The juggernaut that is mobile gaming

Kyleran

Interesting article about the size and impact of mobile gaming.

Long story short, gaming generates 72% of all mobile revenues for a total of $81B.

Yes, as in Billion...with a capital B.

I'm in the wrong business.

https://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2020-12-09-72-percent-of-all-2020-mobile-revenue-generated-by-games-at-usd81bn

Ungood

Torval said:

It would be interesting to see the comparison between desktop, console, and mobile revenue. I think it would clearly explain why so much effort goes to mobile gaming comparatively.

Well, given that as I was playing GW2, I was looking at GW2 fiscal reports, as provided by NcSoft, and from their reports, from Gross earning, their Mobile games earned about 10 more than their MMO's.

Which would explain the desire, by NCSoft at least, to cut any under preforming MMO's and move into the direction of Mobile games.

Mendel

I wonder what that number actually includes -- cost of games (surely), recurring licenses (subscriptions and cash shop sales), internet access, etc.  It seems like the internet access would not factor into that, as it's a given part of mobile functionality.

Wizardry

"effort"there is NO effort in mobile gaming.it is just a very lucrative business that takes very little effort and why so many go that route,less risk higher potential profits.

Can you just imagine hiring 150 people to build a AAA  game ,invest 5+ years,maybe 200 million and see some mobile game that took a few months, a few people to make earning 100's of millions.
Or simply look at some streamers,all of them are just nobody to me but several make 6 figures a year just making videos.

Ungood

I think boils down to two demographics.

You have: The MMO/PC gamers that throw tantrums about spending money, calling every way a company tries to earn a buck a scam and swears never to spend another red cent on the game, and continues to demand how they should get a massive complete world to explore and play in, with rich progress and lore, and tons of other crap for free.

On the other camp you have the Mobile Gamer: Who while sitting on the loo, screwing around in their shallow mindless game sees they can get some goodies for 2.99 and pressed Buy without too much thought.

Kinda easy to see why the market moved.

cameltosis

Kyleran said:

Interesting article about the size and impact of mobile gaming.

Long story short, gaming generates 72% of all mobile revenues for a total of $81B.

Yes, as in Billion...with a capital B.

I'm in the wrong business.

https://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2020-12-09-72-percent-of-all-2020-mobile-revenue-generated-by-games-at-usd81bn

Certainly a lot of money! Despite that, I've yet to play a mobile game that I enjoyed for more than a few minutes.

Like someone said above, I'd love to know how this compares to console and PC, as well as an average spend per gamer. Given how many smartphones there are in the world, it's certainly a massive market so no real surprise the total figures are huge, but i would guess average spend per user to be much higher on console and PC.

Mykell

Ungood said:

I think boils down to two demographics.

You have: The MMO/PC gamers that throw tantrums about spending money, calling every way a company tries to earn a buck a scam and swears never to spend another red cent on the game, and continues to demand how they should get a massive complete world to explore and play in, with rich progress and lore, and tons of other crap for free.

On the other camp you have the Mobile Gamer: Who while sitting on the loo, screwing around in their shallow mindless game sees they can get some goodies for 2.99 and pressed Buy without too much thought.

Kinda easy to see why the market moved.

You really have no idea about the mobile market. I've dabbled in a few games this year because i had loads of free time waiting around hospitals that my mum was in this year.

I'd say a significant proportion of mobile gamers are older with plenty of disposable cash. Sure there are the crazy whales who spends tens of thousands a year but there are loads of dolphins who spend regularly but on a smaller budget.

Also the prices of stuff to buy in mobile cash shops is way over $2.99. I'd say prices average from $30 to $200 from the games i played. From what i saw there a ton of people spending $50 to $300 a week on these games.

Personally i think they are all crazy but its no wonder developers want a piece of this action.

Ungood

Mykell said:

Ungood said:

I think boils down to two demographics.

You have: The MMO/PC gamers that throw tantrums about spending money, calling every way a company tries to earn a buck a scam and swears never to spend another red cent on the game, and continues to demand how they should get a massive complete world to explore and play in, with rich progress and lore, and tons of other crap for free.

On the other camp you have the Mobile Gamer: Who while sitting on the loo, screwing around in their shallow mindless game sees they can get some goodies for 2.99 and pressed Buy without too much thought.

