Weekly Gaming Reports Recap: September 11 - September 15 (2023)
No single word about Unity inside. I promise. Just market data on Japan & puzzle genre from Sensor Tower; GfK & GSD numbers on the UK in August & more.
Reports of this week (okay, which I highlighted this week):
Tenjin: Hypercasual (Hybrid-Casual) games market in H1 of 2023
Marvel Snap has reached the $100M revenue mark
6M people are playing Starfield already
Sensor Tower: Mobile Puzzle games earned $42B in 11 years
Video Games Europe: The European gaming industry in 2022
GfK & GSD: Console Sales in the UK increased again in August 2023
Sensor Tower: The Japanese mobile gaming market returned to growth in 2023
Sensor Tower: Royal Match has surpassed Candy Crush Saga in revenue and downloads for the first time in history
Ampere Analysis: The release of Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse boosted the MAU of Marvel's Spider-Man: Miles Morales by 77%
GfK: PS5 sales in the H1 2023 in Germany tripled
GameRefinery: Key Updates in Mobile Games in the US, China, and Japan in August 2023
Tenjin: Hypercasual (Hybrid-Casual) games market in H1 of 2023
The company analyzed advertising networks and countries that surpassed the 25 million installations mark in the past six months.
Average eCPM on Android dropped by 26% compared to the second half of 2022. On iOS, the decline was 12%.
In the first half of 2023, iAP (in-app purchases) grew by 23% on Android and 24% on iOS compared to the second half of 2022.
India, Brazil, the United States, Indonesia, and Mexico are the leaders in total downloads over the past year on Android. On iOS, China and Saudi Arabia dropped out of the ranking in the first quarter of 2023, while Canada and Germany appeared. The USA is in the first place, the UK rose to second, and Japan is in the third position.
Google Ads, AppLovin, Mintegral, Meta, and ironSource are the leaders in installations on Android. AppLovin, Mintegral, ironSource, Meta, Google Ads - in that order - are leading on iOS in the first half of 2023.
Marvel Snap has reached the $100M revenue mark
AppMagic shows that as of today, the game has earned $104.3 million.
The majority of the revenue comes from the United States ($64.3 million), South Korea ($4.1 million), and Canada ($3.5 million).
Since its release, the game has been downloaded 22.7 million times. 24% of all installations are from the United States, 11% from Brazil, and 8% from Indonesia.
No other mobile card game has earned more in 2023. From January 1 to August 29, the game earned $73 million.
Among other genre leaders are Yu-Gi-Oh! Master Duel ($33.4 million), Yu-Gi-Oh! Duel Links ($21.8 million), Magic: The Gathering Arena ($19.6 million), and Hearthstone ($18.6 million). All figures are from the beginning of the year.
The developers of Marvel Snap have been actively working on monetization since the game's release. After its launch, many gaming industry professionals noted that the game had a "soft" monetization strategy. There is a good article on this topic by Deconstructor of Fun.
One of the best GDC performances is also dedicated to Marvel Snap. In it, Ben Brode (founder of Second Dinner) talks about the game's design decisions. You can watch it here.
6M people are playing Starfield already
Bethesda announced this milestone just one day after the full launch. It's the largest release in the company's history.
❗️ The number of players does not equal the number of copies sold. The game was available for free to Game Pass users from day one.
PlayTracker reports that more than 2 million copies of the premium editions of Starfield were purchased.
Phil Spencer stated that over a million users were playing Starfield simultaneously at release. On Steam, the game reached a peak online player count of 269.1 thousand on the day of release.
Starfield's peak online player count on Steam occurred on Sunday, September 10th, with 330.7 thousand people playing simultaneously. Only Fallout 4 had more - 472.9 thousand people.
Sensor Tower: Mobile Puzzle games earned $42B in 11 years
During the same period, users downloaded 50 billion apps.
Subgenres
Sensor Tower has once again revised its classification of puzzle game genres, among which the Swap subgenre took first place in terms of downloads (over 8 billion) and revenue (over $25 billion). This subgenre mainly includes Match-3 games.
