Mobile (Gacha) Market Tracking
- Thread starter Vena
- Replies 802
- Views 50,277
- Start date
- Market Research
To be fair, the majority of a mobile game's budget is being spent on advertising. If it isn't Temu, the ads I get are predominantly mobile games.
- Thread starter
- #603
Different market. Mobile is heavy advertising at the top. See: Monopoly GO, RAID, Dragonball, and Genshin/HSR.
These games spend more on advertising than on the product. And they do it year-round. Smaller games much less so but you'll still see the odd Arknights commercial here or there, or a commercial about a collab or big anniversary event. (Smaller games are in effect crowded out by the big names who flood media with ads, driving up price and also decreasing overall return/engagement.)
This doesn't happen too frequently in console/PC space, and a lot of PC hits have focused but limited marketing campaigns.
- Pronouns
- She/Her
I really doubt Acheron can compare to raiden.
What was bin in those early days was the archons and still are now, a central unit everything is designed around.
Both in lore and in gameplay
Star rail has nothing like it, Genshin has introduced other collectable factions now as well. But having that central push around 1 character imo is what really pushed it up.
Star rail is comparatively decentralized with its characters, all of them have equal importance for the most part and there’s no pure central character all hype is centred around.
kokomi and yoimiya’s launches were downright negligible because they came after and before the big one respectively, Acheron doesn't have that power cause there’s nothing external to her own character hyping her up really.
- Pronouns
- She/Her
im not knocking them for trying, they just went on an insane spree that was likely their biggest advertising campaign ever and didn't pay off at all,
Star Rail does have archon equivalents (emanators) but, I think there has only been one proper one so far. The Genius Society is technically Erudition's emanators but I don't think they have demonstrated the real power of one. Honkai has a bit too complicated story to fit nicely in the king and nation framework. If you looked at Genshin, most everyone neatly fell into their nation groups while there are nations in Star Rail, there are major international groups between the crew of the Express and the Stellaron Hunters. Some of the new characters like Topaz and Argenti aren't tied with any of the existing groups on top of that so it makes very messy and hard to have a truly central character and makes identifying the groups extremely messy,
- Thread starter
- #607
Do you think it's actually more than the release window of HSR? I was getting bombarded by the "ARE YOU SICK" ad incessantly during that period. And they were releasing a ton of videos/promos and paying a lot of streamers to stream the game on release.
It was just a tongue-in-cheek comment about Mihoyo going way too hard on the other side of the marketing budget spectrum
.I agree. They're trying to give their game a second chance at success instead of just killing it fast, it's a good thing in and of itself. They just went overboard on the ad campaign.
- Thread starter
- #609
It was just a tongue-in-cheek comment about Mihoyo going way too hard on the other side of the marketing budget spectrum
I agree. They're trying to give their game a second chance at success instead of just killing it fast, it's a good thing in and of itself. They just went overboard on the ad campaign.
To be fair, it's not just MHY. RAID has been the meme advertise everywhere game before MHY came to the scene, now MHY and RAID are the meme.
- Pronouns
- She/Her
I think so to be honest, not because of the quantity but the price of the ads they did do.
they are really trying to get star rail to be a midstream thing like genshin and not just the biggest fish in the gacha pond
they also still sponsored streamers all through 1.x
i just think star rail is a pretty bad streaming game because once you do the quests and pulls and combat challenges that's it.
genshin has co-op, a lot mroe events and quests, open world, teapot and so on. its just no the greatest streaming game wich is why theres genshin streamers who do star rail on the side but virtually no star rail exclusive streamers. ofc streaming isnt the be all end all.
Post automatically merged:
the raid devs dont know how to make a good game is the main difference
In the case of Genshin Impact, it's clear that Hoyo wants it to be (and has, to some degree), become bigger than just the game itself.
It's basically a cultural export for China, and they're definitely transitioning it to be more of a licensing earner.
I think they'd like Star Rail to be the same, but it's obviously failed.
