rewards by engagement
are watching ads for extra rewards (20%), currency (14%), and gacha pulls (13%).
Some insights on offerwalls included the datapoint that they can take up as much as 38% of total ad revenue for the games using them as part of their mix. Players who convert on offerwalls are significantly more likely to stick around, as this graph shows:
Later, in a section on country targeting in tier 2 markets, Unity says Japan is a good place to advertise a sports game, with ad clickthrough 13% above the average of all tier 2 countries. Racing or hypercasual games underperform in Japan, though, around 7% below average.
In South Korea, CTR for trivia and hypercasual games is 4% above these genres’ average of all tier 2 countries, but action games are 4% below average.
Market research firm Niko Partners published three new reports in the last week, all based on the Chinese games market.
The total video games market in China generated $45.5bn in revenue in 2022, Niko Partners said, and the Chinese mobile games market was worth $30.1bn.
China continues to be the largest market globally with 31.7% of global mobile games revenue, and 33.4% of global PC games revenue.
The mobile-specific report also states that nearly one third (31%) of Chinese market revenue is spent on mobile games, and Chinese companies account for 47% of mobile games revenue worldwide.
It also describes Netease and Tencent as a duopoly, which is perhaps a bit much, though Niko’s data suggests the two companies command a combined 61% share for domestic PC and mobile games revenue in 2022.
It also acknowledged that Tencent and NetEase’s combined market share was lower than in 2021, “due to weak performance from legacy titles and a lack of new title launches – indicating other competitors are building ground.” We’d wager the relentless rise of Hoyoverse has something to do with that.
League of Legends: Wild Rift revenue spikes
GameRefinery’s latest analysis leads on a big spike in US revenue for LoL: Wild Rift thanks to the introduction of Hextech Chests – permanent purchasable gachas, basically. They were introduced in the China SKU last year, and are proving to be super effective.
As you can see above, the new feature plus a new Wild Pass season prompted the third-highest revenue spike in the game’s history, according to GameRefinery’s US-only data.
Peridot and LOTR fall a little flat
As part of the same GameRefinery US market update, the firm also notes that two big new releases appear to have struggled. Niantic’s Peridot was briefly in the top 200 grossing chart around launch, it says, but has since fallen outside into the 200-300 top grossing range.
A quick look at Appmagic data suggests Peridot has earned just over $800k from 1.2m downloads worldwide after over a month on the market.
It’s the same for EA’s new battler from the team behind Galaxy of Heroes, LOTR: Battle for Middle-Earth. GameRefinery says the game has posted “low downloads and slow financial performance” to date, and “currently rests around the top 200 grossing.”
Appmagic data says LOTR has earned over $2.1m in its debut month, from 959k downloads.
Torchlight Infinite closes in on $10m
XD’s Diablo-alike Torchlight Infinite has been quietly performing nicely since launch on May 9, according to Appmagic data. As of today lifetime revenue stands at $9.8m, with total downloads a little over around 4m. The China SKU represents almost half of that revenue to date, $4.7m.