Kinda easy to see why the market moved.

You really have no idea about the mobile market. I've dabbled in a few games this year because i had loads of free time waiting around hospitals that my mum was in this year.

I'd say a significant proportion of mobile gamers are older with plenty of disposable cash. Sure there are the crazy whales who spends tens of thousands a year but there are loads of dolphins who spend regularly but on a smaller budget.

Also the prices of stuff to buy in mobile cash shops is way over $2.99. I'd say prices average from $30 to $200 from the games i played. From what i saw there a ton of people spending $50 to $300 a week on these games.

Personally i think they are all crazy but its no wonder developers want a piece of this action.

I have seen some higher end prices, but really, when I play mobile games (Mainly when I am waiting in line or on the loo), they toss some sale at me, like dirt cheap stuff, like 2.99 - 5.99, nothing big or major.

Maybe you spend a lot more than I do, so they hit you with more targeted $30+ packs. And that's super cool! Gotta have some people keeping the game alive.

But, to really grasp this, and realize the vast disparity between games, and even using that 2.99 purchase.

Again, going to fall back on GW2, and NcSoft. GW2 makes around 15 million a quarter, that is roughly 5 million a month, and has, as far as anyone can guess, between 1 million to 1.5 million Monthly Active Users. So.. lets say 1 million MAU for easy math.

So their average player spends 5 dollars a month. The smallest purchase option is $10 dollars. This means on average, every player will only make a purchase from GW2, once every 2 months. Obviously, some will buy more, and others will buy less, this is where we get freeloaders and whales, as it were.

Now go back to Mobile games, and they hit me up for 2.99 a week with some special to get me to make a token purchase for some diddly little package, while I am screwing around in McD's waiting for the line to move, I figure I am gonna drop 10 for a meal, 2.99 is not that big a deal. But, in the long game, that still comes out to $12 (11.96 if you want to be picky) a month, which is over twice what GW2 can hope to generate per player, and that is just hitting me up for some stupid pitiful little 2.99 pack.

In short, they don't need whales to keep Mobile Games alive, they can make full bank on small fish, and since these games do not take a lot of dev time (compared to PC games and MMO's) to make and maintain, that profit margin is through the roof in contrast to service based PC games like MMO's.

If what you say about hitting players up for $30+ and they spend it like water .. DAMNNNNNNNNNN they must be swimming in the Ka-Ching.

TwistedSister77

I wrote a thread about buying a Nintendo switch for an 8 year old girl for xmas... after talking with her mom I decided against it.

She enjoys playing free games on her ipad(and she can't purchase anything)...  so why get her hooked on $30-60 games? 

 I decided to get her some other xmas presents and an Apple Store card so she can buy some non-free games if she wants.

KnightFalz

There are some decent games, that work well on mobile. Some of those can be purchased for a modest price that removes the bother associated with their f2p fellows. The platform is well suited to turn-based strategy and puzzle games, and has a good number of console JRPGs available as well.

For example, Trese Brothers have put out several good games from $4 - $13 CDN, ranging from tactical combat RPGs to 4x. Many of those have PC versions as well. They are quite nice, and well supported with updates.

Arcane Quest HD is like the HeroQuest tabletop game. It is listed as having in game advertising, but a one time purchase of ~$3 CDN permanently removes advertising from the game. That is the only purchase available. In addition to the dungeons provided with the game, one can download those made by other players, and use their downloadable app to craft your own dungeons for others if you wish.

There's a lot of coal, but you can find the occasional diamond if you are open to the possibility they exist and put the time in to find them.

Kyleran

Rhoklaw said:

Mobile gaming is popular because babies with unattentive parents can drool on their phones claiming to be playing a game. Seriously, a lot of mobile games are mindless time passing hobbies, but not something any true gamer takes seriously. It's popular because of the convenience of being able to use a tiny device to play it on. Such as military folks on deployment or training exercises or bored people in executive meetings or students not wanting to fall asleep during a professor's lecture.

Since I'm married to a mobile gamer all I can say is, you sir have slandered my wife.....

Dueling pistols at dawn, 20 paces, turn and fire. 

I think you might be surprised at who really plays mobile games and they don't usually fit the negative stereotypes you're projecting on them here.

Some of the nicest people I know play mobile games, nary an asshat among them.