It's basically a cultural export for China, and they're definitely transitioning it to be more of a licensing earner.
I think they'd like Star Rail to be the same, but it's obviously failed.
I remember seeing many ads for RAID, but not much (if anything) for Star Rail. I don't know how or why, but that huge launch campaign just... missed me, apparently.
I'm not sure why but most of the pre-launch ads also seemed to miss me. I recall seeing the Bailu ad a few times but, I got a ton more for NIKKE (the one where the character dances and then transitions to actual gameplay) but I didn't get Star Rails ads til more recently (the one with guy celebrates getting Jingliu)
- Thread starter
- #614
Curiously, I have never seen that one. I have only seen the 30s-1m ads that talk about 80 free pulls and such and show off random non-sequitur sequences and some person in the corner hyping stuff up. If I didn't know the game, I'd have no idea what is even being shown.
I saw that people reacted similarly to "So, you have a mother." line from the launch Reverse 1999 ads but I also didn't get that ad.
Edit:
『おねがい社長！』が世界累計収益2億ドルを突破、日本のモバイルシミュレーションゲームで3年連続で収益トップ
『おねがい社長！』が2024年1月に世界累計収益2億ドルを突破しました。同作はモバイルシミュレーションゲームジャンルにおいて日本で3年連続（2021年～2023年）で収益トップの座についており、RPDも堅調に推移しています。
《쿠키런: 킹덤》, 중국 출시 한 달 만에 1000만 달러 소비자 지출 달성… 스쿼드 RPG 다운로드 2위, 소비자 지출 3위 기록하며 중국 게임 시장 진출에 성공한 대표 한국 게임으로 우뚝
데브시스터즈의 자회사 스튜디오 킹덤이 개발한 《쿠키런: 킹덤》은 모바일 스쿼드 RPG로 2021년 1월 첫 출시 후 전 세계 플레이어들의 사랑을 받으며 인기작 반열에 올랐습니다. 2023년 12월 28일 창유와 텐센트 게임즈의 합작 퍼블리싱과 함께 중국 시장에서 인기를 얻는 데 성공하며 또 다른 도약을 예고하고 있는데요.
- Thread starter
- #617
Player tracker updated, catching the HSR 2.0 spike which has since proceed to drop back down so we'll see where it ends up next week! Otherwise, not much of interesting happening. I believe DBLegends is cooling from an anni or big event patch or something.
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Is there a chart to compare Genshin and star rail player count?
- Thread starter
- #619
Nothing in particular that I am aware of, this is using Samsung Galaxy Gamers which tracks Samsung users across many, many games. Monopoly GO for example usually shows over 1.xM players.
You can extrapolate backwards based on market share for a rough idea I'd imagine. But given how much more successful Genshin is on console, it's probably even higher.
Just a quick post to act as a bookmark and something to flesh out for later: https://ssl4.eir-parts.net/doc/7803/tdnet/2395966/00.pdf
Bushiroad recorded their largest quarterly loss yet in Q2 FY6/2024 (to my knowledge, their Investor Relations site doesn't go back past FY2019). Most divisions down year-on-year, including digital contents department (Bushiroad Games). Only bright spot is the Live Entertainment Department (Bushiroad Music), which set a record for quarterly revenue thanks in part of MyGo.
1 unreleased mobile game in the pipeline, compared to 6 console games -- Transition to console games underway for Bushiroad Games.
Bushiroad recorded their largest quarterly loss yet in Q2 FY6/2024 (to my knowledge, their Investor Relations site doesn't go back past FY2019). Most divisions down year-on-year, including digital contents department (Bushiroad Games). Only bright spot is the Live Entertainment Department (Bushiroad Music), which set a record for quarterly revenue thanks in part of MyGo.
1 unreleased mobile game in the pipeline, compared to 6 console games -- Transition to console games underway for Bushiroad Games.
- Thread starter
- #623
The Bilibili mobile revenue report was delayed a bit (likely due to CNY) but here's some notable results, (right) this year, (left) last year. As always, I grab these from Discord where a friend posts them... I am much too lazy!
