ReportSensor Tower
SensorTower The State of Mobile Gaming 2023
1 Jan 202368 pages~54 min full read
The mobile gaming market is shifting away from hyper-casual titles, which saw a 24% year-over-year decline in Q4 2022, toward hybrid-casual games that grew 13% and exclusive-access titles that surged 54%.
See it on page 63Hybrid-casual games are successfully utilizing meta-features to drive engagement, with 30% of top titles embedding these features and character collection specifically boosting average playtime by 122%.
See it on page 16Regional revenue performance is diverging, with Asia’s quarterly gross falling 15% to $9.5 billion and Europe’s top five markets experiencing a collective 6% revenue decline to $700 million in Q4 2022.
See it on page 57Live-Ops events remain a primary monetization driver, evidenced by Marvel Snap’s themed events generating between $670,000 and $746,000 on their respective launch days.
See it on page 34While global market downloads grew 4% year-over-year, hybrid-casual games significantly outperformed this average with download growth of 17% in Europe and 124% in Asia during 2022.
See it on page 17The Russian mobile gaming market plummeted 72% year-over-year following the conflict in Ukraine, though it remained Europe’s largest volume market with 673 million downloads in Q4 2022.
See it on page 55Revenue trends by genre show modest gains for action and tabletop games, while shooter, RPG, and casino segments experienced double-digit drops.
See it on page 7The 2023 SensorTower analysis demonstrates a pronounced shift in mobile gaming dynamics, with hyper‑casual titles experiencing a 24 % year‑over‑year decline in Q4 2022, while hybrid‑casual games grow 13 % and exclusive‑access titles surge 54 %. Revenue patterns echo this trend: action and tabletop genres record modest gains, whereas shooter, RPG, and casino segments suffer double‑digit drops. Geographic revenue distribution shows RPG dominance in Asia (39 %) but a more balanced genre mix across North America and Europe, each contributing at least 12 % of total earnings.
Hybrid‑casual games differentiate themselves through the adoption of meta‑features. Thirty percent of leading hybrid‑casual titles embed at least one such feature, compared with only five percent of hyper‑casuals. Character collection is the most prevalent meta‑feature, present in 18 % of hybrid‑casuals and boosting average playtime by 122 %. Downloads for hybrid‑casual games rose 17 % in Europe and a striking 124 % in Asia during 2022, while the global market grew 4 % YoY.
Live‑Ops events prove highly lucrative for flagship titles. Marvel Snap’s themed events generated between $670 k and $746 k on launch day, illustrating the monetization power of well‑timed in‑app events. SensorTower’s event‑tracking tool offers publishers granular revenue attribution, facilitating competitive benchmarking and schedule optimization.
Regional performance highlights divergent trends. Europe’s top five markets—Germany, the U.K., France, Russia, and Italy—saw a collective 6 % revenue decline to $700 million in Q4 2022, with Russia’s market plummeting 72 % YoY after the Ukraine conflict. Despite an 8 % overall download drop, Russia remained Europe’s largest volume market with 673 million downloads (24 % of the region). In contrast, Asia’s quarterly gross fell 15 % to $9.5 billion, largely due to a 20 % Google Play decline, while downloads stayed flat above 5.5 billion per quarter; India led the region by a wide margin.
