Mobile Shooters: What's Next After Battle Royale? ft. Jordan Phang/Naavik (FREE REPORT!)

foreign speaking to Jordan Fang who is a consultant from novik and Jordan recently wrote a report on FPS shooter games called mobile FPS what's next after Battle Royale and so I thought it would be great to talk to Jordan about the report and the current Outlook and numbers around mobile FPS shooter games right Jordan yep and and to be clear it doesn't isn't just about fpss but you know the gamut of shooter Types on mobile that you get right and it'd be great to kind of dive into your outlook in terms of the shooter Market as well as like the specific uh perspective on subgenres but maybe before diving in Jordan um do you want to tell us a little bit more about you and your background yeah sure um well I'm currently with navic as a consultant but prior to that I was

working as a principal game designer for a company here in Melbourne Australia where I am Bay called League of Geeks and I got my start in games as a Indie Dev so back in the flash days if you remember um so from there I moved on to several jobs and ended up in Melbourne in EA working on Real Racing 3 rise up to lead game designer and met some people over there who connected me with navik and here I am great all right well let's Dive Right In so I I thought we could just start by characterizing the market for mobile shooter games in terms of like the the size trends that you're seeing and maybe some of the um if you could talk about maybe some of the bigger games in the market what's your current Outlook or what what did you guys cover in the report on that yeah so actually you know shooter games are pretty well known like you know names like pubg free fire Apex Legends

but in terms of mobile they are pretty small market so they're like five percent of the games market in terms of downloads and they're on six percent for Revenue so over the date that I was uh analyzing the data which is October 2021 to November 2020 um shooter downloads were about 2.6 billion and revenue was about 3.5 billion so that just puts into context how big the games Market is um yeah so uh just a little data caveat we're using data AI for our analysis so um so they're making estimates uh so depending on the data platform numbers may vary and for example like it doesn't include in-game advertising Revenue so right yeah but at the end of the day it's not really about the absolute numbers but it's more about the trends and takeaways that we see sure do you have any perspectives on that so you mentioned that the shooter market in terms of the the overall Mobile gaming

Market comprises what you said five or six percent depending on if you're looking at downloads of Revenue but when we look at the top ten you've got games like games for peace and green and free fire games like that that are kind of in the top is that just because there's High concentration in terms of the winners in the market or what what did you see yeah so there is a very high concentration of winners in the market and there is also a very different type of Market that's basically shooters for China and shooters for the rest of the world and also a small little pocket of shooter for Japan um so it's not like you can say you know shooters for everyone across the globe so it's quite segmented and China China actually holds you know the biggest chunk of like um revenue and it's only based on like two games why don't we go ahead and just jump into that so what what are those two games and I assume for Japan is that knives out or is there anything else basically Knives Out yeah okay okay all

right and so so that the two games for China so China is basically game for peace like you mentioned and Crossfire there's also like a really old game we fire but it's it's kind of died down now and it's really and not even Crossfire is like way below game for peace game four piece like really the dominant um shooter game over there right and do you have any perspective on why these games are doing so well in China versus you know the well obviously um you know games for peace is basically put like a slightly modified Pub G but uh do you have any specific perspective on why these games are doing so well in China um I think one thing that they've done well is to have like a much more playful aesthetic in China if you look at like the top games in China um they're generally uh they skew away from like very realistic very gritty art styles and so game for peace has all sorts of fanciful characters and for me I think

it comes with the cultural um you know in China they have like novel sansia and Russia which is all about fanciful effects and like they have you seen like some of the Chinese novels the kind of stuff that they wear it's all very colorful and uh beautiful so I think it comes with that sort of aesthetic um and like looking at some videos of game for peace like the characters look like sometimes characters out of sansia novels so I think partly it's because of that right and when you when we talk about okay so when we talk about Chinese market it seems like there's these two games dominating in Japan there's Knives Out um what about the US and do you think there are other games that um we should be looking out for that could potentially do better in one of these geographies in the U.S it's um pubg called uh Call of Duty mobile a little bit of free fire as well in terms of downloads so in terms of

surprising games it really there aren't really any surprises that uh Mech Arena which is doing quite well in the US in terms of Android so yeah plariums Macarena and in the report I go into that like it's one of the few games uh where Android dominates iOS in terms of Revenue hmm and do you have a specific perspective on why why is Macarena doing so so well yeah I tried digging into it and seems like all aquariums games are doing way better on Android um than uh than iOS so it could be a just a company strategy for them okay and maybe before we like get off of the geographical differences you know Japan versus China versus us um are there like um you have mentioned there's there's some aspect of localization and kind of fitting the theme and the fantasy and kind of like

