There’s a deluge of new data and research to wade through in the mobile games business. Our regular data digest column breaks it all down into digestible chunks.
Read on for the numbers you need to know about minus the fluff.
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Warcraft Rumble closes in on $40m
Blizzard has earned close to $40m from 7.7m Warcraft Rumble downloads to date, says Appmagic, whose estimates do not include Apple and Google’s 30% cut.
The Clash Royale-style WoW spin-off launched on November 3 2023, and after a solid launch week in which it earned roughly $8m, has dropped off somewhat. Monthly earnings dipped below $2m in April, with $1.1m earned in May and $1.7m in June.
Keywords agrees £2.2bn sale
Swedish private equity firm EQT has agreed to acquire UK-based game development services firm Keywords Studios in a deal worth £2.2bn.
The respective boards of EQT-owned company Bidco and Keywords announced the deal this morning, which has an enterprise value of £2.2bn. That’s 15.9 times Keywords’ adjusted EBITDA of £139m for the 12-month period ended 31 December 2023. Investors are set to receive £24.50 per share in cash once the deal is complete.
Squad Busters hits $24m in first 30 days
Pocketgamer.biz has Sensor Tower data on Squad Busters’ performance over its first 30 days, which estimates it has generated $24m in revenue from 40m downloads.
The report also features a graph (above) comparing other Supercell games’ launch performance, which shows Squad Busters way behind Clash Royale (launched in 2016) and at nearly half the revenue of Brawl Stars (launched in 2018).
Only 8% of mobile gamers spend $25 or more monthly
Just 8% of mobile players spend over $25 per month on games. That’s according to an Newzoo report into How consumers engage with games today, which shows that mobile has the smallest proportion of what it calls “high spenders” compared to console and PC. 50% of mobile players don’t spend anything on games.
7% of mobile gamers only or mostly play pay-to-play titles, while 71% only or mostly play free-to-play titles. The remaining 23% are “roughly even”.
Mobile users spent, on average, 1.6 hours per day playing games. That’s lower than the 2.1 on average that PC and console gamers spend. Meanwhile, mobile gamers spend 5.4 hours per week playing on average – in line with console and just below PC’s 5.7 hours. Mobile users spend 3.4 days per week playing games, higher than the 2.6 and 2.7 days for console and PC players.
Monopoly Go passes 140m downloads
Appmagic says Scopely’s flagship game has now passed 140m lifetime downloads.
32% of those downloads are from the US, with France the game’s second biggest market on 6% of lifetime installs. The UK is on 5%, and Malaysia, Germany and Italy are on 4%.
Appmagic’s revenue estimates say Scopely has earned $1.3bn from the game to date, a figure that does not include Apple and Google’s 30% cut or webshop revenue, so gross revenue will be much higher.
Mag Interactive’s net sales drop 20%
Sweden’s Mag Interactive made SEK 70.7m ($16.1m) for the three months ending May 2024. That’s a 20% decline year-on-year, while revenue clocked in at SEK 71m ($6.7m), a 2% dip.
User acquisition costs for the quarter dropped by 35.6% year-on-year, setting Mag Interactive back SEK 12.3m ($1.2m). Meanwhile, adjusted EBITDA came in at SEK 18.2m ($1.7m), a 17% decrease year-on-year.
Star Wars Hunters struggles to $1.2m
Zynga’s big-brand arena shooter is struggling. Having launched on June 4, it earned just over $1.2m from 2m downloads in June, according to Appmagic estimates.
The game has been in development at Zynga-owned NaturalMotion for several years, and was originally slated for a mobile-only release in 2021. It eventually arrived last month on mobile and Switch.
World of Tanks Blitz has made $1bn
Developer and publisher Wargaming says that World of Tanks Blitz has generated over $1bn in revenue since its initial 2014 release. The game has also brought in over 180m players, says Wargaming, though it’s not clear how much of that audience and the revenue generated is on mobile.
61% of devs blame unfair investor expectations for state of the industry
Research from Game Developer Collective – reported by Game Developer – shows that 61% of game creators believe the industry is in a bad state due to “unreasonable investor expectations”.
58% say that mismanagement is responsible for the poor condition of the market, while 41% believe that the blame lies at the cost of developing games being too high.
Garena Free Fire games hit $4bn lifetime revenue
PocketGamer.biz reports that between them, Garena’s Free Fire and Free Fire Max have made over $4bn in revenue over the last seven years.
Of that figure, Free Fire makes up the bulk at $3.4bn. The US was the biggest region for the game, being behind $1.3bn while Brazil came in second place, responsible for $510m.