MHY Games:
HSR having its worst month yet, this is right before 2.0 so we will have to see the rebound next report.
In general, MHY is seeing a pretty big slip YoY (HSR is making up the gap but it's the old gem we've been discussing of MHY splitting its own audience) though I'd ignore the Honkai 3rd result as for Honkai 2023 that was CNY so I cannot say if that's just a celebration difference or a big YoY decline. I believe Genshin's CNYs are almost all in February but correct me if wrong.
Arknights, as with Honkai 3rd, CNY/LNY last year was in January so everything is going to look worse with a heavy Chinese focus:
NSFW Otome Game...? A strong release.
FGO:
Blue Archive, remarkably stable and one of the few games up YoY:
NIKKE:
Uma Musume:
MHY Games:
HSR having its worst month yet, this is right before 2.0 so we will have to see the rebound next report.
In general, MHY is seeing a pretty big slip YoY (HSR is making up the gap but it's the old gem we've been discussing of MHY splitting its own audience) though I'd ignore the Honkai 3rd result as for Honkai 2023 that was CNY so I cannot say if that's just a celebration difference or a big YoY decline. I believe Genshin's CNYs are almost all in February but correct me if wrong.
Arknights, as with Honkai 3rd, CNY/LNY last year was in January so everything is going to look worse with a heavy Chinese focus:
NSFW Otome Game...? A strong release.
FGO:
Blue Archive, remarkably stable and one of the few games up YoY:
NIKKE:
Uma Musume:
Anniversary banner + revamp on the system basically priconne has elements now + ability chart bonus system.. the element towers are protractor level hard theres 5 elements each has seperate tower/stages up to 3-10
I cleared up to 3-9 on all other elements except for dark… no one in the whole freaking game cleared 1-10 dark lmao not even the top 1 guild players
also someone created a EN patch for the DMM ver that works great https://github.com/ImaterialC/PriconneRe-TL
Last edited:
- Pronouns
- He/Him
I have a question. In light of the Pokemon Presents announcement, I was talking with someone earlier today about any hopes and expectations, and its led me to wonder just how successful is Pokemon Masters, exactly? I dont think i really see it on any charts anywhere yet it is a gacha game and it's still going even years after. Likely because it can kind of brute force it's way through cause of the IP behind it, but still.
Pokemon Masters grosses around $2-3 million a month with higher amounts for the anniversary. It's in pretty stable territory for a mobile game. Not exactly sure how much it has grossed overall but it should be north of $500 million
January Rankings
Sensor Tower
sensortower.com
Data.ai
mobilegamer.biz
Sensor Tower
2024年1月全世界モバイルゲーム収益ランキングTOP 10
Tencentの『Honor of Kings』が全世界モバイルゲーム収益ランキング1位に返り咲きました。また、Scopelyの『MONOPOLY GO!』が2位になりました。その他のランキングTop 5のタイトルは、Dream Gamesの『Royal Match』、『Roblox』、Kingの『Candy Crush Saga』の順です。
| Rank | Top Grossing | Revenue Growth |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Honor of Kings | Crossfire: Legends |
| 2 | Monopoly GO! | TeamFight Tactics |
| 3 | Royal Match | Honor of Kings |
| 4 | Roblox | 버섯커 키우기 |
| 5 | Candy Crush Saga | Last War: Survival |
| 6 | Coin Master | Love and Deepspace |
| 7 | TeamFfight Tactics | Brawl Stars |
| 8 | Genshin Impact | One Piece: Bounty Rush |
| 9 | PUBG Mobile | Genshin Impact |
| 10 | Whiteout Survival | Monster Strike |
| Rank | Top Grossing | Top Breakout |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Royal Match | Mushroom Hero |
| 2 | Monopoly Go | Monster Strike |
| 3 | Roblox | Goddess of Victory: NIKKE |
| 4 | Candy Crush Saga | Last War: Survival |
| 5 | Coin Master | Uma Musume |
| 6 | Monster Strike | Honor of Kings |
| 7 | Honor of Kings | Brawl Stars |
| 8 | Whiteout Survival | One Piece: Bounty Rush |
| 9 | Gardenscapes | Crossfire |
| 10 | Mushroom Hero | Disney Tsum Tsum |
January’s top grossing mobile games worldwide - Mobilegamer.biz
Tencent’s Honor of Kings is back on top after Scopely’s Monopoly Go toppled the monster MOBA to lead December’s top grossing rankings.
