Monthly Mobile Game Industry Report: April 2022

Key insights

7 takeaways

01
Global consumer spending on mobile games fell 7.1% year-over-year in Q1 2022 to 21 billion, according to Sensor Tower.See it on page 6
02
Hyper-casual game downloads fell 8.3% to 4.2 billion in Q1 2022 from 4.58 billion in Q4 2021.See it on page 9
03
Construction elements appeared in 49% of the top 100 grossing iOS Match 3 games in the US, up from 7% the previous year.See it on page 4
04
The US mobile puzzle game market grew 4.2% year-over-year to $5 billion from April 2021 to March 2022, while downloads fell 19.9% to 554 million.See it on page 12
05
Video game live stream hours watched fell 7% in Q1 2022 compared with Q1 2021, though they remain up 134% from Q1 2019.See it on page 19
06
In an Anzu survey, 75% of the players approach in-game ads positively or neutrally, and 78% of players aged 25-44 say it is okay to see more ads in games.See it on page 11
07
The playable ad cost was 1.41 on Android and 3.66 on iOS, according to Liftoff's data.See it on page 10

Summary

This monthly industry report, titled "Monthly Mobile Game Industry Report: April 2022", compiles figures from several contributors, including Sensor Tower, Liftoff, AppMagic, Anzu, data.ai, GameRefinery, Tenjin, GameAnalytics and Streamhatchet. It covers mobile and casual game trends, spending, downloads, advertising costs, publisher rankings and video game streaming. Sensor Tower reports that global consumer spending on mobile games in Q1 2022 fell 7.1% year-over-year to 21 billion, with Google Play down 13.8% to 8.1 billion and the App Store down 2.3% to $12.9 billion. Honor of Kings was the highest-grossing game in the first quarter of 2022 at $735.4 million. Hyper-casual game downloads shrank 8.3% to 4.2 billion in Q1 2022, according to AppMagic. Liftoff data shows the average CPI for playable ads at 1.98, and Streamhatchet reports that video game live stream hours watched fell 7% year-over-year in Q1 2022.