data.ai & Deconstructor of Fun released a report about the mobile gaming market in 2022 and what the future will bring. Newzoo shared information about UK and Germany this year. Apptica mentioned the top mobile titles of November. And more!
This week:
- GfK: Physical games sales in the UK during the Black Friday 2022 dropped but overall revenue increased
- Games Jobs Live: The number of open positions in gaming companies in the UK continues to decline
- data.ai & Deconstructor of Fun: Mobile Gaming market in 2022 and beyond
- AppMagic: Top Mobile Games by Revenue & Downloads in November 2022
- AppMagic: Goddess of Victory: Nikke earned $100M in a month after the global launch
- Newzoo: UK gaming market in 2022
- Newzoo: German gaming market in 2022
- Sensor Tower: PUBG Mobile earned $9B lifetime
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GfK: Physical games sales in the UK during the Black Friday 2022 dropped but overall revenue increased
Games
GfK is recording only physical copies sales, so the decline speaks more about an interest in the digital versions than of a market negative trend.
- Games’ physical sales last year were better by 15%.
- The decline is happening second consecutive year. In 2021 physical games results were 10% lower than in 2020.
- The main title of Black Friday 2022 in the UK was FIFA 23 (sales increased by 95%). Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 was back in second place (+9% in sales). Pokemon Scarlet went to third place, while Pokemon Violet ended in sixth. Both games lost about 64% in sales.
Consoles
- Nintendo Switch became the most popular console of Black Friday 2022 in the UK with 42% of console sales.
- Xbox Series S was about to take the lead. It had 40% of sales thanks to the huge discount.
- The remaining part of sales was taken by PlayStation 5, the digital version of which received a minor discount.
Overall
- If we’ll sum up sales of games, consoles, and accessories, Black Friday 2022 financial results in the UK were 4% better than in 2021.
- 41% of revenue has been made by consoles; 39% by accessories, and only 21% by physical games copies.
Games Jobs Live: The number of open positions in gaming companies in the UK continues to decline
The information was collected on November 2022
- The recession struck worse on mobile studios. Big companies in the sector either stopped or paused hiring.
- One of the few companies actively working in the job market is Jagex.
- Software Engineer, Senior Producer, Senior Environment Artist, Senior Game Designer, Senior Programmer, Producer, and Technical Artist are the most popular open vacancies in the UK.
- The number of open positions increased only in two fields – audio and writing.
- The number of open positions for Junior specialists is about 3-5% of the overall amount.
data.ai & Deconstructor of Fun: Mobile Gaming market in 2022 and beyond
- Games still account for 61% of all users’ spending on apps.
- In Q3 2022 users spent weekly $1.5B on mobile games and downloaded more than 1.1B games. It’s 25% more than in pre-pandemic Q3 2019.
- In H1 2022 mobile games in App Store & Google Play earned $41.2B. It’s 7.5% lower than in H1 2021, but 14% more than in H1 2020.
- Downloads continue to grow. In H1 2022 mobile games were downloaded 30B times. It’s 11.5% more than in H1 2021.
- The number of games in the App Store has been declining since 2016. The number of new releases is constantly small since 2018.
- The number of games earning $10M+ per year is growing. In 2021 this amount reached 925 games.
- 63% of all mobile gaming revenue in the US in H1 2022 was generated by games from top-100. In 2020 this percentage was 62%.
- 25 games released in 2021 reached top-100 by revenue (against 19 in 2020). On average it took them 4 months (against 7 in the H1 2020).
The most successful genres of H1 2022 (without Ad Monetization).
- RPG – $12.8B (31% of all IAP volume). 2% of all downloads. YoY decline by revenue – 9.4%. YoY decline by downloads – 3.5%.
- Strategy – $6.4B (15% of all IAP volume). 2% of all downloads. YoY decline by revenue – 3.2%. YoY growth by downloads – 16.5%.
- Match – $4.4B (11% of all IAP volume). 5% of all downloads. YoY decline by revenue – 6.8%. YoY growth by downloads – 15%.
- Casino – $4.2B (10% of all IAP volume). 2% of all downloads. YoY decline by revenue – 1.9%. YoY growth by downloads – 35.2%.
- Simulation – $4.2B (10% of all IAP volume). 17% of all downloads. YoY decline by revenue – 13.7%. YoY growth by downloads – 25%.
- Shooters – $2.5B (6% of all IAP volume). 4% of all downloads. YoY decline by revenue – 7.2%. YoY growth by downloads – 10.8%.
Trends
- The number of hypercasual games at the top is decreasing. Developers do experiments with hybrid monetization.
- Casual games managed to reach the growing downloads. However, the revenue is still behind the trail and beyond 2020 and 2021 results.
3 advice from data.ai & Deconstructor of Fun on how to work on the crisis market:
- Be creative. Test your marketing. Diversify channels.
- Use IPs.
