Weekly Gaming Reports Recap: December 4 - December 8 (2023)
South Korea is the larger title for mobile soccer games than China & the US; data.ai shared what awaits mobile games in 2024; only 36% of games are being purchased for the full price.
Reports of this week:
Apptica & Gamelight: The Mobile Market in Q3 2023
Supercell: "We need to make our games fucking famous, and become part of pop culture."
Take-Two Interactive Software: Sales of the GTA series have exceeded 410M copies
Ampere Analysis: Gaming subscription services in the Q3'23
Maliyo Games: The State of the African game industry (2024)
Sensor Tower: South Korean Mobile Market Surpasses China and the USA in the Popularity of Football Games
Story: The first paid mount in WoW earned more than StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty
Ultra & Atomik Research: How PC Gamers Discover and Purchase Games
data.ai: What awaits mobile games in 2024
Sensor Tower: Monster Strike revenue exceeds $10B
June’s Journey - the second game from Germany that has earned more than $1B
Apptica & Gamelight: The Mobile Market in Q3 2023
The companies also highlighted how much time users spend in games of various genres. Data was collected from 37 countries from July to September 2023.
Downloads - Worldwide
iOS
In the third quarter, iOS users downloaded 1.54 billion games in total, constituting 20.4% of all downloads on the platform. This represents a 14.4% decrease from the previous year.
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The most popular categories for downloads on iOS are casual games (269.4 million), action games (212.72 million), and simulators (202 million).
Android
In the third quarter, Android users downloaded 12.36 billion games, which is 30.5% of all downloads on the platform. This reflects a 6.8% decrease compared to the third quarter of 2022.
Revenue - Worldwide
iOS
iOS games earned $5.91 billion in the third quarter, excluding advertising.
The most profitable genres on iOS are RPG ($1.33 billion), strategy ($745 million), and action ($698.97 million).
Android
Android players spent $4.64 billion on games in the third quarter.
They spent the most on RPGs ($930.64 million), followed by strategies ($628.67 million) and casual projects ($520.49 million).
Despite significantly fewer users, iOS continues to outpace Android in revenue, with a market share of 56.01% compared to 43.99% for Android.
Engagement Data
On average, iOS players spend more time (38.69 minutes per day) than Android users (32.17 minutes per day). This refers only to countries participating in the report: the United States, France, Germany, the United Kingdom, Japan, and South Korea.
Candy Crush Saga has the highest playtime in all six countries above.
Card, word, and board games have the highest playtime in the United States on Android. On iOS, the leaders are action games, adventure games, and board projects.
Interestingly, in Japan, RPGs did not even make it to the top three in terms of how much time users spend on them per day. On iOS, card games, casual games, and word games lead. On Android, instead of card games, adaptations of board games take the lead.
Supercell: "We need to make our games fucking famous, and become part of pop culture."
At RovioCon'23, Ivo Zakowski, the new marketing director of Supercell, spoke. Ivo previously led global marketing at Burger King. He mentioned the beautiful phrase above and also shared some numbers.
In Supercell's games, there are over 200 million Monthly Active Users (MAU). However, Ivo notes that the recognition of characters is low compared to Sonic, Angry Birds, or Mario.
68% of Clash of Clans users came through word of mouth. Only 15% learned about the game from ads.
The collaboration with Chess.com brought Clash Royale over 1 million Daily Active Users (DAU). In September, this figure increased from 13 million to just over 14 million.
Take-Two Interactive Software: Sales of the GTA series have exceeded 410M copies
The company shared key figures for the GTA series in the November report to investors. Today, Rockstar unveiled the first trailer for GTA VI.
Sales of all parts of the GTA series have surpassed 410 million copies. This is one of the most successful series in history, both financially and regarding audience and critic ratings.
Sales of GTA V have exceeded 190 million copies. The game became the fastest in industry history to surpass retail's $1 billion revenue mark. It is also the best-selling game in the United States over the past 10 years.
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The debut trailer for GTA VI was viewed more than 38 million times within the first 6 hours, solely on Rockstar's official channel.
Ampere Analysis: Gaming subscription services in the Q3'23
In total, 349 games were added to gaming services in the third quarter of 2023, while 236 projects from subscription services were removed.
Microsoft introduced the Xbox Game Pass Core subscription, replacing Xbox Live Gold.
The launch of Starfield had a positive impact on Xbox Game Pass sales. On the release day, the highest daily number of initial subscription purchases since 2020 was recorded.
The highest number of games in the third quarter was added to PlayStation Plus Premium/Deluxe - 79 projects. For Xbox Game Pass, depending on the subscription version, there were between 32 and 40 games.
Netflix added 12 new games from July to September. During the same period, Apple Arcade saw the introduction of 14 new projects.
Maliyo Games: The State of the African game industry (2024)
As of the end of 2022, Africa had over 287 million internet users. By 2030, this number is expected to grow to 438 million (with mobile device penetration reaching 32%).
The median age of the population in African countries is 19.7 years, compared to the global median age of 30.4 years. Africa is one of the "youngest" regions in the world.
On average, African gamers spend $6 per year on games. The spending leader is South Africa (around $12 per person per year), while residents of Nigeria, Ghana, Kenya, and Ethiopia spend between $2 and $5 per year.
