In this episode of Mobile Growth & Pancakes, Jonathan Fishman is joined by Lexi Sydow, Head of Insights at data.ai. They discuss the state of mobile gaming specifically as we head into 2023, why gaming companies see a decrease in revenues, and how that should affect game marketers or publishing teams in the next six to twelve months.
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“In the gaming industry, mobile is still on track to be sixty percent of all spending in games, which doesn’t include advertiser spending”
Lexi Sydow
Key takeaways:
- The public earnings reports from some large gaming companies reveal a decrease in revenues and the number of active players. However, the mobile game industry experienced the highest level of downloads in the third quarter of 2022. Across iOS and Google Play globally, there were about 38.7 billion downloads, which is the biggest quarter these app stores have seen. When you look at games specifically, there are about fifteen billion downloads.
- However, the industry also saw consumer spending for games drop by nine percent. Covid was a catalyst for most of the consumer’s mobile behavior, particularly for spending on games. Now, that peak has begun to soften, along with the rise of inflation hitting consumers’ wallets.
- On the flip side, some categories have grown on mobile, including digital communities. Mobile gaming has grown during the pandemic and has become a social connector and community enabler.
- Though consumers spend less, in the long-term, the mobile gaming industry is on a continual upward trajectory, especially as innovation continues in the space and more PC or console games migrate to mobile. There is still a lot of space for the industry to grow.
- When categorizing mobile games in terms of winners and losers, data.ai looks at downloads, consumer spending directly through net purchases, and time spent. For downloads, hyper-casual mobile games are booming.
- Even if we experience a recession, as some experts predict, mobile brands will not cut off all their marketing and UA efforts. Instead, they will focus on specific marketing areas, and double down on brand advertising.