- Look outside of iOS and the US. Use different monetization formats.
AppMagic: Top Mobile Games by Revenue & Downloads in November 2022
Revenue
- Goddess of Victory: Nikke reached first place by revenue in Google Play and fifth in App Store last month. The game earned $94M after the release ($50.4M came from Google Play).
- Honor of Kings is still first by revenue from all platforms; Genshin Impact is second; PUBG Mobile is third.
Downloads
- Garena Free Fire is first with 17.7M downloads.
- Interesting that Shotgun Sounds: Gun Simulator made it to third place with 16.5M downloads (from Google Play only). It’s an app that plays the sound of various guns. The majority of revenue came from India (6.2M).
- Car Crash Compilation Game was a new game in the chart in the 9th place with 11.6M downloads. It’s a hypercasual game that in the marketing refers to FlatOut.
AppMagic: Goddess of Victory: Nikke earned $100M in a month after the global launch
- 53% of game revenue went from Japan; 26% – from South Korea; 14% – from the US.
- From November 2 to December 3 the game has been downloaded 5.1M times. 21% of downloads generated Japan; 13% – South Korea; 11% – the US; 10% – Indonesia.
- The largest revenue the game generated was on November 12. The game earned $5.86M.
- Now the game revenue stabilized. Last 10 days it’s been on the level of $1.6M-$2M per day.
- Downloads from the launch dropped significantly. If on launch downloads have been reaching 630 thousand daily, now they’re on a level of 20 thousand.
- Revenue per Download globally is around $20.24. In tier-1 Asian countries, however, it’s significantly higher – $47.39.
- The game is launched in 45 countries in the world. It’s not available in Belgium, Israel, Vietnam, or Russia, for example.
Newzoo: UK gaming market in 2022
- The UK market will reach $5.5B in 2022. It’s the #6 place in the world.
- There will be 39.1M players in the UK by the end of 2022. #18 in the world.
- 71% of the online population of the UK is playing games.
- 54% of the gaming population of the UK is male. 45% are females, while less than 1% are non-binary persons.
- Most gamers are between the age of 21 to 35 years (33%). Next are segments of 36-50 years (28%), 10-20 years (23%), and 51-65 years (16%).
- UK gamers have different motivations for playing. Some want to get new emotions from the action (36%), some do like to achieve something (32%), some enjoy immersion in a gaming world (30%), and some prefer social features (30%).
- Mobile devices are the largest gaming platform in the UK with 46% of the audience. Consoles (41%) and PC (29%) are the following.
- Consoles are leading in terms of playtime. On average, console gamer spends 5 hours and 42 minutes per week playing games. PC gamers spend 5 hours and 10 minutes weekly. Mobile gamers spend 3 hours 59 minutes.
- Overwatch 1 & 2, Fortnite, and FIFA 23 are the largest games in the UK by MAU.
- Adventure games, Shooters, and Battle Royale are the most popular genres in the UK based on MAU.
- 64% of gamers in the UK paid in games in the last 6 months. 29% received a good special offer, 27% wanted to play with friends or family, and 26% wanted to unlock the unique content.
Newzoo: German gaming market in 2022
- The German gaming market by the end of 2022 will reach $6.6B – it’s the #5 market in the world.
- There will be 49.8M gamers in Germany in 2022, #12 compared to all other countries.
- 71% of the online population of Germany is playing games.
- 54% of gamers in Germany are male, 45% are female, and less than 1% are non-binary persons.
- The largest age segments are from 21 to 35 years (31%), and from 36 to 50 years (28%). The segment of 51-65 years (22%) is next; the young audience of 10 to 20 years has the smallest share (19%).
- The main motivations for the German players are to achieve something (28%), to become a master in a game (27%), to immerse in the gaming world (25%), and to get new emotions from the action (24%).
- As in many other countries, mobile devices in Germany are leading by the number of users (43%). Console and PC are having the same share of the audience – 34%.
- Gamers are spending around 5 hours and 6 minutes weekly playing on consoles. 5 hours and 2 minutes playing on PC. And mobile devices are taking 4 hours and 12 minutes weekly.
- Fortnite, Overwatch 1 & 2, and Grand Theft Auto V are leaders in Germany by MAU.
- German gamers like shooters, adventure games, and sports games. Those genres are leaders by MAU.
- 64% of German gamers have been buying something in games in the last half a year. 27% liked the special price, and 25% wanted to unlock unique content. 22% wanted to spend time with friends and family.
Sensor Tower: PUBG Mobile earned $9B lifetime
Numbers are not covering BattleGrounds Mobile India – the local version of PUBG Mobile.
- Players in PUBG Mobile are spending around $5.2M daily.
- From the game launch in March 2018, it reached 1.1B downloads.
- In the first three quarters of 2022 game has been downloaded 104.4M times. Users generated $1.6B of revenue. However, both metrics fell by approximately 27% compared to the same period in 2021.