maybe the cosmetics and Graphics but from a gameplay perspective is there anything else that that you saw or that you think about when it comes to try to adapt for these specific geographies specifically for Japan when I dug into it a bit day uh they created a Japanese server um because the over a survey that netease did Japanese players from all comfortable you know speaking with uh a similar language so that's something that that they did specifically for Japan um and in terms of gameplay I think there were some small differences but I'm not sure over the years whether those has filtered down into General General pubg because game for peace is kind of like the canary in the in the mine for for uh tencent and they a lot of things that go into game for peace end up filtering out into pubg

later on yeah I think it's um also for our audience if they're not aware I think both of those games uh the the two you know games that are performing so well in China are published by 10 cents so we can't discount the the publishing power and the distribution power of tencent is part of the reason for some of that success as well as timing and things and things of that nature okay um maybe the next topic we could talk about you had mentioned that the report doesn't just cover FPS but uh so if you if you were to explain to the audience how your how you're viewing shooters from a subgenre or classification perspective could you talk about how you've broken out the shooter market and maybe some example games from uh to to give the audience a better understanding of of how you've kind of classified the sub-genre and what are example games for each of those subgenres sure um so I think two or three of them

should be pretty uh self-explanatory like Battle Royale is Battle Royale I think everyone understands that um and also fps's sniper those are pretty uh well known in industry but there's kind of some gray area in what you define as a PVE shooter and what you define as technical Shooters um when you think of tactical Shooters you most people think like games like War robots World of Tanks but it's mainly you know vehicle-based combat but um this differs depending on your data platform so data AI actually classifies them under Team Deathmatch yep so that that makes sense to me but if I had put Team Deathmatch uh in the report people might not immediately think of what game goes into that because almost every game has a team deathmatch mode that's any game that's multiplayered as a team deathmatch mode yeah I think that's that's a difficulty right is that what we're seeing is an evolution of the space where before games were either Team Deathmatch or

Battle Royale but now they're kind of doing both everything yeah yeah they're getting everything and so like even you know I I think um Apex Legends included the development mode I think they may have taken it out now but you know even even that kind of a mode uh what we and then it's Dynamic right where they're putting some modes in they're taking them out and so then how do you I mean you you tell me Jordan how how would you do that classification now because clearly the genres of is evolving and we're even seeing you know like you know pubg had at one point put in Metro Royale which is uh you know extraction shooter and then they took it out yeah and so like how how do you how should people think about sub-genres or classification Shooters just given how Dynamic it is yeah he's going to be a tough one I think for me it's where the majority of game time is so Call of Duty also has Battle Royale mode but um it's kind of like a side mode whereas the team deathmatch part is the the

biggest portion of it and for Warzone is the kind of flipped the other way around they also have Deathmatch but the main mode is the better wheel in in terms of the classification that you use could you uh just just want to make sure that the audience gets that uh could you repeat what what are the classifications and uh the example games yeah sure so we've got better oil and that's pubg free fire then we've got a second largest category fpss which we've combined kind of three different categories as fps's TPS which is third person shooters and Technical Shooters all in one and so games like that would be Call of Duty mobile TPS would be like a T3 Arena or um and then there's the technical Shooters which is like what I mentioned before War robots World of Tanks Blitz and then there's PVE Shooters um so this is Zombie Gunship survival left to survive those sort of games and

we've yeah we also included hunting Clash here which you know again can be could it be classified like arcade sports or action and and the devs themself uh consider it a simulation so it's like there's no consensus so which is why I just uh yeah I mean even that categorization has a lot of problems right the one that you just mentioned right because like there's a lot of games that allow you to have both FPS and TPS and um some of those games also include a battle royale it's I I think I don't know there somebody needs to update how we think about Shooters but also given the fact that it's still kind of emerging and figuring itself out and in in the report you also had mentioned the potential for a new subgenre right you want to talk about extraction shooters or uh help characterize what is meant by extraction shooter for those in the audience who who aren't aware all right so extraction Shooters are kind of like a new Evolution of sort of better Royale

um it was popularized by games on PC at first like escape from tarkal and for a while now you know navik has been saying that it could be the next big shooter sub-genre and basically if you think about it in a nutshell it's like a smaller more focused better oil with more methodical gameplay so it's not as crazy fast and you also have PVE enemies so the goal of a extraction shooter is to acquire Loot and escape with the loot by going to a randomized extraction Zone and the key difference from Battle Royale is you bring that loot into the next game and so it becomes more about looting and upgrading and it's also looting is a lot slower than better oil and better oil you go to pick up everything in like seconds whereas in an extraction shooter you have to search Pockets you have to search bags pick up the things that you need and you have much smaller inventory so it's a lot

