The global game market grew 19.6% in 2020, hitting $174.9 billion in revenue and is projected grow to over $200 billion by 2023, despite the challenging conditions. Mobile gaming made up a major share of this, according to research firm Newzoo, with APac region spending the most money on games.
Here are the five trends on mobile games to watch in 2021.
- Millennials Vs Gen Z
Millennials – those born roughly between 1981 and 1996 – are the driving force behind the growth of the mobile gaming industry today. But this trend may be shifting soon. According to a study by AdColony, around 40% of Millennials think of themselves as mobile gamers compared to only 33% of Gen Z – those who were born between 1997 and 2015.
Gen Z are among the first people to adopt gaming as a major part of how they socialize, find entertainment, and even make a living. As Gen Z influence increases moving forward, knowing the difference in taste between these two groups is vital to meeting user expectations to continue expanding your audience, building communities, and creating great experiences for players.
- Removal Of Apple’s IDFA
The removal of Apple’s Identifier for Advertisers (IDFA) to protect user privacy may have huge a huge for mobile game publishers and other stakeholders as IDFA has shaped current user-acquisition processes and mobile advertising platforms. Google may make similar changes for Android but in smaller steps.
With this development, mobile game publishers will have to adapt to other ways to market their apps. Newzoo expects that this may spark a revival of traditional advertising and drive creative advertising and marketing campaigns on offline channels.
- Revenue Diversification
This is becoming more and more important and publishers need to diversify their revenue streams. With IDFA removal, mobile game marketing may be severely impacted. The highly competitive and saturated mobile game market is also making revenue diversification a crucial part of monetisation strategy. Like any other business, diversifying your revenue strategies will decrease your risks and give you more options to increase your income. In fact, it is a good idea integrate your monetisation strategy into the game design to make sure that your monetisation model and mobile game experience is seamless.
- More Games From Chinese Studios
IMAGE SOURCE : HARDE GAMES, SUPERGIANT GAMES
China’s strict government restrictions on game licenses and heavy domestic competition, is pushing Chinese publishers to target audiences outside of China to grow their revenue. The huge worldwide success of Chinese game studio MiHoYo’s Genshin Impact on mobile, console, and PC and streaming platforms will inspire more to follow. Expect to see more triple-A immersive, competitive content from Chinese developers entering the global games market.
- Importance Of Social Features
With the app stores increasingly saturated, especially with lookalike games, having ways to retain users is a top priority. Many games have adopted social mechanics such as activity feeds, in-game chats, push notifications that alert users of friends’ interactions, or guilds. Additionally, games native to social platforms will gain popularity and market share as the two platforms present great synergies. For example, last year Zynga released multiple titles exclusively on Snap Games in partnership with the social platform. Expect more of such partnerships in 2021 and beyond as game publishers seek to tap into social media apps’ audience base, while the apps seek to tap into the lucrative gaming market.
There you go, the five mobile game trends to look out for in 2021.
