The Rise of Mobile Gaming
Remarkably, the most viewed esports tournament of 2022 wasn’t League of Legends (LoL), nor was it Counter-Strike Global Offensive (CS:GO). Players weren’t even competing on PC’s, and don’t even think about console gaming. Step aside relics of the past, the era of mobile gaming is upon us.
On April 9th 2022, the MPL ID Season 9 reached a peak of 2,845,364 individual viewers. Using mobile phones teams competed in the insanely popular Chinese game Mobile Legends: Bang Bang where RRQ Hoshi won the lion’s share of the $300,000 prize pool. Although being the most viewed tournament in 2022, it is by no means the largest of all time, not by a long shot. That title belongs to yet another mobile game competition, the Free Fire World Series 2021 Singapore which had a peak viewership of 5,414,953 people. With a larger prize pool of $2,000,000, EVOS Pheonix Force achieved the ultimate Free Fire esports glory.
Moving away from impressive esports viewership figures and into astronomical global gaming statistics, mobile games are predicted to produce 53% of total gaming revenue in 2022. This equates to a blistering $103.5 billion. The Asia-Pacific (APAC) region is dubbed the powerhouse of mobile gaming, from the colossal Chinese market to the recent surge in southeast Asia, the APAC region is estimated to generate an enormous $69 billion in revenue from mobile gaming alone. Other regions are also jumping onto the mobile gaming bandwagon, with the Middle East and Africa sector achieving a growth of 10.8% to $7.1 billion, and Latin America growing by 6.9% to $8.7 billion in 2022. The main drivers causing this substantial growth can be attributed to players receiving better mobile internet infrastructure, affordable access to mobile internet, and a significant growth in these region’s middle classes.
Additionally, the ‘free-to-play’ (F2P) model has taken the game development world by storm. In 2022, F2P games will generate 82% of global digital game revenue. This model creates its revenue by attracting significantly more gamers into trying out its product for free rather than the traditional ‘paid game’ pathway. This is notably more effective in lower socio-economic regions where players can’t necessarily purchase a paid game outright but are willing to play a free game and make smaller purchases at a later date.
A significant recent development in the mobile gaming industry is that of play to earn (P2E) games. This new gaming trend rewards users with a form of cryptocurrency or NFTs in exchange for time spent in game. Axie Infinity, developed by Sky Mavis, is the most infamous example of P2E gaming in recent memory. First released in 2018 to a few select countries, this game took off in 2021 in multiple continents around the world. It was said as players earned more SLP (the game’s associated digital token) and began trading it on cryptocurrency exchanges people’s lives were changed in a very real way. Gamers in countries like the Philippines, Vietnam and Brazil were able to buy tangible goods like new vehicles and even houses, upgrading their economic standing in society. Disastrously, on March 23rd 2022 the largest breach in crypto history occurred when $625 million was stolen from Axie Infinity’s ‘Ronin Network’ server. This sent the value of the SLP token crashing, resulting in gamers losing significant amounts of their hard-earned digital currency. Such a catastrophic event has also caused a serious decline in P2E game interest. However, many other titles are still capturing world-wide audiences, examples include Thetan Arena, Upland and Decentraland.
Looking back at 2021’s mobile gaming data, listed below are the top mobile games by global revenue on the Apple App Store and Google Play:
It’s important to note that this list doesn’t represent the world’s top mobile games in its entirety, as revenue statistics haven’t been captured from the Huawei AppGallery, Samsung Galaxy Apps, and the Amazon Appstore to name a few. However, it does provide a general understanding of global mobile gaming trends as both the Apple App Store and Google Play are the largest mobile app stores in the world with a combined 5.68 million apps across both platforms.
After taking a deep dive into the world of mobile gaming which included exploring a snapshot of the mobile esports scene and understanding current gaming industry statistics and consumer behaviour, it can be established that mobile gaming is on the move. With lofty aims to dominate the gaming industry, if it hasn’t already, mobile gaming is on track to exceed all expectations.
Image Credit: Lee Aik Soon/Riot Games