August
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Documents about August
Plus: Back 4 Blood's Beta & a New Switch Lens
This analysis examines current market trends and sales performance across Steam and Nintendo Switch platforms during early August 2021.
- Back 4 Blood secured a top-grossing position on Steam months ahead of its October 2021 release by utilizing an early August beta as a pre-order incentive.
- New Steam releases showed varied performance: Grime exceeded expectations with 2,000 concurrent users (CCU), while Death Trash reached 1,000 CCU, and Starmancer struggled due to 'Mixed' early access reviews.
- Niche genres, specifically anatomical horror and simulation titles, are effectively driving discoverability and sustained sales in a saturated market.
GameMakers Games Radar
This industry update provides a snapshot of the mobile gaming landscape as of August 2021, focusing on major acquisitions, emerging trends in blockchain gaming, and the evolving discourse surrounding the metaverse.
- Zynga acquired the mobile game developer StarLark and its title 'Golf Rival' for $525 million, consisting of $315 million in cash and $210 million in common stock.
- Golf Rival is currently positioned as the second-largest mobile golf game, with Zynga management characterizing it as a casual, social-focused PvP experience.
- The acquisition valuation for StarLark reflects EBITDA multiples in the mid-to-high teens, consistent with the $1.4 billion acquisition of Playdemic by EA.
Xsolla Fires 150 Employees Using Big Data and AI Analysis
In August 2021, the payment services company Xsolla initiated a mass layoff of 150 employees at its Perm, Russia office.
- Xsolla terminated 150 employees in its Perm, Russia office after using big data and AI to analyze their activity across internal platforms like Jira, Confluence, and Gmail.
- CEO Aleksandr Agapitov justified the layoffs by claiming the affected staff were 'unengaged and unproductive' based on their lack of activity in digital workspaces while working remotely.
- The company later clarified that the mass layoffs were driven by a slowdown in growth, specifically noting that Xsolla had ceased its previous 40% growth rate.
What Players Wish Nintendo Would Fix for Switch Discovery
User sentiment and developer feedback indicate significant discoverability challenges within the Nintendo Switch eShop.
- The Nintendo Switch eShop ranking algorithm prioritizes unit sales over revenue, allowing developers to artificially inflate chart positions by discounting games to extremely low price points.
- Nintendo’s storefront lacks essential discovery tools, including a persistent user rating system and robust filtering, which prevents consumers from effectively identifying high-quality titles.
- The eShop interface suffers from poor optimization and slow navigation, discouraging organic browsing compared to the sophisticated recommendation engines found on platforms like Steam.
Garena Free Fire Hits 1 Billion Downloads on Google Play
Garena Free Fire achieved a significant milestone by surpassing 1 billion downloads on the Google Play Store, becoming the first battle royale title to reach this threshold.
- Garena Free Fire became the first battle royale game to surpass 1 billion downloads on the Google Play Store.
- The game achieved a record-breaking peak of over 100 million daily active users in August 2020.
- Free Fire was the most downloaded mobile game globally in 2020 according to App Annie data.
Microsoft to Allow Third-Party Payment Systems on Windows Store
Microsoft has implemented a policy change for the Windows Store allowing non-gaming application developers to utilize third-party payment systems, effectively enabling them to retain 100% of their revenue.
- As of July 28, 2021, Microsoft allows non-game app developers on the Windows Store to use third-party payment systems to retain 100% of their revenue.
- The policy allowing 100% revenue retention explicitly excludes game developers, who must continue using Microsoft's payment infrastructure.
- Effective August 1, 2021, Microsoft reduced its standard commission rate on the Windows Store to 15% for apps and 12% for games.
The Last Spell: How We Surprised Ourselves & Sold 130,000 Units
Ishtar Games provides a marketing post-mortem for the tactical RPG The Last Spell, detailing how the title exceeded internal expectations by selling 130,000 units within its first two months of Steam Early Access.
