Data.ai: Mobile gaming starts to wane after pandemic spike

Data.ai (the analytics group formerly known as App Annie) released a new report this week about mobile gaming’s successes in 2022. According to the report, mobile gaming is starting to decline slightly following its pandemic-era boom but seems to be steadying at a high watermark. It also highlighted some games that have defied the downward trend.

In the report, Data.ai specifies that, while the mobile market is declining, it’s still doing better numbers in 2022 than it did pre-pandemic. For example, worldwide consumer spend on games in February 2020 was $5.24 billion. The same number in September 2022 was $6.5 billion. While the latter number is a big dip from the high of $7.73 billion in July 2021, it is still greater than pre-pandemic spending.

In addition to the above, Data.ai’s report suggests that more new games are making money faster, but their data is from 2020 and 2021. 25 new games made in 2021 hit the Top 100 of consumer spending, as opposed to 19 in 2020. The report doesn’t include 2022’s data or show whether it’d be more comparable to 2021 or 2020.

Which mobile games are succeeding

iOS games have had a rough time monetizing since Apple’s privacy changes — their revenues are still down. Despite this general down turn, some games are defying the trend. According to the report, games like Merge Mansion are doing well thanks to effective marketing and in-game narrative hooks.

Games associated with larger gaming franchises also appear to be doing well regardless. These include Apex Legends Mobile and Diablo Immortal. Genshin Impact, which is also available on other platforms and has a strong narrative and high marketing budget, is also thriving. Another market that’s staying afloat is mobile casino gaming, which data.ai recently reported was growing swiftly in popularity.