Among the fastest-growing puzzle subgenres is Real-Time. The most successful games in this subcategory are Tetris (11 million downloads; $231 thousand in revenue) and Traffic Jam Fever (10 million downloads; $212 thousand in revenue).
Hybrid Casual Puzzles
Sensor Tower notes that hybrid casual puzzles saw a revenue growth of 429.67% YoY in the first 5 months of 2023. The analytical platform includes games like Triple Match 3D, Match 3D, Brain Test: Tricky Puzzles, and others in this category.
Among the best representatives of hybrid casual games, D1 Retention ranges from 39% to 45%; D11 Retention is around 15% (Triple Match 3D has 20%); D41 Retention is around 5-10% (Triple Match 3D has 13%).
Revenue by Countries
In the United States and Europe, there is a diverse set of subgenres contributing to revenue. Despite the dominance of the Swap category, there is substantial revenue from Blast, Merge, Word, Hidden Object, and other subgenres.
In China, 83% of the revenue comes from the Swap subgenre, with Merge in second place at 9%.
In Japan, there are two clear leaders: the Swap subgenre (53%) and Chain (27%).
Video Games Europe: The European gaming industry in 2022
The data for the report was collected using GSD, Gametrack, and EGDF-VGE reports.
Market Overview
The volume of the European gaming industry in 2022 amounted to $24.5 billion, which is 5% more than in 2021.
42% of the revenue came from consoles (compared to 41% the previous year); 42% from mobile devices (compared to 45% the previous year); 13% from PC (same as the previous year); 3% from streaming services (compared to 2% the previous year).
Online game sales accounted for 41.5% of total revenue (compared to 36% the previous year); 41.5% from in-game mobile purchases (compared to 45% the previous year); 17% from physical game sales (compared to 19% the last year).
110,000 people work in gaming companies in Europe, representing a 12% increase from the previous year. 23.7% of employees are women.
Demographics
53% of the European population plays games. In 2022, the number of gamers reached 126.5 million.
The largest group of gamers (25%) in Europe falls in the age range of 45 to 64 years. Following that are the age groups of 15 to 24 years (21%); 25 to 34 years (19%); 6 to 14 years (18%); and 35 to 44 years (17%).
The average age of a European gamer is 32 years.
68% of Europeans play on mobile devices (compared to 63% in 2021); 58% on consoles (compared to 54% in 2021); 48% on PC (compared to 52% in 2021).
GfK & GSD: Console Sales in the UK increased again in August 2023
Games
1.75 million games were sold in the UK in August. This is 2.2% less than last year.
FIFA 23 was the best-selling game of the month, with the Nintendo Switch version contributing significantly thanks to discounts.
❗️In reality, Baldur’s Gate III is likely the top-selling game. The issue is that the company does not share sales data with GSD, so the results are not reflected in the overall chart. Therefore, another game may be the leader, and the month may show growth.
Armored Core VI: Fires of Rubicon debuted at the second spot on the British chart. This is a record for the series.
The original Red Dead Redemption returned to the top 10, taking the 5th spot on the chart. Red Dead Redemption II is in 4th place, GTA 5 is in 3rd place, and GTA Online (a separate version) is in 7th place.
Quake II returned to the charts after 26 years. The game took the 12th place in sales, but in reality, it could have been higher - sales on the Nintendo Switch are not included.
Consoles
In August, 135,000 consoles were sold in the country. This is 22% more than in July and 8% more than in August of the previous year.
Sales of the PlayStation 5 increased by 42% compared to the previous month, aided by discounts and bundles. Sony's console is currently selling 60% better than in the same period last year.
Nintendo Switch saw a 5% decrease in sales in August compared to the previous month and a 10% decrease compared to the previous August.
Xbox Series S|X saw a 7% increase in sales compared to July. However, the overall sales of the system are currently 23% worse than in the same period last year.