more tactical in that sense so there have been a bunch of companies well mainly the Chinese companies who've been trying uh who believe the same thing right and so there have been a bunch of extraction shooter games that have come to Market um are there any in particular that that you're looking at or some that you're more impressed by than others um I think it's still under uh testing like like people are trying out things net needs right yeah Lost Light hasn't really made a big impact and the thing that I saw head towards the tail end of 2022 was um 10 cent release um a Chinese only game called Arena breakout which is very heavily the hell out of that game yeah I don't know what it's I don't know how it's doing now but at least initially they really pushed that game yeah so it

it had some good initial numbers but it seems as a tail okay so I'm not sure if they're continue working on it um over the soft launch but it's very I think they might have gone too realistic with that game like this very military very um uh very methodical very tactical um yeah you had mentioned that Novak believes that extraction cheaters could be the next big thing obviously the major Chinese Publishers also believe that I also believe that because I'm working on an extraction tutor as well with my studio but like can you talk about for you your your personal uh kind of opinion on what is your thesis or why do you believe that extraction Shooters potentially could be the big next big thing on on mobile I think for me it's like the reason why it's because like better Royale it adds like the new way to play you know before Battle Royale you know it was Team Deathmatch and uh

that that names of dot nature and it's only like wow everyone just in the map at the same time it's so fresh and new so what what extraction Shooters does is uh adding this new way to play it's not this big evolution like Battle Royale because you know like it's sort of a uh a step up but it does a few things differently I think makes it more compelling so number one death is really more significant in Battle Royale you can kind of die I'll join in the lobby for the next one but because you lose your loot so it adds a lot more tension um so you have to be a bit more careful and the way you think about approaching a map it becomes different and the game also begins before you even enter the map because there's like decision making like what gear I bring in um and even the the third point which is you kind of set your own win condition like it's my goal to go in and get some uh loot some

resources get out safely real quick or do you want me like I want to go in and kill everyone else um and get as much as I can and assert my dominance so each round can feel different depending on your goals whereas in better oil like you go the one round of the other they they're kind of the same formula again and again one of the things I thought was interesting in your report was that you had highlighted some differences in monetization and when so when you look at the different kinds of monetization models from these different models of of a shooter game and maybe across a different subgenres um could you speak to some of the differences that you found or um how some of these games maybe you could also just describe how some of these games are monetizing and then the the differences that you're seeing through the data all right um so yeah that I think you're referring to my RPD comparison so I did like a revenue per download comparison across the sub genres and you know Battle Royale had the highest around 6.50 and

FPS is at five dollars PVE shooting at 150 and sniper at 90 cents so um I believe a lot of that is due to the way that these games are retaining the players because I mapped that um to the D30 retention and basically it's kind of almost a very similar chart we've got better Royale at number one with 16 percent pieces at number two at nine percent PVE at six percent and then snipers so I think at the low retention shown by PVE and sniper games are kind of holding back its Revenue because people aren't staying long enough to spend and also I've uh for PVE specifically a lot of the revenues actually generated via in uh by ads by like a little if you look at the top downloads they're all like kind of like uh I would say you know kind of low lower quality games that are

meant to be downloaded across T to T3 countries and making money by ad Revenue versus iids yeah although I would say the top performing PVE shooter is does not use ads and yes mainly you know yeah you know what game I'm talking about right that that cover shooter game that came out of China uh Nick case on Earth I forgot as a victory yeah yeah right um when I did that analysis I don't believe uh data AI classifies that as a shooter okay yeah okay um well you have a gun you shoot I I consider that a cover shooter but uh yeah all right cool um okay and so when we're thinking about like extraction shooter relative to the

other types of games what do you think the or how do you think the monetization for extraction cheaters would perform or do we have data from uh or I guess we could look at RPD on games like lost light for example but I I'm not sure if they are fully optimizing their monetization against this model but um do you have any thoughts on that uh sorry could you repeat the question again yeah so okay so you had talked about uh Battle Royale you had talked about you know kind of your uh your classification that you're calling FPS whatever yeah um but uh and and sniper but what about extraction shooter do you have a perspective on monetization for extraction shooter yeah so extraction Shooters are interesting one um data AI consists considers it and a PVE shooter because you know I guess they are PVE enemies even though um it is a multiplayer game as well okay we got to get them to fix that that's completely wrong

yeah yeah um so you're saying that what kind of monetization is going into extraction Shooters yeah what would you like you like I think part of part of the thesis of your report is that extraction Shooters are potentially going to be the next big thing but then uh so then I would assume you have some kind of perspective on them from a monetization perspective or well I think like some of the uh because the deaf is so significant there's that loss aversion aspect which I think depending on the developers they could um monetize loss aversion um so having like Insurance paying for insurance for your items that kind of stuff and also there's because there's multiplayer there's also the customization aspect of things all right well maybe we could um now talk about something I'm super excited about which is like the future I mean we got so many new games

