Mobile Games (Global Market)

• Mobile games
• Mobile games (Russian market)
• Computer and video games (Russian market)
• Computer and video games (global market)
• Video game industry in Spain

2020

Mobile Game Sales Leader Rating, Russian Company Playrix in the TOP 3 - App Annie

Playrix, founded by brothers from Vologda Igor and Dmitry Bukhmanov, was one of the three largest developers of mobile games in 2020. This is evidenced by the data of the analytical agency App Annie, published in early February 2021.

Compared to 2019, Playrix has risen four positions in revenue among global mobile game publishers. The company was ahead of the American Activision Blizzard, the publisher of the Call of Duty shooter. The first and second places in annual revenue in the App Annie ranking were left behind by Chinese Tencent and NetEase respectively, they occupy them for the last four years. App Annie does not disclose developer revenues.

Rating of the largest developers of mobile games according to the results of 220 years (App Annie data)

The App Annie rating takes into account company revenues from app downloads and internal purchases through the App Store and Google Play platforms. At the same time, developers' revenues from advertising in applications and subscriptions distributed not through application stores are not taken into account. At the end of 2020, the top 5 of the EMEA region was headed by Playrix, and the third place was taken by Mail.ru Group, which in the overall standings is located in 51st position.

App Annie analysts associated the Playrix dig with the casual games Gardenscapes and Fishdom, which do not require special skills from the player and are designed for a wide audience. According to the Sensor Tower service, in January 2021, Android users downloaded Gardenscapes 11 million times, and iOS users 2 million times, which brought the creators of the game $48 million.

Playrix was ready for quarantine restrictions - remote work processes were set up for a long time, explained to RBC the success of the company its marketing director Alexander Derkach. According to him, in 2020 the number of downloads of all Playrix games increased: Gardenscapes and Fishdom - two and three times, respectively, to 190 million and 130 million downloads.^{[1] [2]}

Market growth to $85 billion

AppsFlyer: demand for gaming applications in the world increased by 45%

On November 12, 2020, it became known that the company AppsFlyer published a report on The State of Gaming App Marketing, 2020 Edition, dedicated to the state of affairs in the mobile game segment in the first three quarters of 2020. The base for the study was 9.2 billion application installations. Marketers will be able to draw from the report the results of an in-depth analysis of data, main industry trends and opportunities for growth at the global level, as well as the indicators of the 16 largest world markets.

Games have long been the driving force of the mobile application segment, but the pandemic helped them reach a completely different level: compared to 2019, the number of installations in 2020 increased by 45%. This is 40% higher than last year's growth.

In our report, we note a sharp increase in the number of users trying mobile gaming for the first time, but in the current conditions this is not surprising. For example, the number of game installations in the Hyper Casual segment (hypercasual games) increased by 90%, with an increase in the number of inorganic installations in this case reaching 250%, "said Adam Smart, director of products for the gaming segment in AppsFlyer. - It is important that developers of game applications realized in time the opportunity to increase their user base and took full advantage of this trend.

The mobile game segment was able to maintain high revenue figures in the months after the end of spring lockdowns. This was due to the high level of involvement of users who installed applications at the beginning of the pandemic. User spending on app purchases began to rise in March, peaked in May, up 25% from February 2020, and then rose again in July.

Main facts:

• 25 percent increase in IAP revenue (app purchases) during quarantine due to COVID-19. This growth was mainly caused by the segment of casual games, in which revenues increased by 55% and remained at a high level until August. During the analysis, it was found that users became less tolerant of advertising in applications, but are ready to spend more in them. Therefore, in conditions where mobile advertising loses its effectiveness, marketers should focus their efforts on this indicator.
• For the period from February to August 2020, IAP revenues increased by 67%. At the same time, the IAA indicator (advertising revenue in applications), on the contrary, decreased by 16% over the same period.
• The number of inorganic installations in the hypercasual games segment increased by 250%. The increase is due to the fact that many players first tried mobile games during the pandemic? And marketers took note of it.
• The cost of advertising resources during the pandemic grew in all regions and categories of games - for example, in the United States they increased by 35%. By September, marketing efforts decreased by 42%, as a result of which the number of inorganic installations decreased to 8.3% (from 14.2% in April).
• The most significant growth factor was the active involvement of users in the early stages of the pandemic. This allowed the mobile gaming segment to remain successful even after the number of new installations began to decline.

Although in the first few quarters of 2020 there was a significant increase in the number of installations in the mobile gaming segment, it is obvious that the market still has something to work on, "said Brian Murphy, head of mobile gaming in AppsFlyer. - The total number of application installations during this period also increased, and many large brands from non-gaming segments returned to the market, which led to a sharp increase in the cost of advertising resources. This means that marketers need to look for less costly product promotion strategies. Another problem can be considered remarketing, which receives very little attention, although re-engagement of users in 2020 has become one of the key sources of income growth.

Large emerging markets, such as Brazil, Indonesia and India, and to some extent Russia and Vietnam, are experiencing one of the highest growth rates in attracting solvent users. This corresponds to the general forecasts for the market for 2020, so it is not surprising for analysts. Moreover, the influence of COVID-19 in this case practically does not change the situation in these markets.

Also during the quarantine period on iOS devices in Europe, an 18 percent increase in revenue from purchases in applications was noted. But subsequently this indicator decreased by 32%, primarily due to the Russian market segment. In the Android ecosystem, respectively, there was a 6% increase in income, and then a 14% drop. Also in the region there is a decrease in advertising revenue in applications (IAA).

Decline in advertising revenue in applications (IAA) from April 2020. First of all, the trend is noticeable in the segments of hardcore games and social casinos

According to the researcher, perhaps the explosive success of the mobile game segment will become the "new norm," because in 2020 the revenues from it remain steadily high, although in 2019 they showed a downward trend. But the market remains uncertain about the long-term economic consequences of the pandemic and other factors, including, for example, changes in App Tracking Transparency in the iOS14 version.

The State of Gaming App Marketing Report, 2020 Edition is based on a collection of anonymous data on 9.2 billion inorganic installations of a sample of 13,000 applications, each of which recorded more than 3,000 inorganic installations each month in 2020. When dividing games into groups, the following categories of application stores were used: Hyper Casual, Casual, Midcore, Hardcore and Social Casino (hypercasual, casual, midcore, hardcore and social casino).

2019

Mobile gaming accounts for 45% of the gaming market

The video game industry has experienced steady growth in recent years, especially thanks to mobile games, which at that time account for 45 percent of its total global income.

$88 billion was revenue from games distributed according to the freemium model

Revenue from freemium games

Notes