Besides, pretty sure I'm more of a "true scotsman" than you or most others here so I certainly would know better.

Cheers

  

Scot

Kyleran said:

Rhoklaw said:

Mobile gaming is popular because babies with unattentive parents can drool on their phones claiming to be playing a game. Seriously, a lot of mobile games are mindless time passing hobbies, but not something any true gamer takes seriously. It's popular because of the convenience of being able to use a tiny device to play it on. Such as military folks on deployment or training exercises or bored people in executive meetings or students not wanting to fall asleep during a professor's lecture.

Since I'm married to a mobile gamer all I can say is, you sir have slandered my wife.....

Dueling pistols at dawn, 20 paces, turn and fire. 

I think you might be surprised at who really plays mobile games and they don't usually fit the negative stereotypes you're projecting on them here.

Some of the nicest people I know play mobile games, nary an asshat among them.

Besides, pretty sure I'm more of a "true scotsman" than you or most others here so I certainly would know better.

Cheers

  

All this proves is that wives are the source of all our problems, oh and I have one Scottish grandparent so I recon as an Englishman I am more of a true Scotsmen than any of you.

Scot

Non-mobile gaming is still the gaming that gives companies that make mobile games credibility in their own and gaming fans eyes. But if the money is not with us I am not sure that will remain true indefinitely.

AlBQuirky

In 2020, users spent 284 billion hours playing mobile games, a 35% increase upon last year's 208 billion hours.

This was frightening to me...

AlBQuirky

Ungood said:

I think boils down to two demographics.

You have: The MMO/PC gamers that throw tantrums about spending money, calling every way a company tries to earn a buck a scam and swears never to spend another red cent on the game, and continues to demand how they should get a massive complete world to explore and play in, with rich progress and lore, and tons of other crap for free.

On the other camp you have the Mobile Gamer: Who while sitting on the loo, screwing around in their shallow mindless game sees they can get some goodies for 2.99 and pressed Buy without too much thought.

Kinda easy to see why the market moved.

I take this in reference to another thread where the OP never said they wanted something for free. Some MMO players certainly fit the bill, though,

So if an MMORPG player wants a good, fun, complete MMORPG and even PAY for it, where do they fit in?

TwistedSister77

Don't fear mobile... it's opening new people to games.  A portion of them will want a better experience like consoles and PCs.  

I see it as a good thing.

Kyleran

AlBQuirky said:

Ungood said:

I think boils down to two demographics.

You have: The MMO/PC gamers that throw tantrums about spending money, calling every way a company tries to earn a buck a scam and swears never to spend another red cent on the game, and continues to demand how they should get a massive complete world to explore and play in, with rich progress and lore, and tons of other crap for free.

On the other camp you have the Mobile Gamer: Who while sitting on the loo, screwing around in their shallow mindless game sees they can get some goodies for 2.99 and pressed Buy without too much thought.

Kinda easy to see why the market moved.

I take this in reference to another thread where the OP never said they wanted something for free. Some MMO players certainly fit the bill, though,

So if an MMORPG player wants a good, fun, complete MMORPG and even PAY for it, where do they fit in?

The Museum of Natural History, over in the Dinosaur and Fossil rooms.

BruceYee

It'll go down a bit in the near future. Right now mobile gaming is at the end of its first age of existence going into 2nd. Summoners War & SW: GoH were the first most successful mobile games and those came out 2014-2015'ish. Compare that side by side with PC games and you have UO/EQ first age then WoW second age which was 5-6'ish years apart. Compare earnings for the biggest mobile games recently and they've all gone down vs a couple years ago. What has gone up in mobile are those games that don't constantly try to fleece players of $$. Mobile games are great take anywhere stress relievers and some are a great value like offline ones but are limited in many ways vs PC. I've known a couple people who went from dropping hundreds on mobile each week to 0 when they realized how much more value PC offers for the same amount of money. Like someone else in this thread said mobile is a great gateway drug for gaming. You can already see the increase in PC games from players who started in mobile I have a couple in my guild in PG. If anything it exposes new players to the worst gaming has to offer FIRST so anything they experience after feels like a zen retreat.