mobilegamer.biz
- Honor of Kings - $124.3m
- Monopoly Go - $117.5m
- Royal Match - $87.4m
- PUBG Mobile - $78.4m
- Roblox - $76.8m
- Candy Crush Saga - $70.8m
- Genshin Impact - $59.7m
- Coin Master - $59m
- TeamFight Tactics - $56.7m
- Monster Strike - $50.6m
It's the worst banner in the game's history, everyone expected this.
Yae/Xiao with YaoYao, Xinyan, and Ningguang.
Of course that translates into the weapon banner having a Standard weapon on rate up.
YaoYao is functionally complete at C0, and Xinyan and Ningguang are some of the worst characters.
All 3 were also given away for free.
Yae/Xiao with YaoYao, Xinyan, and Ningguang.
Of course that translates into the weapon banner having a Standard weapon on rate up.
YaoYao is functionally complete at C0, and Xinyan and Ningguang are some of the worst characters.
All 3 were also given away for free.
Doesn't help that Xiao has a very specific playstyle and has been reruned tons of times already, while Yae is good with dendro, okay everywhere else and just feels bad to play imo.
We might not see a genshin banner doing well until 3.5 phase 2 (because of it supposedly having Neuvillette and Kazuha, the best DPS in the game and one of the best supports) or 3.6 with Arlecchino and Furina Rerun
We might not see a genshin banner doing well until 3.5 phase 2 (because of it supposedly having Neuvillette and Kazuha, the best DPS in the game and one of the best supports) or 3.6 with Arlecchino and Furina Rerun
Data.ai published a portion of their annual mobile report on games. General overview is that while overall games are down (2%), it is an improvement from last year and most markets have had position growth. The major markets that had decline were Japan, down $270 million (2.1%), China, down $4.62 billion (10.9%) and Saudi Arabia, down $30 million (7%). The United States was basically flat with 2022.
7 titles grossed over $1 billion in 2023 alone, one more than 2022. There's also a chart for subgenres with 4X games (like Evony) taking the lead at 10.1% of consumer spend followed by MMORPG at 8.9% and Team Battle at 8.7% The fastest-growing subgenres in 2023 included Luck Battle, Match-Three, Merge Match, Idle RPG and Sports Simulation.
7 titles grossed over $1 billion in 2023 alone, one more than 2022. There's also a chart for subgenres with 4X games (like Evony) taking the lead at 10.1% of consumer spend followed by MMORPG at 8.9% and Team Battle at 8.7% The fastest-growing subgenres in 2023 included Luck Battle, Match-Three, Merge Match, Idle RPG and Sports Simulation.
Honkai 3rd Part 2 is gonna start this week for Global. Really curious how that will turn out. They've had their livestream over the weekend and are trying to unify all the different servers a bit more (this was before they had one unified global client like with Genshin and Star Rail, so there are i.e various different anniversary dates that they are now all moving to the same date) and are having various collabs and offline events to drum up interest again. Also announced a Mac version.
It's on the 29th or Global, so that won't be much to go on in terms of numbers, but CN had it since the 1st.
It's on the 29th or Global, so that won't be much to go on in terms of numbers, but CN had it since the 1st.
- Thread starter
- #637
Well, we don't have many metrics but looking at Twitch... it's barely made a blip on the radar. It's brought it up from dead to a thousand viewers, still basically nothing.
