INDUSTRY REPORT

A Global Analysis of

Mobile Gaming
Benchmarks
Global insights from 75,000+ mobile games
and over 3 billion players.

H1 2019 Edition

1 GameAnalytics Mobile Gaming Benchmarks Report: H1 2019

 What’s inside...

About this report Page 3

Stats at a glance Page 4 - 5

Engagement
D1 Retention Page 6 - 7
D7 Retention Page 8 - 9
D28 Retention Page 10 - 11
Average Session Length Page 12 - 13
Stickiness Page 14 - 15

Our Customers
Hear it from the best Page 16 - 17
JoyPac Case Study Page 18 - 19
Voodoo Case Study Page 20 - 21

Revenue
ARPPU Page 22 - 23
ARPDAU Page 24 - 25
Conversion Page 26 - 27

Other key stats Page 28 - 29

Key analytic features Page 30 - 31

2 GameAnalytics Mobile Gaming Benchmarks Report: H1 2019

How we define our benchmarks
GameAnalytics is a free tool that helps game developers and publishers around the world
to better understand their players, refine gameplay, and compare the performance of their
titles to the general trends in the market (benchmarks).

With more than 75K+ titles and 3 billion players analyzed, this report provides an insightful
snapshot into the state of the mobile gaming industry. Throughout this report, we present
our benchmarks to show insights into how the industry is performing for each genre and metric.

75K+ games studied From 3 billion devices Over a full calendar year

We crunched data from Our analysis presents Data for a full calendar
a selection of our 75K+ findings from 850 million year, running from June 1st
games which are currently monthly active players. 2018 to May 31st 2019.
active on the app stores.

How is this data presented?

To avoid any bias from pre-launch titles skewing our analysis, we set a minimum threshold
of 1,000 daily active users for each game. For titles that meet this minimum criteria, we’ve
collected our findings and presented the data for each metric in two separate ways:

1. Overall Yearly View 2. Genre Specific Breakdown

This is all of the genre data aggregated This graph looks specifically at how each
to show industry trends over the last year. genre is performing and highlights the top,
It has been broken down into top, median median, and underperforming KPIs for each
and under-performing titles (green, yellow genre category (star, grey line and red arrow).
and red lines).

How to read our graphs

Any game with a metric Games with a metric near Games with KPIs near this red
near the green line or star is this yellow line or symbol are line or arrow are amongst the
performing in the top 15% of performing OK, but there’s still lowest performers compared to
games. Good job! some room for improvement. industry averages.
3
 Stats at a glance...

After 1 day, top performing games show retention

between 35-50%.
- Page 6

Trivia is in the lead for D1 retention, with the top

performing games having retention as high as 48%.
- Page 7

Games with day 7 retention between 15-25% are

performing particularly well.
- Page 9

The highest values for Day 28 retention are low. The

best performing games show 6% retention D28, and
this appears to be declining.
- Page 10

Average session length is decreasing for the top

performing games, but is starting to pick back up for
the low performing ones.
- Page 12

4 GameAnalytics Mobile Gaming Benchmarks Report: H1 2019

For most genres, having more than 18% stickiness
is really good.
- Page 15

For average revenue per paying user, Action, Role

Playing, and Strategy take the lead, with ARPPU
over $26.
- Page 23

The Strategy genre has overtaken Role Playing,

however Role Playing still performs up to 2x better
than most other genres.
- Page 25

Average games convert just north of 0.2% of players

(compared to 0.4% in 2018), however the top
performing titles are getting 3x more in comparison.
- Page 26

Role Playing games are still on top, having 2x better

conversion rates than other top performing genres.
- Page 27

5
Retention (Day 1)

How much potential

do games have?
If your day 1
retention is low...
Day 1 retention looks at how many players return after
1 day of playing a game. You’ll want to use this KPI to If a game has low day 1
retention, then it’s probably
get a quick impression of your game’s potential.
going to need a massive
overhaul.

At a glance... Many studios drop under-

performing titles (sometimes
killing games with anything less
If a game has more than 40% day 1 retention, than 35%). Although this can
be a hard decision to make, it’s
then it is doing really well.
sometimes better to cut losses
and move on to the next project.
Anything below 30% retention isn’t considered
good and may not be financially viable in the long
term.

Trivia has taken the lead with D1 retention, with Thanks!

the top performing games having retention as
high as 48%.

Games with 35% or greater day

1 retention are performing well
compared to the average.

Yearly Overview for Day 1 Retention

6 GameAnalytics Mobile Gaming Benchmarks Report: H1 2019

 Breakdown of Genre for Day 1 Retention

Top performing games Genre median Underperforming games

40% day 1 retention is

above average, but 35% is
still promising!

7
Retention (Day 7)

Are players still coming back

after a week?

Perfect your core

Similar to day 1 retention, day 7 looks specifically at
game loop
players who come back to a game after a week of
playing. Naturally, this will be lower than day 1 retention. Players can lose interest in
repetitive things easily, which
is a valid reason why day 7
retention can suffer.
At a glance...
When repeating core loops in
games, it’s important to make
Cards and Casino games are catching up with the sure players can unlock new
Word genre, with the top performing titles in these content, be that items, areas or
genres boasting over 20% day 7 retention. levels. Don’t let them get bored!

Retention tends to decrease around Christmas

and summer holidays.
Good to know!
The top performing games in the Kids category is
just above 5%, which shows just how difficult it is
to keep players loyal for this genre.

Similar to the previous year,

day 7 retention tends to decrease
over the Christmas period.

