Chinese market declined in 2022; the Console market dropped last year; and the UK market showed negative dynamics for the first time in 10 years.
This week:
- inworld.ai: 99% of American gamers do want to see AI NPCs
- China Audiovisual and Digital Publishing Association: Chinese market declined by 10.33% in 2022
- Ampere Analysis: The UK gaming market declined in 2022 for the first time in 10 years
- Microsoft shared the number of Xbox users in the European Union
- Liftoff: Mobile Ad Market Index in 2023
- Warner Bros. Interactive: Hogwarts Legacy sold 12M copies in the first two weeks
- AppMagic: Mobile Gaming Market in 2022
- Ampere Analysis: The console gaming market dropped in 2022; PlayStation 5 is selling almost twice as better as Xbox Series
- Singular: ROI Index in 2023
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inworld.ai: 99% of American gamers do want to see AI NPCs
1,002 gamers from the US between the age of 16 to 50 years have been surveyed. The company behind the survey has an interest in receiving positive results, so it might be biased.
- 99% of respondents are sure that AI-controlled NPCs will make games better.
- 81% are ready to pay more for the game with such a feature. 79% with a higher probability will buy a game with “smart NPCs”; 78% are sure that such NPCs will make them spend more time in the game.
- 84% of surveyed are sure that NPCs are an important part of the game.
- 79% of respondents are speaking with an NPC. 40% are trying to know the lore in detail and going through all available dialogue options. 24% are skipping this part to do the objective.
- The majority of those who completed the survey don’t like in NPCs the following: same dialogues (28%); inability to adapt to the in-game changes (22%); lack of variability.
- 50% of users will be glad if NPCs will remember previous actions and will be in context.
China Audiovisual and Digital Publishing Association: Chinese market declined by 10.33% in 2022
- Market valuation dropped to 265.9B yuan (about $39B).
- The number of users decreased by 0.33% to 664M users.
- The drop is connected with a pause in issuing new licenses and new restrictions for young players.
Ampere Analysis: The UK gaming market declined in 2022 for the first time in 10 years
- The UK market dropped by 1.6% – from £5.47B in 2021 to £5.38B in 2022. The last time decline was registered was in 2012.
- However, analysts are highlighting that the market size in 2022 is 23% larger than in 2019.
- Drop in revenue analysts are connecting with the normalization of consumer behaviors; macroeconomy situation; decline in real income.
- The mobile segment experienced the most significant drop – by 3%. The console market declined by 1%, however, if we exclude subscription services, it will be 3.2%. PC market fell by 1.2%.
- Business model-wise, subscriptions showed a 9.8% growth in 2022. But their share in the overall revenue is still small. In-game purchases & DLCs dropped by 4.1%. The decline was in the Premium model too, by 1.4% – it might be connected to the growing usage of subscriptions.
Microsoft shared the number of Xbox users in the European Union
European Union laws are now telling companies to share such information. All user counts are monthly averages in the last 6 months.
- Xbox.com has about 6M MAU.
- PC Games Store has about 3M MAU.
- Xbox Store is visited by about 4M users monthly.
- It’s fair to consider, that the overall monthly audience of Xbox in the European Union is from 5 to 7 million.
Liftoff: Mobile Ad Market Index in 2023
The data were collected from 1 January 2022 to 1 January 2023. The research is based on trillion impressions; 24.5B clicks, and 240M installs.
CPI by ad formats in games
- Interstitial – $11,29. That’s the most expensive placement.
- Native Ads – $6,09.
- Banners – $5,48.
- Video – $4,93.
- Playable – $1,31. That’s the cheapest format according to Liftoff.
CPI comparison by ad formats, Android vs. iOS
- Interstitial – $16,01 on iOS and $8,97 on Android.
- Banners – $9,49 on iOS and $2,21 on Android.
- Video – $9,38 on iOS and $2,48 on Android.
- Native Ads – $6,9 on iOS and $5,46 on Android.
- Playables – $6,17 on iOS and $0,73 on Android.
Day 7 ROAS by ad formats
- Native ad formats – 18% D7 ROAS.
- Banners – 17% D7 ROAS.
- Interstitial – 15% D7 ROAS.
- Video – 14% D7 ROAS.
- Playables – 12% D7 ROAS.
General recommendations by Liftoff
- Do not use the art style in ad materials (especially for mid-core titles) that differs from what is used in the game. It will increase churn.
- Users like to see the progression in ad creatives – customization and level-up.
- Long video creatives are working better than short ones. In some cases, the difference was up to 50%.