The South African gaming market had a volume of $289.5 million in 2022, followed by Nigeria ($184.6 million), Ghana ($41.7 million), Kenya ($38.1 million), and Ethiopia ($35.2 million).
Africa is a mobile-centric region, with all revenue coming from this platform. Digital Virgo predicts an average annual growth of 13.11% from 2022 to 2025.
Carry1st is the largest African gaming company, having raised $27 million in a pre-Series B round to develop and publish games in the country. Bitkraft Ventures, a16z, Konvoy, and other well-known companies have invested in it.
In Africa, Sony Ventures, Google, and Xbox GameCamp operate, along with smaller hubs supporting developers. The main focus of major players in the market is not to miss the active growth of the market (if it occurs) or a new promising company.
African Developers
64% of developers in Africa work with Unity, 14% with Unreal Engine, and 8% choose Godot. 3% develop games using their own engines.
78% of African developers create games for mobile devices, and 70% for PC, mainly focusing on cross-platform releases. Only 17% of developers plan to release games on consoles.
Only 36% of African developers make money from creating games; others do it as a hobby.
For 82% of African developers, uninterrupted power supply is critically important. 76% noted that they need fast and accessible internet. What about your complaints?
Sensor Tower: South Korean Mobile Market Surpasses China and the USA in the Popularity of Football Games
Mobile football games in South Korea account for 4.4% of the total revenue. Over the past year, their share has increased by 50%.
EA Sports FC Online M earned $440 million worldwide, with 91.7% of this revenue coming from South Korea. It is worth noting that EA Sports initially positioned the game for Asian countries.
As for the global EA Sports FC Mobile (formerly FIFA Mobile), which earned $1.3 billion, as of April 2023, it had 15.9% of its revenue from South Korea. China accounted for 24.7%, and the USA accounted for 15.1%.
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The total revenue of EA Sports' mobile games in South Korea reached $94 million this year. This surpasses the market figures for China (considering only iOS) and the USA.
Story: The first paid mount in WoW earned more than StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty
The information was shared by Jason Thor Hall, the founder of Pirate Software studio. At Blizzard Entertainment, he worked on the project's infrastructure security.
The first paid mount in WoW was called Celestial Steed and was initially sold for $25. Later, the price was reduced to $15.
In 2010, Blizzard Entertainment reported that a queue of 140,000 people had formed to purchase Celestial Steed. The mount brought the company $3.5 million in the first three hours of sales. The limited number of mounts at the start (codes were not generated automatically) contributed to this.
In 2010, World of Warcraft had 12 million active subscribers.
The total sales of StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty exceeded 6 million.
If we do a rough calculation and estimate that the average price of StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty was around $25 (taking into account sales), the game earned about $150 million. For the WoW mount to surpass the game in sales, it would need to be sold in a quantity of 8.5 million at an average price of $17.5 (which in reality will be lower due to the various discounts).
The story is certainly interesting but seems a little unrealistic. Perhaps Jason embellished the picture a bit to get a viral headline.
Ultra & Atomik Research: How PC Gamers Discover and Purchase Games
Сompanies surveyed 2,000 PC gamers from the United States and the United Kingdom.
Impact of Prices
75% of PC gamers consider prices for AAA projects to be too expensive.
87% of respondents note that discounts play a significant role in their decision to make a purchase.
Only 36% of players buy digital versions of PC games at full price. The rest prefer to wait for discounts, bundles, or get the game for free.
Indie Games
75% of PC gamers purchase indie projects. The main reason people choose them is the creativity of such games.
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Among the popular reasons users avoid such games are a lack of confidence in their interestingness (41%), lack of time (32%), a preference for large franchises (17%), or simply an inability to find good projects (17%).
How users discover new games
36% of respondents find it difficult to discover new games.
YouTube (38%), recommendations from friends (34%), and features on Steam (18%) are among the main channels for informing players about new releases.
data.ai: What awaits mobile games in 2024
TikTok will become the highest-earning application in history by the end of 2024. According to data.ai forecasts, the app will earn more than $14.6 billion. In second place will be Candy Crush Saga ($14.2 billion).
By the end of 2023, mobile revenue will decline by 3% to $107.5 billion. However, in 2024, data.ai predicts a 4% growth to $111.4 billion. This is slightly less than the peak in 2021 ($115.8 billion).
The United States will be the main driver of mobile market growth, accounting for 40% of the total revenue growth. Following will be Japan (16%), South Korea, Taiwan, Germany, and the United Kingdom. It is worth noting that data.ai does not take into account the Android store in China.
China is the largest gaming market in the world. However, data.ai cannot provide an accurate estimate due to calculation complexities.
As for genres, RPG, Match games, casinos, and corporate games will generate the most revenue in 2024. RPG and Match will account for 20% of the total global revenue each.
Sensor Tower: Monster Strike revenue exceeds $10B
To be more precise, over the course of 10 years in operation, from October 2013 to October 2023, the game has earned $10.5 billion.
97% of the game's revenue and 84% of downloads (according to AppMagic data) come from Japan.
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Despite the game's age, Monster Strike has consistently ranked in the Japanese charts for the last 3 years. It has been in the top 10 for 962 days, in the top 3 for 563 days, and in the first place for 245 days.
The average Monthly Active Users (MAU) for the game over the last 3 years is 5.8 million users. Only Uma Musume Pretty Derby has more on the Japanese market.