Mobile reports and market data
Documents
The Story of Critical Force: Over ten Years of joy & Pain - Veli-Pekka Piirainen, Critical Force.
Critical Force, a Finnish game development studio founded in 2012, has navigated a decade of significant volatility, scaling from a small startup to a 70-employee organization.
- Rapid, unvetted hiring between 2016 and 2018 caused the studio's workforce to quadruple, resulting in severe operational inefficiencies, cultural misalignment, and communication breakdowns.
- External competition from major titles like Fortnite Mobile and PUBG Mobile in 2018 caused Critical Force to lose half of its player base and revenue, nearly forcing the company into bankruptcy.
- Critical Force successfully transitioned its business model from premium-priced mobile games to free-to-play, eventually driving its flagship title, Critical Ops, to 130 million downloads and $40 million in revenue.
Nitro Games & the Next Wave of Games From Finland - Jussi Tahtinen, Nitro Games.
Nitro Games, a Helsinki-based mobile gaming studio with over 80 employees, specializes in the action and shooter genre.
- Nitro Games, a Helsinki-based studio with over 80 employees and 15 years of experience, utilizes a full-lifecycle development model that manages titles from initial concept through live operations.
- The studio identifies cross-platform and cross-play integration as a primary strategic pillar to overcome hardware limitations and reach wider audiences across mobile, PC, and console.
- Leveraging established intellectual property, such as the studio's partnership with the Nerf brand, is a critical tactic for mitigating rising user acquisition costs.
How Candivore’s Match Masters Innovates in Match 3
Match Masters represents a strategic evolution of the traditional match-three genre by integrating competitive player-versus-player mechanics into a space historically dominated by single-player experiences.
- Candivore transformed the traditional match-three genre by replacing linear, single-player progression with a competitive, trophy-based PvP model inspired by Clash Royale.
- The studio maintains high operational agility and rapid feature deployment by keeping its total workforce under 70 employees, avoiding the bureaucratic inefficiencies of larger competitors.
- The company secured a $100 million investment to fuel aggressive user acquisition, treating marketing spend as a long-term capital asset rather than a short-term expense.
Leveling Up: State of India Gaming FY'23
India's gaming market reached $3.1 Bn in FY23 and is projected to grow at a 20% CAGR to $7.5 Bn by FY28.
- The Indian gaming market reached $3.1 billion in FY23 and is projected to grow at a 20% CAGR to $7.5 billion by FY28.
- The player base grew 12% to 568 million users, with non-metro regions now accounting for 66% of the total demographic.
- While the Real Money Gaming (RMG) sector grew 33% in FY23, future growth is expected to slow due to new GST and TDS regulations, which 60% of users believe will reduce their play frequency.
Informing Children about Privacy: A Review and Assessment of Age-Appropriate Information Designs in Kids-Oriented F2P Video Games
This paper, by Martin Sas, Maarten Denoo and Jan Tobias Mühlberg (KU Leuven and Université Libre de Bruxelles), published in Proceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction (CHI PLAY, November 2023), addresses how free-to-play video games communicate privacy information to children.
- Across the nine reviewed games, the average implementation rate of age-appropriate information design strategies was 23.14%, and only two games exceeded 30%.
- None of the games' privacy policies was found sufficiently adapted to children, and none layered its privacy information except Cartoon Network, which offered a summary policy.
- Most of the games (7 of 9) restricted access to their privacy policy to parents only, so the policies were not available to children.
Enhancing Pre-Schoolers' Learning Motivation in Jawi Subject Through Game-Based Learning Application
This study examines whether the "Dunia Jawi" mobile game application can increase preschoolers' motivation to learn Jawi, the Malay script written in Arabic letters, which has been losing ground in Malaysian primary education partly because of unengaging instructional materials.
- A quantitative pretest-posttest study of 32 six-year-old preschoolers using the 'Dunia Jawi' mobile app found motivation to learn Jawi rose significantly, from a pretest mean of 31.47 to a posttest mean of 43.50 (p = .000).
- Gains were statistically significant for the attention, confidence, and satisfaction constructs of the ARCS motivation model, but not for relevance (p = .079), which the authors attribute to children not seeing the content as connected to their everyday lives.
- The app was built on Prensky's digital game elements (rules, challenges, feedback, and rewards) and calibrated for touchscreen use by children aged five to six.