Warner Bros. Interactive: Hogwarts Legacy sold 12M copies in the first two weeks
- Hogwarts Legacy already earned $850M of revenue.
- The game had 1.28 concurrent players at peak.
- Hogwarts Legacy became the most popular single-player game on Twitch on launch.
AppMagic: Mobile Gaming Market in 2022
AppMagic shared a report which includes some genres’ numbers, stats, and dynamics in 2022. Games with $50k+ monthly revenue are named as a success.
Merge-2
100 games released in 2022; 6 successful. Success Rate – 6%.
- The genre grew by 102% YoY by revenue.
- Half of the monthly genre revenue ($14.8m) is generated by one game – Merge Mansion ($7.4M in December 2022).
Match-3 Tile
280 games released in 2022; 6 successful. Success Rate – 2.2%.
- Genre monthly revenue reached $16M (+85% YoY).
- $10.1M of this amount is generated by one game – Triple Match 3D.
- Genre downloads fell down by 12% YoY.
Idle Tycoon
241 games released in 2022; 10 successful. Success Rate – 4.2%
- Genre revenue increased by 30% YoY.
- AppMagic analysts consider the genre as a perspective with a notion that new projects are growing by revenue, and old ones are declining. There are no signs of stagnation.
Farming Games
55 games released in 2022; 1 successful. Success Rate – 1.8%.
- Genre revenue increased by 11%, but old titles generated it.
Survival Arena
134 games released in 2022; 4 successful. Success Rate – 3%.
Shooters
678 games released in 2022; 4 successful. Success Rate – 0.6%.
- Genre revenue dropped during the year by almost 25%.
Hypercasual games
18,395 games released in 2022; 157 successful (with 500k+ monthly downloads). Success Rate – 0.85%.
- Overall downloads dropped by 15% YoY.
Ampere Analysis: The console gaming market dropped in 2022; PlayStation 5 is selling almost twice as better as Xbox Series
Ampere Analysis due to the instability of the dollar rate in 2022 is using two numbers – traditional and constant currency.
Market
- The console gaming market declined from $60.9B in 2021 to $56.2B in 2022. The drop is 7.8% (or 2.1% in constant currency).
- Overall console gaming market size is 18% larger than in pre-pandemic 2019.
- Gaming services (subscriptions) is the only segment that shows positive dynamics. The growth was by 5.6% (10.9% in constant currency) – from $7.4B to $7.8B.
- Content sales declined by 9.3% (3.4% in constant currency) – from $36B to $32.6B.
- Hardware sales dropped by 10.3% (5% in constant currency) – from $17.6B to $15.8B.
Main console manufacturers
- Sony’s share of the market is 45%; Nintendo is holding 27.7%; Microsoft got 27.3%.
- Microsoft’s share in 2022 increased by 1.8%. Sony lost 1.3% of the market; Nintendo – 0.5%.
Console sales
- PlayStation 5 sales in 2022 reached 30M. Xbox Series is far behind with 18.5M consoles sold.
- Nintendo Switch sales by the end of 2022 reached 119.5M. Analysts are positive that Nintendo will announce a new console in 2024.
Gaming content sales on consoles
- Subscriptions is the only type of content that grew in 2022 (from $7.4B to $7.8B). Once again, the growth was 5.6% (10.9% in constant currency).
- In-game purchases and DLC sales dropped by 14.7% (10.1% in constant currency) – from $13.8B in 2021 to $11.8B in 2022.
- Premium game sales declined by 5.9% (but grew by 0.8% in constant currency) – from $22.2B in 2021 to $20.9B in 2022.
Singular: ROI Index in 2023
The company is basing its research on 100B+ clicks; $10B+ spent, and $10B+ installs.
- AppLovin, Google Ads, Meta, Moloco, and TikTok are the best ad channels for iOS by ROI.
- AppLovin, Google Ads, ironSource, Meta, and Mistplay are the best ad channels for Android by ROI.
- Blind Ferret, Meta, Mistplay, Snapchat, and Unity are the best ad channels for Android by Retention.
- Advertisers’ spending on iOS was recovering throughout 2022. In January 2022 Android was responsible for 64% of spending; 36% was on iOS. At the end of 2022, Android share declined to 53%, iOS grew to 47%.
- According to Magna, the mobile ads market growth in 2023 in the US will be 3.7%. It’s lower than in 2022 (+4.5%) and significantly differs from 2021 (+14.9%).
- Search UA share increased from 34% at the beginning of 2022 to 40% by the end of 2022.