Sensor Tower: The Japanese mobile gaming market returned to growth in 2023
From January to August 2023, the Japanese mobile gaming market earned more than $9 billion, and it is expected to reach $14 billion in revenue by the end of the year.
Japan has the highest RPD (Revenue Per Download) in the world. The average revenue per user in Japan is $21, significantly higher than in the United States.
In 2020, the number of mobile game installations reached 800 million. Since then, this figure has been decreasing. In 2023, a return to growth is finally expected, with Japanese users installing games 620 million times by the end of the year.
2021 was a record year for mobile revenue in Japan, with $17.8 billion earned solely from in-game purchases. In 2023, a reversal of the negative trend is expected, as mentioned earlier, with $14 billion in revenue.
RPG (Role-Playing Games) is the most profitable genre in Japan, accounting for 48% of all mobile revenue (approximately $4.3 billion this year).
Strategy games come in second place, earning more than $1 billion during the same period.
Traditionally, Japanese developers achieve the best results in their domestic market, but Chinese and Korean developers are gradually gaining market share. The leader is the Chinese company miHoYo with Honkai Impact: Star Rail.
Bandai Namco is the most successful mobile developer from Japan in foreign markets. From January to August 2023, they earned over $250 million from just two games - Dragon Ball Legends and Dragon Ball Z Dokkan Battle.
Sensor Tower: Royal Match has surpassed Candy Crush Saga in revenue and downloads for the first time in history
This significant event occurred in July 2023. Royal Match earned $112 million and received 14.6 million installations, while Candy Crush Saga earned $104 million and received 14.4 million installations.
It took Royal Match two and a half years to achieve these results.
61.5% of Royal Match installations are paid, while the percentage of paid installations for Candy Crush Saga ranges from 15.4% to 25% at its peak.
Analysts at Sensor Tower attribute Royal Match's success to aggressive Live Ops. The game now receives 200 new levels every month.
However, Candy Crush Saga still leads in terms of Daily Active Users (DAU) with 18 million users, while Royal Match has 15 million. Nevertheless, if the current trend continues, Royal Match is expected to reach this milestone by the end of October.
Ampere Analysis: The release of Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse boosted the MAU of Marvel's Spider-Man: Miles Morales by 77%
The MAU for the base game, Marvel's Spider-Man, increased by 34%.
The peak in Daily Active Users (DAU) occurred during the first two weeks following the release of the animated film. It began to rise one week before the release.
However, the surge in interest in the games could also be related to the upcoming release of Marvel's Spider-Man 2. Sony had just released a new trailer at the end of May.
GfK: PS5 sales in the H1 2023 in Germany tripled
Overall console sales increased by 90% when comparing the first half of 2023 to the first half of 2022.
PlayStation 5 stood out the most, with its sales in the country tripling.
Xbox Series sales decreased, while Nintendo Switch sales saw a slight increase.
Sales of gaming laptops (-13% YoY) and desktop computers (-20% YoY) declined. Analysts, however, believe that these categories will start growing again in the next couple of years as the hardware purchased during the pandemic will require upgrading.
Physical game copy sales in Germany in the first half of 2023 increased by 2% compared to the previous year. Top-selling titles included The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, Hogwarts Legacy, and FIFA 23.
GameRefinery: Key Updates in Mobile Games in the US, China, and Japan in August 2023
Stumble Guys introduced a new currency - shards - through which players can obtain cosmetic skins. They can be earned for free, but to get rare skins, you'll need to spend on in-app purchases (IAP).
Diablo Immortal hosted the Wild Brawl event from August 9th to 22nd. It's a 24-player battle royale (6 teams of 4 players).
Blizzard soft-launched Warcraft Rumble in the United States.
In August, Umamusume Pretty Derby celebrated its 2.5-year anniversary in Japan, with revenue during the event increasing by 1000%. In September, the game was removed from Chinese app stores due to either promoting gambling (unofficial version) or technical issues (official version).
The survival shooter Undawn (黎明觉醒) is thriving in China, with five new professions added to the game.