Q&A with Newzoo, Quantic Foundry and Adjust

The latest trends in gamer motivations, gamer behaviour, and app downloads from industry experts

We continue with the third instalment of our five-part analysis that features all the latest trends and developments in the mobile gaming industry.

To get you all the insights you need (and from the folks who know best), we teamed up with Luna Labs and interviewed 21 different industry experts from multiple areas.

Here’s a quick glimpse into the areas we cover:

• Trends in Monetization Mechanics, Product Design, and Social Gaming with Snap, GameRefinery, Department of Play and Liquid & Grit. (Read here)
• Trends in Investment and Mergers & Acquisitions with Play Ventures, Deconstructor of Fun, Elite Game Developers and Mail.Ru Game Ventures (Read here)
• Trends in Gamer Behavior, Motivations, and App Download with Newzoo, Quantic Foundry and Adjust — Part One
• Trends in Gamer Behavior, Motivations, and App Download with GameRefinery, App Annie, Appsflyer and Appsumer — Part Two
• Trends in Creatives and Performance Marketing with N3twork, Tripledot Studios, ironSource and Luna Labs

This week, we sat down with Nick Yee from Quantic Foundry, Moshi Blum from Adjust, and Tom Wijman from Newzoo to discuss trends in gamer motivation, app download and gamer behavior.

Gamer Motivation

Have you seen changes in gamer preferences since Covid-19? For instance, has there been a spike in users playing games with a focus on social/community features, or fantasy games as people look for a form of escapism?

Quantic Foundry: We have a long-running gamer motivation profile app where gamers can take a survey and receive a personalized report of their gaming motivations and how it compares with other gamers.

In comparing the time period from January 2019-March 2020 vs. April — June 2020, we found that what changed the most was the appeal of “challenges” (difficulty, skill-based gates, challenging missions and bosses) and “excitement” (fast-pacing, adrenaline rush, thrilling action) — both decreased but only marginally so. In other words, there was a tiny effect that COVID had on gamers preferring more relaxing, less challenging gameplay.

It bears noting that we can’t experimentally assign gamers to COVID and non-COVID groups. In this case, we can only work with correlational data, and that isn’t the same as directly showing a causal effect.

In a time of isolation policies and social distancing measures, how might game developers leverage gamer motivations to create engaging products?

Quantic Foundry: Given gaming motivations haven’t changed in substantive ways since COVID, understanding how shelter-in-place norms have shifted our social spaces may lead to more developers designing games that make the most of the situation. For example, family members are more likely to be available for local co-op gameplay.

Also, mobile is no longer the only go-to gaming device as people are now at home all the time, surrounding themselves with their PCs/consoles.

Are there any games that stand out in terms of how effectively they are catering to particular gamer motivations?

Quantic Foundry: Using the analogy of natural ecosystems, some animals are more generalists while others are more specialists, which are all successful from an ecological perspective. The same applies to gamer motivations and design.

Gamers fall in bell curves along the gaming motivations — many are close to average but a few have very extreme preferences on both ends. Some games specialize and target more niche genres (e.g. grand strategy games like Europa Universalis), whereas other games try to appeal to a broader gamer population with more mainstream mechanics or allows multiple styles of play (e.g., Skyrim or World of Warcraft). Both strategies (and many in between) are equally effective in what they’re trying to do.

In the mobile gaming industry, do you think developers place enough focus on understanding what motivates gamers, and how to design games around this? If not, why should they?

Quantic Foundry: In the mobile space, there’s often a stronger emphasis on behavioral variables and KPIs because many of these are standardized and are automatically tracked by a variety of platforms and dashboards.

A common perspective is that behavioral data is more important than understanding motivations when the data is available. But, one thing to keep in mind is that behavior and motivation are different things. For example, if your game doesn’t offer many storytelling options or variations in pacing, then there wouldn’t be any server-side variables to understand how variations of Story or Excitement might appeal to or grow your audience. In other words, you can only track what’s already implemented in the game. We’ve worked with game companies that had hundreds of metrics for guns and bullets used, but no metrics for any engagement with the narrative.

What people do and why they do it are also two different things. To provide you with a real life example, we worked with a company where they had a Shooter game with poor retention — the gamers that left the earliest had the worst performance metrics (low kill rate, high death rate, low mission success). The dev team interpreted these players as newbies who needed a better tutorial; whereas, our analysis found the exact opposite. These high-churn gamers were actually genre veterans who preferred a more frenetic and run-and-gun play style. But, they were penalized because the game was asking them to constantly seek cover. As a result, having a better tutorial would have frustrated these gamers even more.

KPIs and dashboards are good at telling you the “what”, but motivations are important for understanding the “why”.

You might be interested in: Gamer Motivations: 4 Surprising Findings

App Downloads

At the start of Covid-19, did you see an interesting/unusual spike in downloads for a specific game genre? If so, which one?

Adjust: In general, the entire mobile games vertical experienced a rising trend in installs and usage during the height of COVID-19 (between March and April 2020). User behavior shifted during this time to adjust to the new normal of quarantine and working from home. These new behavioral patterns, along with a decrease in advertising demand from other verticals (for example, from transportation and travel apps) created an opportunity for growth.

