What do mobilegamer.biz readers think 2024 will bring?
Here, ten more well-known folks drawn from across publishing, development, marketing and more offer their forecasts for 2024. They touch upon further cutbacks, new launches, the indie scene, AI, live ops, the future of the app stores and more.
For more 2024 predictions, see the collected thoughts of mobile’s best-known investors, analysts and consultants and further forecasts from an array of high profile game-makers.
Susan Cummings, Petaverse Network CEO
It’s going to continue to be tough out there as I don’t think we’ve seen the ‘bottom’ yet for layoffs and cutbacks. I think brands/licenses will be more important than ever in the mobile space for discoverability. Games that people search for because they love the IP with UA being so problematic and expensive.
Michael Martinez, Funcraft founder
2024’s game of the year will be from Supercell… and it will be a game we haven’t heard about yet (this may be more of a hope/wish…)
I’d also like to see a better tool or service introduced to properly estimate game ad revenue, which will blow people’s minds to the potential and spur dealmaking.
Lea Schönfelder, Fein Games cofounder
The past years have been tough for some mobile developers. What’s good about hard times is that it inspires one to think out of the box. I expect experimental approaches when it comes to content, business models, and technology that disrupt the status quo. We will see some unprecedented stuff emerging. I’m hoping for provocative content, creative use of technologies, and new partnering of existing players in the industry to create fresh business opportunities.
Adam Smart, AppsFlyer director of product – Gaming
Gaming was slapped in the face with a big wet fish in 2023. The cost of living crisis and a recession impacted consumer spending and this has led to many redundancies and some great studios going under. However, the gaming industry’s ability to innovate is shining through and we will see more of this in 2024.
Alexia Mandeville, Bodeville cofounder
I see a lot of advice on Reddit that it doesn’t make sense to ship a game on mobile if you have no marketing power. I would have said the same two years ago as someone who was working at a huge mobile game company. But my hot take is that if we continue to see older IPs pushed out on mobile and Netflix taking indie darlings under their subscription that nobody plays games on, that there’s room for smaller indies to get featured as something new and interesting.
I’m sure we’ll see a lot of the same as 2023, but I have a feeling mid-sized mobile studios (and even animation/film studios) who can take some risks will start pushing out some interesting games, and we’ll see all these people who were laid off publishing new IPs on various platforms.
Chris Wilson, Metaplay head of marketing
I’ll be surprised if I’m the first one to say this but: The end of the app stores (as we know them).
The promise of new platforms for finding new games continues to show potential. In 2023 not only have we seen Roblox continue to consolidate its position at the top of the mobile gaming charts, but also UEFN shooting to popularity on PC. Both are now becoming real alternatives for serious developers to ship dedicated games for, as we’ve seen in Barnyard Games’ recent raising of $3.4m to make games for UEFN.
Add to that Netflix’s commitment to keep pumping time and money into building games – and their acquisition of the GTA franchise – and it looks like by the end of the year we might finally have a viable alternative to the App Store and Play Store.
Also, Unity will remain the de-facto engine for developers despite its late 2023 attempt to self-implode. It’s embedded too deeply into the game-making process for there to be a viable alternative (as it stands, anyway). For most, the costs of researching, trying, or building new engines – and the ramifications of choosing to do that (losing out on skilled Unity developer hires) are far greater than sticking to Unity, which is why I can’t see their market dominance ending anytime soon.
Sophie Artemigi, indie game developer
My prediction is that we will see a new indie boom in 2024. Layoffs in larger venture capital backed companies have left developers demoralised and demotivated. Meanwhile, smaller more agile studios have been cooking up exciting and innovative projects, especially in the mobile space.
My hope is that enough of these smaller titles find success in 2024 that it encourages funding bodies, developers, and players alike to focus on unconventional games from scrappy little studios.
Faisal Sethi, Frosty Pop Founder
I am going to be the grumpy old man and suggest we’re really bad at predicting the future and it’s futile to do so.
But in the spirit of ‘good fun’: I think the market will be saturated with new content, distinguished intellectual property will be more important, artificial intelligence will continue to mature and disrupt, and real human experiences and creation will begin to start commanding a premium.
Tom Martin, Space Ape’s Chrome Valley Customs general manager
I think we’ll see more rich interactive live ops like Hidden Temple in Royal Match and Pachinko in Monopoly Go. They’re super impactful but likely fatigue so big games will be churning them out.
Gamers are increasingly playing across multiple devices and platforms, making it more important than ever to run campaigns holistically. In 2024, marketers will need to invest in measurement across PC, console, CTV, mobile and the web to get the full picture of their campaigns, from user acquisition to post-conversion, in one place. This will be the only way to gain a true understanding of gaming audiences and deliver effective marketing strategies.
Paraag Amin, SuperScale CFO
Consumer spending in 2024 will continue to slow in developed markets due to the ongoing high inflation and high interest-rate environment. As a result:
– Layoffs will continue with a second (and probably third) round as businesses continue to align cost base to reduced revenue growth expectations.
– M&A activity will increase as the strong get stronger and take advantage of those businesses that are struggling. Not every business or game is worth buying, and bankruptcies will also increase due to these economic pressures.
– The number of new game launches will decrease due to the investment required and uncertain probability of success. There will be more investment into existing franchises or updates to existing games versus creating new ones.
– On a more positive note, we should see higher growth in emerging markets than previous years due to improved technology (devices, network speeds) and new players.