- The Last Spell sold 130,000 units in its first two months of Steam Early Access, driven by a consistent 15% conversion rate from 95,000 wishlists accumulated over two years.
- Visual clarity and streamer-friendly design were critical, as the game’s core loop was immediately communicable through a single screenshot, facilitating organic growth and word-of-mouth.
- Deep engagement on Steam and Discord proved significantly more valuable for sales than broad social media traction, as Twitter activity showed no correlation with actual purchase performance.
Epic Games Claims Fortnite Is at Full Penetration on Console
During the 2021 antitrust litigation between Epic Games and Apple, Epic Games asserted that its flagship title, Fortnite, had reached full market penetration on console platforms.
- Epic Games asserts that Fortnite has reached "full penetration" on consoles, with mobile identified as the primary platform for future growth due to its widespread accessibility.
- Fortnite had 2.5 million daily active users on iOS, representing approximately 10% of its total daily active user base of 30 million, before its removal from the App Store in August 2020.
- Between its iOS launch in 2018 and removal in August 2020, Fortnite accumulated 2.86 billion hours of playtime on iOS devices.
Battle Pass: How PUBG Mobile Has Innovated Inside the Feature
Battle Passes have evolved from simple cosmetic monetization tools into sophisticated engagement and progression systems across diverse mobile game genres.
- Battle Pass adoption has grown significantly since mid-2019, with over 50% of the top 100 grossing mobile games now utilizing the feature across all genres.
- PUBG Mobile incentivizes long-term retention by offering the 'RP EZ Mission License' for free to players who purchase three consecutive Battle Passes, creating a recurring purchase streak.
- PUBG Mobile’s 'RP Point Store' allows players to spend Battle Pass progression points (RP) as a secondary currency on cosmetic crates and upgrade materials, ensuring continued value for players who complete the main reward track early.
Garena Free Fire Overtakes PUBG Mobile as the Top Grossing Mobile Battle Royale Game: U.S.
Garena Free Fire emerged as the top-grossing mobile battle royale game in the United States during the first quarter of 2021, signaling a significant shift in the competitive landscape of the mobile shooter genre.
- Garena Free Fire became the top-grossing mobile Battle Royale game in the U.S. during Q1 2021, generating approximately $100 million in revenue, a 4.5x increase year-over-year.
- PUBG Mobile ranked second in U.S. player spending for Q1 2021 with $68 million, while Call of Duty: Mobile followed with $62 million, an 80% year-over-year increase.
- The U.S. mobile Battle Royale market grew 42% year-over-year to $239 million in Q1 2021, effectively absorbing the market void left by the removal of Fortnite from app stores in August 2020.
The Evolution of Steam Tags
This analysis examines the strategic importance of Steam’s evolving taxonomy and the shifting economic landscape of the virtual reality and console markets as of mid-2022.
- Steam’s community-driven tagging system has become a superior discovery engine for its library of nearly 100,000 titles, with recent trends favoring granular subgenres like Action Roguelike, Colony Sim, and Deckbuilding.
- Meta increased the price of the Quest 2 by $100 to prioritize profitability over market share, following a $10 billion loss in its Reality Labs division during 2021.
- The VR market shows a clear preference for standalone hardware, evidenced by Ultrawings 2 selling ten times more units on Quest than on PC VR.
Sony to Reward Its Japanese Employees With Bonuses Equivalent to Salary for 7 Months
This summary covers two distinct developments regarding Sony’s corporate operations and legal challenges within the gaming industry.
- The 'Stop Killing Games' initiative has joined a class action lawsuit in the Netherlands against Sony, alleging that the PlayStation Store artificially inflates digital game prices by an average of 47% compared to physical editions.
- Plaintiffs in the Dutch lawsuit claim that consumers in the Netherlands have overpaid a total of 435 million euros for digital content since 2013.
- Activists argue that Sony’s planned cessation of physical game disc production by 2028 will cement a digital monopoly, and they are seeking both financial compensation for gamers and the introduction of market alternatives to the PlayStation Store.