Began 2020 and the Weekly global number of games downloaded right in the week of Feb 23, 2020 turned out to be 20% higher than the average weekly level, which was set in the Q4 of 2019. China had the biggest week in 2019 in terms of Games downloads on iOS in between the dates of Feb 2-8, 2020.
Now with Coronavirus making people stay glued to their mobile screens and sit idol at home, it is obvious that more consumers will try out mobile gaming more and make 2020 the biggest year to date for mobile gaming.
Mobile Gaming Leaving Behind Computers and Consoles
In 2019, mobile gaming outpaced all forms of gaming - whether the competition was with consoles or PC/MAC gaming. The total spend turned out to be 2.4x more than PC/MAC gaming and 2.9x more than that of home consoles. Besides that, we also saw franchises like Call of Duty and Mario Kart tour shifting to the mobile platform because they knew that mobile was about to democratize gaming and give anyone the opportunity to enjoy their favorite games with heavy graphics on mobile anytime, anywhere.But that was still just a start!
Expansion of Market Will Only Benefit Publishers More
With an in-depth research by App Annie regarding the type the of games that are capturing the attention of users, 47% of the top 100 game downloads in 2019 were casual arcade games and core games came around 18%, with 55% time spent in top games.However, when it came to the matter of consumer spend (as highlighted in chart below), core games dominated the category with 76% consumer spends. Much of the credit for this success goes to the nature of core games as gamers get engaged in all sorts of customization, competitive online play and even season pass memberships.
The total spend overall doesn’t belong to the big publishers only anymore. There are emerging players who have also crossed $5 million annual consumer spend with amazing games. Moreover, the total number of games crossing $100 million annual consumer spend also experienced a 29% growth in 2019 when compared with 2017- where it all began.
Moving Forward...
As the prediction regarding mobile gaming surpassing $100 million in consumer spend goes on, this mark can be achieved with following the trends with great precision and more engaging games. The publishers have started off well with their research and will continue to inspire the emerging companies to create great games with a massive mobile gaming market out there, a lot still is left to be done in order to astonish the world with the potential that mobile gaming holds.Read next: The Surprisingly Long History of eSports (infographic)
