Weekly Reports Recap: April 11 - April 15
Russian developers are leaving the country; Cloud Gaming is evolving; German Gaming Market reached $10.6B.
This week:
App2Top & Talents in Games: 42.3% of the Russian Game Industry already left or leaving the country
German Games Industry Association: German Gaming Industry in 2021 reached $10.6B
Sensor Tower: Top Grossing Mobile Games of March 2022
Sensor Tower: Top Mobile Games Worldwide by Downloads in March 2022
Amdocs: 82% of Gamers are hardware-neutral
Liftoff & Vungle: Playables is the most cost-effective Ad format in Games
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App2Top & Talents in Games: 42.3% of Russian Game Industry already left or leaving the country
17.8% of respondents already left Russia. Turkey, Armenia, and Georgia are the most popular destinations. 58.2% paid with their own money, an employer hasn’t helped them. 83.6% of relocated respondents are happy with their decision. However, 75% are planning to get back to Russia when the “situation will calm down”.
24.5% are planning to leave Russia in the following months. The first place by popularity got Cyprus, however, Turkey, Georgia, and Armenia are still on top. 29% of those, who want, but haven’t left the country yet, are not planning to get back to Russia anymore.
57.7% of respondents are staying in Russia. However, 1/3 of them are planning to leave the country one day, but no actual activity started yet.
German Games Industry Association: German Gaming Industry in 2021 reached $10.6B
Growth to 2020 was 17% despite the high base effect.
Software sales (game sales, subscriptions, IAP) increased by 19% and reached $5.92B.
The structure of software sales shows us, that subscription revenue fell by 11% compared to 2020, and games sales revenue dropped by 9%. But IAP increased by a significant 30%, from $3.53B to $4.6B which led the category to growth.
Hardware sales grew by 18% - from $3.3B in 2020 to $3.9B in 2021.
In hardware, all segments are growing. The fastest one is consoles with a +23% YoY. Gaming PC Accessories are next with 22% growth. Console accessories added 11% to the 2020 revenue, while Gaming PCs brought 10% more revenue than in 2020.
Sensor Tower: Top Grossing Mobile Games of March 2022
Honor of Kings reached solid first place with $272.4M of revenue. An increase from the previous year was 5.8%. About 96.6% of the overall revenue came from China.
PUBG Mobile is second, in March 2022 the game earned $199.8M. 56.4% of overall revenue came from China, 9.5% from the US.
About $7B was spent on mobile games in March 2022. It’s 6.3% lower than in March 2021.
The first place by revenue was taken by the US ($1.9B, 27.4% of worldwide revenue). China (19.2% of the overall amount), and Japan (19%) are next. Noting that Sensor Tower is not tracking third-party Android stores.
Sensor Tower: Top Mobile Games Worldwide by Downloads in March 2022
Merge Master from Homa Games was in first place last month with 28.3M of downloads. The majority came from India (38%) and Brazil (7.5%).
Garena Free Fire secured second place and managed to get 25.5M of downloads, which represents a 41.8% growth over the previous year. In this case, India & Brazil are leaders too with 35.5% and 9% of the downloads accordingly.
In March 2022 users downloaded mobile games 4.7B times - it’s 2.4% more, than a year before.
India is responsible for 761.2M of downloads (16% worldwide). The US (8.7%) and Brazil (7.6%) are next.
Amdocs: 82% of Gamers are hardware-neutral
Amdocs research includes 1,000 UK respondents, which are playing games at least once a week.
Only 18% will choose a dedicated platform - console, PC, or Mobile.
62% of gamers already used or planning to use Cloud Gaming this year. Xbox Game Pass is the most popular choice.
65% of respondents are feeling good about Cloud Gaming, 38% think, that the technology will change the gaming industry.
78% of gamers are ok with paying about $10 for a Cloud Gaming with 5G-subscription bundle. 44% are ready to pay $20.
With Metaverse the situation is not as bright yet. 21% think, that their internet connection won’t be enough. 33% suppose that the hardware will be too pricey (VR headsets, for example). 41% think that it’s too early for any metaverse.
However, only 18% don’t believe in metaverse popularity. The majority agrees that it will be popular, but in the long run.
Liftoff & Vungle: Playables is the most cost-effective Ad format in Games
The information was collected based on 805B of impressions, 12.6B of clicks, and 200M of installs.
The average CPI in Playables is $1.98. It’s the lowest across all ad formats.
The average CPI of banner ads is $2.82. Interstitial - $4.26, video ads - $4.67, native - $5.22.
The average CPI on iOS is 30-90% higher than the market average. On Android, the opposite, lower by 20-50%.
The best ROAS by both D7 and D30 banner ads is showing - 11.11% and 21.95% respectively. Playables, despite the low CPI, show the worst ROAS - 6.48% for D7 and 15.66% for D30.
Only 4% of casual games ads motivate users to install the game.