Hard to say what impact a 2.0 will have on such an old game with an already small audience. MHY would need to spend big bucks on marketing for a large change I think.
Last edited:
Yeah, I guess so. I'm just really curious to see the effect of such a big 2.0 "relaunch". Are the current players just continuing on? Will they instead lose a bunch of players because they've just had enough closure and/or don't like the new direction? How many new players actually jump in and stick with it? I guess we can look at revenue over the next couple months at least.
- Thread starter
- #639
I think the reason for the 2.0 is *because* they are currently losing players or already lost them. I don't think 2.0 itself would be a point of player loss unless they bork it or, perhaps, overly homogenize it with Genshin/HSR to a point of losing whatever it was that made Honkai Honkai.
They concluded a major story on a very strong note and, as far as I've been told, proceeded to then put out some really bad story stuff and technobabble as 'story'. These factors plus Honkai's rapid powercreep are likely a good recipe for people to retire, and a big refresh is probably looking to stem this and try to rejuvenate the game.
Hm, I'm not sure that completely tracks. 2.0 does feel like a natural evolution of where they were heading anyway. They started the final arc of the main story towards the end of 2022 (right after a very strong story arc) and concluded it early 2023, where they also already said that a 2.0 would be coming and that there would be a transitionary 1.5 period (which felt more like side-stories but also did end up rounding out some arcs of some main-adjacent characters.)
I don't doubt that they're trying to rejunvenate the game with 2.0, but I don't think it's that reactionary. It would have probably already needed to be in planning at the time they entired the final arc.
I liked what I played of Part 1.5.
They are kinda losing the Honkai vibes though, what with introducing a generic self-insert gender-variable character (the Dreamseeker).
Though to be fair, Adam from APHO was already almost that.
- Pronouns
- She/Her
It’s awful..
Mid dps
That requires other characters to be good
Niche support to teams no one really plays.
It’s like the devs started ringing alarm bells saying
“DONT PULL DONT PULL SAVE FOR THE NEXT UPDATE”
- Thread starter
- #643
You are probably right. I am just looking at the YoY decline and it's pretty severe for the game but you're correct that the 2.0 plan is likely long in the making... perhaps the more deliberate Genshinification of the game is a more recent change to try and draw in the "MHY audience".
Genshification.
They recently announced the gacha pity number would go from 100 pulls to 90, and while that is a net gain for players, all I could think was, "Did you HAVE to homogenize even the pity?"
*hides his C2 Yae Miko*
------------------------------
By the way, I read recently that you could play Genshin on mobile via a browser on a GeForce Now account, allowing you to ignore the ballooning storage requirements.
It's probably not optimal, but I might try it out since I'll be on a vacation trip in a month and I kinda need the space for photos/videos.
While the focus is on SONY revealing its true shitty colours on a Tuesday (fuck sociopaths hiding in plain sight, until we get regulation to improve job security, everybody unionise!) its not all bad news. Speaking of the “the smell of death” another major tech company attempting to reinvent the wheel & take what little customer rights left away from users bites the dust. At least as far as games aimed at hobbyists, Apple Arcade is perceived to be on the ropes but whether or not it goes the way of Google Stadia of adapts to imitate Netflix Games remains to be streamed.
Pole to Win by Name, Pole to Win by Nature.Have plans by its parent company, Pole to Win to form a new overarching company for its entertainment division HIKE, passed you by? Will it involve a review of Aqua Plus that'll lead to changes in business strategy, including platform choices? Perhaps those PS4/PS5 sell throughs on Monochrome Mobius will persuade them to change tact [lol]. I'd expect nothing less from Meta Earth's finest. Then again, perhaps not. This is Aqua Plus we're talking about. Loyal to a fault. Bad Old Habits Die Hard. Let's tell the past to take a HIKE! Scared & confused huh? Doesn't our Parent Company, Pole to Win mean anything to you? No?!? Before we can Bring Your Story to the World, first Pole to Win has to bring its own story to Tagengo Bunshin Light!!!!