coming up right like um there have been so many shooter games that have been announced and so you know maybe we could talk about some of those games I I mean one if you could talk about some of some of the new games that that are going to be uh coming up but then also uh maybe your outlook on some of the ones that we should uh keep an eye on yeah they're actually going to be so many new games coming out in the in the this year and even in in the short term so there's like you know Battlefield mobile Call of Duty Warzone Rainbow Six mobile division the Resurgence the division Resurgence that's far like 84 Rebel writers valorant mobile Arena breakout Urban Revival like all these games are like pretty much coming out very soon or have been already in self-launch the ones I'm most interested in are Rainbow Six mobile below mobile and Arena breakout because for me they introduce new ways to play a a new

structural format to to gameplay um so Rainbow Six mobile is essentially like Rainbow Six Siege in Mobile form so be like a true technical shooter and they learn mobile it's a new I kind of like a new IP from a real big Dev and they've recently got approval uh for for uh the PC version in China so it'd be exciting to see what happens they've been in beta testing in China the the mobile version already and it looks pretty good and Arena breakup because I just want to see like is that the game that will start the ball rolling for extraction shooters yeah what what about some of the um you know I I know just if I look at social media a lot of people are really excited about Warzone do you have any thoughts on Warzone Warzone yeah um yeah it's actually soft launch in Australia so I've been playing it a bit okay oh great you know it's actually really fun like they've really tightened it a lot like you can get like five

minute games um so it's fun but I struggle to see why someone that's already playing pubg that's already playing Call of Duty that has Battle Royal and or or he's playing free fire I would switch right because it doesn't bring a huge amount of innovation to the sub genre there's like the gulag which is kind of cool when I first experienced that but you know the format is the same you jump in Loot and then um be the chicken winner right well I think one of the the interesting insights that was published in your report was that when a new you know especially IP based shooter game came out that there was pretty massive early adoption and then it kind of you know uh shark-finned so it it would seem to indicate you know maybe you could tell me if you think I'm right or wrong on this but that they're it feels like there's a huge appetite

for a new shooter game but uh after people try out the new game then it just dramatically declines and so to me what that may be indicating is that um people kind of are used to a certain type of gameplay like the Battle Royale that they're playing you know with whether they're you know they're deep into Cod mobile or pubg um but they want a different experience but they're not getting that specific new shooter experience yet and so they just kind of jump back to to the games that they were playing but I I don't know how you interpreted some of that data that you showed in your report where we see like high you know another good example was uh a pubg new state right where a lot of people tried it and then they just kind of left yeah and I think you've summarized it uh perfectly so basically I think they're trying it and not seeing anything too new um actually if you think about it uh

Apex Legend and new state did introduce some new things um like which I detail in the report but I believe that it just wasn't enough like Apex Legends you have you know abilities for uh characters um and also uh for New State there I think that was like weapon modifications and stuff like that so there were small differences but the structure of a game was the same I think right what players will notice the most is structural differences and that's what we make them switch because it's like oh this I play this in a totally different way for example Rainbow Six mobile could be it's like team based and you you control operators and each with special powers and you have to work as a team um you know most times when I I'm not a very high level uh Battle Royale player so most times I go into a battle royale game and my teammates are all just running around doing their own thing right and you know and talking about

Apex Legends I mean it's doing kind of okay-ish right and and congrats to them for winning Game of the Year by multiple multiple Publications but um I would have hoped that Apex Legends did a little bit Apex such as mobile uh did a little bit better do you have any thoughts on the performance of Apex Legends mobile or or what do you think yeah I think like if you you it started well enough you know like it had tons of pre-registrations but um it just probably isn't different enough to get people to switch because um I guess they're quite loyal like especially for Spenders you know you've spent it's so much amount of your cosmetics and stuff like in pubg why would you want to give all of that away and join this completely new game where you have to build up your prestige again right unless it's you know there's a real reason for you to switch and all

your friends are going to this new game because it's like oh like there's a completely new way to play okay well Jordan I think those are all the questions that I have is there any last message or if you were to uh have a final message to our audience about anything they should be looking out for or Trends or anything like that any final message from you Jordan um I think the last point I would say is 2023 is going to be a great year for Shooters get excited because it's it's going to shake things up 2022 was kind of a little bit um there wasn't much action going on yeah but 20 Century is going to be fun okay great well Jordan thank you so much for your time and also to our audience if you want to they they can't get access to this report right yes uh just go to the navic website and you'll be able to download a copy of the full report awesome I will leave a link to that in the show notes Jordan thank you for your time and to our audience we

will catch you next time thanks [Music] thank you