An Insider Look with AppAnnie, AppsFlyer, Appsumer and GameRefinery

To uncover more trends in app download, user behaviour and gamer motivation — Part Two

We continue with the penultimate 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 ironSource 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 (Read here)
• Trends in Gamer Behavior, Motivations, and App Download with App Annie, Appsflyer, GameRefinery and Appsumer — Part Two
• Trends in Creatives and Performance Marketing with N3twork, Miniclip, Tripledot Studios, ironSource and Luna Labs

In this article, we follow the same theme as last week’s, except with new insights from Gary Bartlett from Appsumer, Igal Frid from AppsFlyer, Amir Ghodrati from AppAnnie and Joel Julkunen from GameRefinery on trends in gamer motivation, app downloads, and user behaviour.

Gamer Motivation

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

GameRefinery: There are a lot of individual titles that have been able to pinpoint their core audience’s key motivations and offer them experiences that increase engagement and spending.

On a larger scale, I’d like to highlight the narrative and decoration driven Match3 games that Playrix was able to shoot up the charts over the last couple of years. Adding narrative and decorative meta-layers to casual Match3 was ingenious, as it tapped into a whole new motivation driver (expression and emotions) that was something their core audience was looking for but hasn’t found in other casual Match3 games. The rest is history, as this year there have been dozens of these narrative/decoration Match3s entering the market and reaching high top grossing positions — all thanks to a thorough understanding of player motivations!

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?

GameRefinery: Recently the importance of understanding player motivations has been clearly on the rise and the industry is talking about it a lot. This is likely caused by constantly increasing competition but also by the mobile game market maturing, in addition to the growing role of data as a whole. It’s clear that if you neglect this part of the game design process, you’re giving away competitive advantage to those who are paying attention to player motivations.

In addition, due to isolation and social distancing, people spend more time with games, but also with other entertainment (Netflix, Instagram etc.) so this makes it even more important for game developers to understand why people are drawn towards their game versus some other form of entertainment. Introducing new content, features and events that tap into these exact motivations are a great way to increase player engagement and rise as a winner in this unique situation.

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?

Appsumer: The start of Covid-19 was an interesting one for mobile gaming. From the data that we saw, it was clear that playtime spiked massively. This increased ability to spend more time in a mobile gaming session meant that sub-genres such as adventure, RPG, and especially some of the larger and newer FPS titles did very well. We noticed too, that more casual games, although performing very well, took a small hit with other metrics. It’s also worth noting that spend spiked massively for gaming across the board, they really took their opportunity to fill the void left by advertisers that stopped due to the crisis.

Appsflyer: An overall growth across gaming sub-genres was seen during March, with nearly a 40% increase of overall downloads between March 9th and March 23rd. The most significant spike happened among Casual (+59%) and Midcore (+37%) games, that despite a decrease later on, stayed at higher numbers compared to pre-COVID-19 days.

App Annie: Casual, Action and Board games drove the most quarter-over-quarter download growth as consumers sought games to help pass the time and connect them to family and friends during lockdowns.

Which game genre has the most downloads now?

Appsumer: You only have to look at the top of the charts to see that hyper-casual is heavily dominating the top 10. There should be honourable mention to FPS and Trivia, and to some of the old-school and well established casual titles, especially in the endless runner category.

Appsflyer: Midcore is the most downloaded genre, leading both organic and non-organic installs globally.

What should we know about game downloads in general?

AppAnnie: In the first week of Q2 2020, weekly mobile game downloads broke records at over 1.2 billion, and weekly download levels remained at 1 billion on average throughout the quarter, up 25% year over year.

On iOS, new game downloads grew 20% year over year to nearly 3B. Game downloads on Google Play grew 25% year over year, amounting to over 11B downloads in Q2 2020, accounting for nearly 8 of every game downloaded across the app stores. In fact, games accounted for a higher share of overall downloads on Google Play than on iOS at 45% and 30%, respectively. For an analysis of the app market overall, check out our Q2 2020 app market index.

In terms of geo-specific trends, on Google Play, India and Brazil were the largest markets by game downloads, while India and Indonesia had the largest growth of absolute downloads quarter over quarter.

Gamer Behaviour

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

AppAnnie: Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, we’ve seen a vast acceleration of trends that were already in action across mobile — mobile as the core experience. A critical component is that mobile gaming has provided a channel not only for entertainment but also social connection as people are urged to stay home and practice social distancing.

What has surprised you the most?

AppAnnie: How quickly some companies have been able to adjust to new needs from consumers and tap into the greater need for shared experiences. Food delivery apps had to quickly adapt to contactless delivery, which both had to be implemented within the app itself and communicated to consumers both in the app and in advertising. For gaming, there’s a focus on incorporating not just multiplayer functionality, but also the ability to chat with friends. If not within the game itself, then by using apps like Discord or partnering with other social media platforms.