Need to outsource customer service because reasons? PTW: Green can respond in foreign languages, even make back-office proposals.
Got a unhandled fault? PTW: Purple Ijyou Kenchi Glasses is on the manned monitoring case, 24/7, 365 days a year.
Heard that Cloud is the future of Gaming but don't know what to do? PTW: Blue Mr. Cloud Stick is here to lend a wobbly sword hand.
3rd Party Verification still on your to do list? Mieru Ka Megane, PTW: Yellow will impress with their Software testing certification "JSTQB🄬". Platinum Partner Power!
Inside Apple Arcade: axed games, declining payouts, disillusioned studios – and an uncertain future
Mild Shock Part II. Companies using subscription services as a way to not only take DRM out of users hands but allow the all powerful Wizard of Oz to conceal how the sausage is made is a way to securing better deals without the developer having resource to negotiate fairly. Even if a few games did get funded early on, this is not something that is sustainable or desirable.
So while this might seem to be a Monkey Paw situation of trying to find good news anywhere I can right now, if the executives aren't committed to finding ways to screw over the games industry, get bored & move on I'll take that as a win. Lowered Expectations.gif - more interesting for the purposes of a mobile thread is Pole to Win (PTW) providing some valuable insight:
Pole To Win overcame 10 years of struggle to become a leader in Japan’s debugging industry – we asked them what it took [PR]
──What are the issues that PTW is currently facing?While it is a 'sponsored' interview (ugh, more bad trends) it does reveal how, LTTP PTW (one of the largest outsourcing companies in the world) is finding difficulty securing market share in the mobile space due to the lack of major new projects to secure contracts for as both clients & users stick with oldies by Gacha Goodies. That's what you get for going Arrogant SIE, you never go full Arrogant SIE (seriously, fuck SIE today!). What d'ya mean you say you don't know who PTW is? What's wrong with you.gif. Well here's a preview from a previous Winning Post:
Got a unhandled fault? PTW: Purple Ijyou Kenchi Glasses is on the manned monitoring case, 24/7, 365 days a year.
Heard that Cloud is the future of Gaming but don't know what to do? PTW: Blue Mr. Cloud Stick is here to lend a wobbly sword hand.
3rd Party Verification still on your to do list? Mieru Ka Megane, PTW: Yellow will impress with their Software testing certification "JSTQB🄬". Platinum Partner Power!
- Thread starter
- #649
Player tracker updated.
----
HSR 2.0 really did nothing for HSR, unless for some bizarre reason Samsung devices are non-representative of some greater trend. Though no indication on SensorTower of any notable movement in downloads either. So I don't think there's any real indication they managed to bring in any new players. I guess it has stopped the steady decline but we're only a few weeks off and the decline may start again in a few weeks time as the novelty wears off.
Uma Musume seems to have found some recent big success, it's been sitting at #1 for a few days now. Hasn't been hitting high ranks in a while as the game was in a fairly notable lull.
Atelier Resleriana has also hit a decent high on its new banner, better than a lot of recent banners for the game. GUST must be extremely pleased with this title and it's doing way better than I think most expected. Not sure about how it's going to do in global however.
----
HSR 2.0 really did nothing for HSR, unless for some bizarre reason Samsung devices are non-representative of some greater trend. Though no indication on SensorTower of any notable movement in downloads either. So I don't think there's any real indication they managed to bring in any new players. I guess it has stopped the steady decline but we're only a few weeks off and the decline may start again in a few weeks time as the novelty wears off.
Uma Musume seems to have found some recent big success, it's been sitting at #1 for a few days now. Hasn't been hitting high ranks in a while as the game was in a fairly notable lull.
Atelier Resleriana has also hit a decent high on its new banner, better than a lot of recent banners for the game. GUST must be extremely pleased with this title and it's doing way better than I think most expected. Not sure about how it's going to do in global however.
Last edited:
There is a new event celebrating 5 million downloads globally. I think it's going quite better than they expected.