Of course, within the games vertical, there were subcategories that showed a higher growth trend — for example, Educational (396% growth from Jan to March or April), Trivia (281%), Family (241%), Arcade (157%), and Board (141%). It’s also worth mentioning that these five subcategories lead the way if we compare growth for organic installs only. This is partly due to the symbiotic effect paid and organic have, and partly due to the type of games people search to download during the increased family or “lockdown” time they had.

Nevertheless, the fact that a mobile game is categorized as “education” does not automatically contribute to the 394% growth rate. These numbers are averages among top-performing games and underperforming games, and the growth rate only indicates one dimension of growth — user acquisition (downloads). Many apps, especially the bigger ones, focus instead on improving their game retention and reengaging with dormant users as a way to unlock growth potential.

Which game genre has the most downloads now?

Adjust: The simple answer is the hyper-casual genre and categories such as Action, Puzzle, Sports, and Casual.

However, it’s important to note that the hyper-casual genre leads in terms of downloads due to the unique nature of the business model. The business model is based on high volumes of new users, quick turnarounds, and carefully set monetization mechanisms to capture the LTV of the user within a short period of time; usually between 4–14 days depending on the average retention of the game.

Compare it with other genres where retention is much higher per cohort of users. The cost of acquisition is therefore much higher and the efforts invested in unlocking the monetization potential of each user are more extensive. With other genres, the monetization strategy is based on in-app purchases — and this can limit the potential audience for the game. Hyper casuals on the other hand are free-to-play with no payment barriers — so the potential audience is much broader.

Which marketing channels, would you say, are currently the largest by download count?

Adjust: It depends on the game genre and the audience the advertiser is looking to acquire. As always, Facebook and Google lead the list. However, Unity Ads, AppLovin, ironSource, Mintegral, and Vungle have also been fueling the hyper-casual genre and provide solutions to the rest of the genres.

It’s also interesting to follow TikTok’s rise, as it joins Snapchat, Apple Search Ads, and Twitter in becoming an alternative to Google and Facebook.

Nevertheless, every subcategory has its own leaders. For example, in the Casino subcategory, DSPs are relatively more predominant than others. Therefore, app advertisers should test the available traffic sources to define the best network portfolio for their app regardless of any global ranking.

Has there also been a huge discrepancy in game installs per region? If so, how?

Adjust: Surprisingly, when you examine the entire gaming vertical, there is no big change in trends between the four main regions (APAC, EMEA, NA, and LATAM): they behave very similarly. This is especially remarkable considering COVID-19 hit the regions at different times — with APAC going into lockdown as early as January, and EMEA and NA going into lockdown around mid-March.

When you see the data divided into sub-categories, there are many outliers. Several subcategories peaked in different regions at different times while others continue to rise regardless of the COVID19.

Gamer Behaviour

What has been the most interesting shift in behaviour you’ve seen in 2020?

Newzoo: I would nominate two things:

First, it’s the massive spike in users for cloud gaming solutions, according to our partnerships. We had anticipated that users would be interested as cloud gaming solutions provide the perfect entry point for someone new to gaming that’s not ready to invest in a console or gaming PC immediately. But, the increased interest outpaced our expectations easily.

Secondly, the fact that Xbox and PlayStation units sold so fast throughout the lockdown period, even if the consoles are both due to be replaced at the end of year. I think it’s the first time that, during the same year of a next generation console launch, we see year-on-year growth in console hardware sales.

What has surprised you the most?

Newzoo: Perhaps the use of games as a way to socialize with friends, even for non-gamers. For example, the sale records of Animal Crossing has skyrocketed (which resulted in the Nintendo Switch being sold out globally). There’s also been a return of browser-based games, such as Jackbox Party games, etc..

According to a survey we did in March, more free time was (obviously) the main reason for people playing more, but socializing and meeting friends and family were the second and third reasons indicated by respondents.

How have playtime and retention rate changed since Covid-19? Has it been consistent per region?

Newzoo: Consistently, playtime and retention have shot up. There’s a clear correlation between lockdown measurements in various regions and a spike in player engagement immediately following it. From our perspective at Newzoo, retention will be a key challenge in the months following the pandemic.

We’ve already seen a drop in player engagement in certain regions after lockdown measurements have been loosened there. This is particularly applicable to mobile games. After all, the low barrier to entry translates into a low barrier to exit (or in this case, stop playing).

TLDR;

• There hasn’t been any significant increase in gamers preferring more relaxing and less challenging gameplay since COVID.
• KPIs and behavioral data are good at telling you the “what”, but motivations are important for understanding “why” your players perform certain actions.
• Educational games had the highest spike in downloads (+396% from Jan — April) during the height of COVID.
• Action, Puzzle, Sports and Hyper-casual games have the most downloads now.
• TikTok, Snapchat, Apple Search and Twitter Ads are becoming alternatives to Google and Facebook ads.
• Although COVID–19 hit geos at different times, there hasn’t been a huge discrepancy in game installs between the four main regions: APAC, EMEA, NA, and LATAM.
• There’s been a massive spike in users downloading cloud gaming solutions.
• People started to play more games to socialise and meet with their friends and family.
• Retention will be a key challenge in the months following the pandemic.

Next week, we’ll be uncovering more trends on gamer behaviour, motivations, and app downloads, but with GameRefinery, App Annie, Appsflyer and Appsumer!