Another thing to keep in mind is that the biggest mobile games are pay to win rat races. You either spend a lot of money or spend a lot of your time. As people get older time becomes scarce and in youth you really don't have much money so the takeaway is that the main target demographic( but not exclusive to) for mobile customers are young people with lots of time on their hands and rich older nerds. Watch mobile streamers and the vast majority of them are rich older nerd whales(respectfully saying).

The one thing that hasn't happened yet in mobile is something on the scale of SWG NGE or a huge game closure that makes a vast majority of the mobile community rethink their strategy for how they play & pay in mobile games. That's why I categorized mobile into its 1st age it's still rainbows & custard tarts cause nothing really traumatic has happened yet to shake the foundation.

Theocritus

"I'd say a significant proportion of mobile gamers are older with plenty of disposable cash."

Most of the mobile gamers I know are pretty young, in the 18-25 year old range...The older ones I know that do mobile games are poor for the most part. The sad part is these companies know they can make money without having to come up with a top notch product. Most mobile games are shallow and basically crap, just time wasters for the most part.

Amathe

While I hate them,  I am no bellweather of gaming trends.

WhiteLantern

I read an interesting article a while back about the studio behind Jetpack Joyride and Fruit Ninja. These started back in the days of everything's-a-dollar on ios, but its amazing how much can be made if you keep the entry point low.
Now all the studios seem to be whale chasing, and for alot of them, it works. I follow the "if its worth playing, its worth paying" mantra, but some studios WAY overvalue their pixels.

AlBQuirky

TwistedSister77 said:

Don't fear mobile... it's opening new people to games.  A portion of them will want a better experience like consoles and PCs.  

I see it as a good thing.

Unfortunately, I don't "like" these new gamers. I'm not from the school of "the more the merrier." Gaming had a good portion of assholes before. Now it's 100 fold worse, thanks in part to these "new gamers.

I don't care what people do to have fun. More power to them! But when their fun erodes my fun, I get cranky

rensta

Kyleran said:

Interesting article about the size and impact of mobile gaming.

Long story short, gaming generates 72% of all mobile revenues for a total of $81B.

Yes, as in Billion...with a capital B.

I'm in the wrong business.

https://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2020-12-09-72-percent-of-all-2020-mobile-revenue-generated-by-games-at-usd81bn

Most of the time i game on my mobiel. its really accessible in this busy modern life. When i have more proper free time, then I game on my laptop.  Phones are really the future. The upcoming years, phones are going to be able to run console levels games on big screens without a problem. 

Sovrath

AlBQuirky said:

TwistedSister77 said:

Don't fear mobile... it's opening new people to games.  A portion of them will want a better experience like consoles and PCs.  

I see it as a good thing.

Unfortunately, I don't "like" these new gamers. I'm not from the school of "the more the merrier." Gaming had a good portion of assholes before. Now it 100 fold worse, thanks in part to these "new gamers.

I don't care what people do to have fun. More power to them! But when their fun erodes my fun, I get cranky

I don't necessarily know that's true but it "could" be true.

The two people I know who play mobile games are good friends of mine and they are the best people. 

They don't play games like the witcher or fortnight or mmorpg's or anything like that. 

They just play "mobile games."

I would think that games with more depth would be first sought after by "us" or at least the "us" who are inclined to play on a phone or tablet. Then perhaps a few other people might get turned on to them.

I personally have no interest in mobile games other than the chess game I play.

AlBQuirky

BruceYee said:

It'll go down a bit in the near future. Right now mobile gaming is at the end of its first age of existence going into 2nd. Summoners War & SW: GoH were the first most successful mobile games and those came out 2014-2015'ish. Compare that side by side with PC games and you have UO/EQ first age then WoW second age which was 5-6'ish years apart. Compare earnings for the biggest mobile games recently and they've all gone down vs a couple years ago. What has gone up in mobile are those games that don't constantly try to fleece players of $$. Mobile games are great take anywhere stress relievers and some are a great value like offline ones but are limited in many ways vs PC. I've known a couple people who went from dropping hundreds on mobile each week to 0 when they realized how much more value PC offers for the same amount of money. Like someone else in this thread said mobile is a great gateway drug for gaming. You can already see the increase in PC games from players who started in mobile I have a couple in my guild in PG. If anything it exposes new players to the worst gaming has to offer FIRST so anything they experience after feels like a zen retreat.

