So far, 2020 has been a massive year for the global gaming industry as a whole. But whilst video and console gaming are seeing trends shift and emerge, it’s arguably in the mobile sector that the most dramatic developments have occurred.
In 2019, the mobile gaming sector was predicted to be worth just under $70 million by the end of 2020, but after the events of the first few months of this year that have made mobile gaming more popular than ever before, it’s likely that figure will increase significantly.
Gamers are spending more and more time on mobile
A trend measured by the Benchmarks+ platform has shown a clear rise in the amount of time people are playing mobile games for and the amount of money they’re spending in these games too. Between January and March, there was a 62% increase in the amount of people playing mobile games, peaking to as much as over 90 million hours played per day by the end of the quarter.
Traffic shot up to 1.75 billion from 1.2 billion – a 46% increase – and gamers were globally spending between 5% and 30% per day more on microtransactions and in-app purchases.
Hyper-Casual is no longer the dominant vertical
Interestingly, another major trend that has begun to emerge this year is a variance in mobile gamers’ preferences and interests. Hyper-casual games and puzzlers like Candy Crush Saga have long been some of the most downloaded gaming apps, but in 2020 adventure games and eSports worthy titles have been dominating the charts.
Call of Duty: Mobile has created unparalleled success for Activision: Blizzard, with Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp fast becoming Nintendo’s biggest-selling Switch game of 2020. The most noticeable growth has been in the adventure genre, with mobile gamers seemingly choosing more immersive titles to download and play, like Idleworld, RealmCraft, and the multi-generational Scary Teacher 3D.
Mobile eSports titles continue to grow in popularity, with the success of PUBG Mobile leading to the creation of regional rival titles such as India’s Rogue Heist. Mobile gamers also now make up a significant chunk of Fortnite’s 350 million registered players, with downloads of Epic Games’ universally popular mobile app spiking throughout April.
Meanwhile, mobile gamers’ appetites for more specialized gaming apps continues to increase. Real money versions of classic card games like poker that are optimized for mobile devices continue to be popular with adult players, and there have also been some significant recent developments in blockchain mobile gaming.
The Tron Project recently announced that apps built on its blockchain – DApps – will now be featured in the Samsung Galaxy Store, which is one of the most popular alternative app stores for Samsung devices.
Tron and Tron tokens are already supported by the manufacturer’s Blockchain Keystore, along with other major cryptos like Bitcoin and Ethereum. The games that will feature in the Samsung Store include Blockchain Cuties (which is actually a multi-platform game), Meerkat Mining, Timeloop, and Super Player.
Currently, the newly approved Tron DApps will be available to players in South Korea, the Philippines, Singapore, Australia, Canada, and the United States, with players in “some countries in Europe” having access according to “carrier, market and device”
China’s pulling power
Mobile game downloads have typically increased steadily across the globe in the past few years, but it’s usually the Chinese and South East Asian markets that experience the biggest growth overall.
Interestingly, the US market has seen some major growth in 2020. Between 2018 and 2019, mobile game downloads had a steady increase of 6%, but in March 2020 alone mobile game downloads increased by as much as 25% on iOS and Android devices.
However, once again it’s the Chinese market that is proving to be the most powerful force, with a rapid increase in mobile gaming. In February, Chinese gamers spent on average 5 hours a day playing mobile games, which led to a 30% increase countrywide in mobile gaming and pushed global playtime up to 40%
This put huge pressure on Tencent’s biggest games in the market, Honor of Kings and Game for Peace. The former is already the most popular mobile title in China, but during Q1 of 2020 daily users surged to over 100 million. Game for Peace – the Chinese equivalent of PUBG Mobile – also experienced a surge in playtime, leading to the company having to expand server capacity to meet with player demand.