Niantic continued to emphasize social components of Pokémon GO, but they also added tracking of indoor steps, increased the number of items you can get when you spend on the game and how long the items last, and generally updated the game to better optimize it for playing at home instead of on the go.

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

AppAnnie: Time spent on mobile per day has already jumped up across the world during COVID-19 to 4 hours and 20 minutes per day on average — up from 3 hours and 40 minutes per day in 2019. Mobile is a reflection of our daily lives — what is important to us at that moment. During the Coronavirus pandemic, one thing is certain: we are turning to mobile, now more than ever before to stay connected, informed, entertained and healthy. And since this behaviour is an acceleration of existing trends, we expect that many of these mobile gamers will be much more likely to stick around even without shelter in place.

How have players been responding to in-game ads?

AppAnnie: We’ve seen that players have been quite open to in-game ads, as long as the ads are implemented in the right way. It’s essential to maintain a positive experience for gamers and the best way to do that is often to give them a reason to be excited about the ads. We’ve seen that gamers on mobile, especially core gamers, were especially receptive to rewarded video ads. As mobile ad spend continues to climb, so does the overall potential for the industry. We expect consumers to spend nearly 50% more on mobile games than on PC/Mac, consoles, and handheld consoles combined in 2020. Ad revenue will just increase the size of the overall pie.

What trends have you seen for consumer spending across different geos?

AppAnnie: The United States, Japan and South Korea were the largest contributors to consumer spend on Google Play in Q2 2020, with the US and Japan also being the main drivers of growth. On iOS, the United States took back the top position as the largest market for consumer spend in games — previously held by China in Q1 2020 — growing 30% quarter over quarter. With games downloads reaching an all-time high during the pandemic, this increase in demand likely had a spillover effect, driving growth in consumer spend. As some markets enact more stringent social distancing policies, others relax lockdown regulations, one thing is clear: the demand for mobile games is here to stay.

What genres are leading the way in consumer spend?

On Google Play, Role Playing and Strategy games were the largest genres by consumer spend in Q2 2020. These genres often offer multiplayer and competitive online play along with social mechanics. As people look to stay entertained and connected with friends while social distancing amidst the pandemic, multiplayer mobile games were in high demand.

Consumer spend in Role Playing games were led by Lineage 2M, the latest mobile version of the popular Lineage 2 MMORPG series, which was #1 grossing among all games on Google Play for the second straight quarter after its initial launch in late 2019.

Casual and Strategy games were the next main drivers of quarter-over-quarter growth in consumer spend on Google Play, with Coin Master and Rise of Kingdoms leading growth in each category respectively.

On iOS, Role Playing, Action and Strategy games were the largest genres for absolute consumer spend. In terms of quarter-over-quarter growth, Adventure games — led by virtual world-building game, ROBLOX — drove the most growth from Q1 2020.

Quarantined consumers also set new quarterly records for consumer spend in mobile games, with $19.5B spent on purchases through the app stores in Q2 2020 — the largest quarter ever. By the end of 2020, mobile game spending is set to extend its lead over desktop and home console gaming to more than 2.8x and 3.1x, respectively. — solidifying that mobile gaming is in a league of its own.

TLDR;

• Spend spiked massively for gaming across the board.
• The most significant spike in downloads happened among Casual (+59%) and Midcore (+37%) games.
• Overall, mid-core has been the most downloaded genre, leading both organic and non-organic installs, globally.
• Time spent on mobile per day increased across the world during COVID-19 to an average of 4 hours and 20 minutes per day.
• Gamers on mobile, especially core gamers, were especially receptive to rewarded video ads.
• Consumers will most likely spend nearly 50% more on mobile games than on PC/Mac, consoles, and handheld consoles combined in 2020.
• During the first week of Q2 2020, weekly mobile game downloads broke records at over 1.2 billion and then remained at 1 billion on average per week throughout the quarter.
• Games accounted for a higher share of overall downloads on Google Play than on iOS at 45% and 30% respectively.
• On Google Play, Casual, Action and Board games drove the most quarter-over-quarter download growth.
• The United States, Japan and South Korea were the largest contributors to consumer spend on Google Play in Q2 2020, with the US and Japan also being the main drivers of growth.
• In Q2 2020, Role Playing and Strategy games were the largest genres by consumer spend on Google Play. As for iOS, it was Role Playing, Strategy and Action games.
• Adventure games on iOS had the strongest quarter-over-quarter growth in consumer spend, spearheaded by Roblox.

Next week, we’ll be discussing the last two trends of our grand analysis, performance marketing and creatives, alongside N3twork, Miniclip and Tripledot Studios!