Another thing to keep in mind is that the biggest mobile games are pay to win rat races. You either spend a lot of money or spend a lot of your time. As people get older time becomes scarce and in youth you really don't have much money so the takeaway is that the main target demographic( but not exclusive to) for mobile customers are young people with lots of time on their hands and rich older nerds. Watch mobile streamers and the vast majority of them are rich older nerd whales(respectfully saying).

The one thing that hasn't happened yet in mobile is something on the scale of SWG NGE or a huge game closure that makes a vast majority of the mobile community rethink their strategy for how they play & pay in mobile games. That's why I categorized mobile into its 1st age it's still rainbows & custard tarts cause nothing really traumatic has happened yet to shake the foundation.

This is a good look. Thanks. I did have a question or two.

These new gamers discovering PC gaming may also be "indoctrinated" into the mobile business model. They accept what they see instead of recalling "good old days" with complete entertainment never piecemeal-ed out to credit cards. These cash shop pop-ups are "normal" for them. Spending a buck or two for some digital "cosmetic" is natural.

As for negative games, did the mobile version of the latest Dungeon Keeper (a long time ago) do very well? I recall reading lots of negative feedback and price gouging cash shops. I don't know if those claims are true as I don't play Mobile games.

A good write up for someone not into mobile gaming. Thanks again

rensta

AlBQuirky said:

BruceYee said:

It'll go down a bit in the near future. Right now mobile gaming is at the end of its first age of existence going into 2nd. Summoners War & SW: GoH were the first most successful mobile games and those came out 2014-2015'ish. Compare that side by side with PC games and you have UO/EQ first age then WoW second age which was 5-6'ish years apart. Compare earnings for the biggest mobile games recently and they've all gone down vs a couple years ago. What has gone up in mobile are those games that don't constantly try to fleece players of $$. Mobile games are great take anywhere stress relievers and some are a great value like offline ones but are limited in many ways vs PC. I've known a couple people who went from dropping hundreds on mobile each week to 0 when they realized how much more value PC offers for the same amount of money. Like someone else in this thread said mobile is a great gateway drug for gaming. You can already see the increase in PC games from players who started in mobile I have a couple in my guild in PG. If anything it exposes new players to the worst gaming has to offer FIRST so anything they experience after feels like a zen retreat.

Another thing to keep in mind is that the biggest mobile games are pay to win rat races. You either spend a lot of money or spend a lot of your time. As people get older time becomes scarce and in youth you really don't have much money so the takeaway is that the main target demographic( but not exclusive to) for mobile customers are young people with lots of time on their hands and rich older nerds. Watch mobile streamers and the vast majority of them are rich older nerd whales(respectfully saying).

The one thing that hasn't happened yet in mobile is something on the scale of SWG NGE or a huge game closure that makes a vast majority of the mobile community rethink their strategy for how they play & pay in mobile games. That's why I categorized mobile into its 1st age it's still rainbows & custard tarts cause nothing really traumatic has happened yet to shake the foundation.

This is a good look. Thanks. I did have a question or two.

These new gamers discovering PC gaming may also be "indoctrinated" into the mobile business model. They accept what they see instead of recalling "good old days" with complete entertainment never piecemeal-ed out to credit cards. These cash shop pop-ups are "normal" for them. Spending a buck or two for some digital "cosmetic" is natural.

As for negative games, did the mobile version of the latest Dungeon Keeper (a long time ago) do very well? I recall reading lots of negative feedback and price gouging cash shops. I don't know if those claims are true as I don't play Mobile games.

A good write up for someone not into mobile gaming. Thanks again

Its easy for mobile games to do well. The time and cost it takes to create one is fairly cheap compared to the pc industry. Further more, the gains are usually higher, since the player base is much bigger and the monetization way more aggressive.  Even if a game "flunks" after 2-3 months, usually it has made enough revenue to be in the positive side of things.  
These are just my general understandings of the mobile industry. This also explains why multiple gaming companies release many titles one after the other, although mostly they are just copy paste with nothing new. 
These mobile games exploit the way gamers usually enjoy the first weeks of a new game just because its new. If the gamer spent a buck or two during those weeks, they succeeded. 
Its all about hype, high player base, low production cost and recycling. 
The high player base means that they dont really care about the "smart" consumer. There are enough people that will consume their product and net them a nice profit.