Evaluating the Efficacy of a Serious Game in Enhancing Word Reading Speed
This study evaluates Tachistoscopio, a tablet-based serious game that gamifies tachistoscopic reading, a technique in which words are shown briefly and must be reproduced by the reader, with the goal of improving word reading speed in children.
- Tachistoscopio, a tablet-based serious game built on tachistoscopic word presentation, was tested on the question of whether it can improve word reading speed in children, addressing three aims: discriminating proficiency levels, usability/appeal, and short-term training gains.
- In an early study of 28 second and third graders, the game distinguished grade levels, with third graders reading at 2.24 syllables/second versus 1.30 for second graders (p<0.001), and showing significantly higher accuracy.
- Usability was rated excellent with a Pictorial System Usability Scale score of 86.2, children found the game highly enjoyable and not boring, and no significant gender differences were observed.
The Dark Side of Fun: Understanding Dark Patterns and Literacy Needs in Early Childhood Mobile Gaming
This qualitative study by Carla Sousa and Ana Oliveira of Lusófona University examines dark patterns in mobile digital games for children aged 0-5.
- Aesthetic manipulations and complete-the-collection patterns each scored 19 out of 20 possible points across the five games, indicating heavy effects on play experience.
- Paywalls were found in four of the five analysed games, always at the highest possible degree.
- The authors describe Games 3 and 4 as using an initial paywall that falsely suggests payment is required for progression, by making the close option less noticeable.
Integrated Report: Value Creation Story 2023
DeNA's 2023 Integrated Report, titled "Value Creation Story 2023," covers the Japanese internet and entertainment company's mission, vision and values, its business segments, core competencies, governance, risk management, and ESG data, with figures as of March 31, 2023 and FY2022 results.
- Game segment revenue fell to 64.0 billion yen in FY2022 from 74.7 billion yen in FY2021, and the report links part of the decline to delays in new titles.
- The Healthcare & Medical Business reported revenue of 7.0 billion yen in FY2022, a 133% increase year over year, with a segment loss of 2.2 billion yen.
- The company expects to achieve full-year profitability in both Healthcare & Medical Areas in FY2023 and targets 20.0 billion yen in revenue and 5.0 billion yen in profit for the whole business in FY2024.
Angus Lovitt And Hong Nguyen On SpaceApe Games’ Smash Success With Automated Forecasting
Automated forecasting serves as a critical strategic tool for mobile game studios, moving beyond simple financial cost-cutting to enable data-driven decision-making throughout a game's lifecycle.
- SpaceApe Games utilized automated forecasting to project 12 months of performance for their title Chrome Valley Customs, enabling data-driven decisions on scaling hiring and content production.
- Automated forecasting shifts studio operations from diagnostic analytics to prescriptive, actionable insights that allow for real-time adjustments to user acquisition budgets based on fluctuating lifetime value (LTV) metrics.
- The implementation of predictive modeling in mobile gaming allows studios to objectively determine whether to continue, pivot, or terminate projects, thereby maximizing investor confidence and resource allocation.
Pocket Gamer Connects Helsinki 2023
Pocket Gamer Connects serves as a central hub for the global games industry, facilitating professional networking and knowledge exchange across mobile, PC, console, XR, web3, and AI sectors.
- Pocket Gamer Connects has facilitated over $1 billion in business deals across its decade-long history.
- The event series has hosted 42 conferences in 11 countries, attracting a total of more than 35,000 delegates.
- The conferences serve as a cross-sector hub for the mobile, PC, console, XR, web3, and AI gaming industries.
NAVIGATING GAMING MARKET: TRENDS, TRIUMPHS & TROUBLES with Tom Wijman, Newzoo'a Lead Analyst
The global gaming market is undergoing a period of stabilization and strategic recalibration as it moves past the post-pandemic volatility of recent years.
- The global gaming market is shifting from rapid expansion to stabilization, with 2023 growth primarily driven by console hardware availability and a backlog of major title releases.
- Publishers are pivoting toward live-service models and subscription platforms to combat slowing player base growth and intense competition for limited consumer time.
- Mobile gaming revenue is stagnating in mature markets due to privacy-related monetization challenges, forcing developers to target growth in Southeast Asia, the Middle East, and Latin America.
Writers
Games and companies
Games