Yearly Overview for Day 7 Retention

8 GameAnalytics Mobile Gaming Benchmarks Report: H1 2019

 Breakdown of Genre for Day 7 Retention

Top performing games Genre median Underperforming games

Games with day 7 retention

between 15-25% are
performing particularly well.

9
 Retention (Day 28)

Players that come back after 28

days are truly engaged. If players are still playing
after 28 days, they really love
that game. But then what?
With so much competition out there, retaining
players for a full month can be tricky. Normally,
developers can expect to see a dramatic drop-off
when it comes to day 28 retention. Consider the endgame

The endgame is important
At a glance... to keep players engaged.
Although tricky to design, great
endgames allow users to
The highest values are low. The best performing continue enjoying core
games show 6% retention D28, and this appears gameplay.
to be declining.
PVP modes, daily challenges
and leaderboards are all great
The bottom 15% have a D28 retention of 0%, options to keep users excited.
showing how difficult it is to retain players for a full
month.

Word and card games are in the lead, with the top
performing games having day 28 retention as
high as 12%.

Day 28 retention can be seen declining

in 2019 for top performing games,
suggesting more players are starting to
churn at an earlier stage.

Yearly Overview for Day 28 Retention

10 GameAnalytics Mobile Gaming Benchmarks Report: H1 2019

 Breakdown of Genre for Day 28 Retention

Top performing games Genre median Underperforming games

Games with more than

6% day 28 retention are
performing particularly well.

11
 Average Session Length

How long do people play

for on average?
Reward loyal players

The average session length looks at how long Users ultimately control how
users play a game, from initially opening the app to when long they play for, so it’s
important to not limit their
the session is closed and sent to the background. gameplay. If they complete 10
levels within a game and end
up playing for 20 minutes, these
At a glance... players should be rewarded to
make sure they have a good
experience.
People play longer in winter (by around 2 minutes),
This should apply to any stage
especially around Christmas.
of gameplay, whether they are
returning after 1 day, 7 or 28.
ASL is decreasing for the top performing games,
but is starting to pick back up for the low performing
ones.

Casino and Card still reign kings, having the longest Makes sense!
ASL (these genres have a great deal of overlap).

Average session length is slowly

decreasing for top performing
games, suggesting that players
Yearly Overview for
are either looking for shorter play
throughs, or are churning faster. Average Session Length

12 GameAnalytics Mobile Gaming Benchmarks Report: H1 2019

 Breakdown of Genre for Average Session Length

Top performing games Genre median Underperforming games

Although average session length

has slightly decresed for these two
genres in the past year, players still
spend considerably more time in
card and casino games.

13
 Stickiness

How engaged are players

in a game?
How can I increase
engagement and keep my
players loyal?
To break this down, stickiness is the
DAU-to-MAU ratio, which essentially means
how many monthly users play each day.
How to keep them loyal
Promotions, giveaways and
At a glance... freebies are always a nice
way to reward regulars.
Most games decrease slightly around Ultimately however, it all comes
Christmas and New Year, with a small rise down to content.
after New Year’s Eve.
If players are denied new
The peak is around October, with another peak challenges or fresh gameplay,
just before the holiday period. then they will lose interest and
move on to the next game.
The 5 top performing genres for this metric are
Board, Card, Casino, Puzzle and Word, with more
than 25% Stickiness.

Similar to last year, Stickiness

tends to see a drop around the Yearly Overview
holiday period, as people’s lives
for Stickiness
tends to get busier.

14 GameAnalytics Mobile Gaming Benchmarks Report: H1 2019

 Breakdown of Genre for Stickiness

Top performing games Genre median Underperforming games

For most genres, having

more than 18% stickiness is
really good.

15
 Hear what the
best have to say
60,000+ game developers use GameAnalytics in
more than 75K titles. Here’s what some of them have to say...

Ryan McLeod | Creator of Blackbox

Alexander Krug | CEO
“From deep-dives to health-checks
“The tools from GameAnalytics have and benchmarking, GameAnalytics is
helped us increase our monetization my source of truth.”
performance by up to 30% for several
of our Messenger titles.”

Trusted by the world’s

leading developers

Gabriel Rivaud | VP of Games

“I use GameAnalytics
daily to track core KPIs
for our range of our games.
It’s an essential tool for all
data driven gaming studios.
Highly recommended.”

Chris Benjaminsen | Founder

“We use GameAnalytics to get all the

insight we need about our players on Allison Bilas | COO
all platforms, from iOS to FB Instant.”
“GameAnalytics is the most reliable
platform out there to help us understand
the behavior of our players in China.”

16 GameAnalytics Mobile Gaming Benchmarks Report: H1 2019

Nate Barker | Director of BD

“Our continued success is dependent on GameAnalytics

providing critical gaming KPIs at our fingertips.”

Marcus Dawson | CEO Mark C. Wang | Co-Founder

“I really like the “GameAnalytics help us to

understand the player
GameAnalytics behaviour in both macro and
platform. It’s an micro level. We rely on it.”
excellent free tool that
helps to shape many of
our daily decisions.”

Andy Sum | Co-Founder

“GameAnalytics is an essential
tool to help us understand how
Matti Kallonen | CEO people are playing Crossy Road
- love it!”
“We absolutely love
GameAnalytics. The real-
time metrics are a lifesaver
for tracking our campaigns.”

Daniel Korczak | CEO

“GameAnalytics has been a

great help in development of
our games. The tool gives us a
new perspective which lets us
understand our users’ behavior
better.”

17
 CASE STUDY

How JoyPac uses GameAnalytics

to evaluate games for publishing
in Asia

CHALLENGE SOLUTION

When JoyPac first set out to build a Today JoyPac uses GameAnalytics to evaluate
data-driven mobile games publisher in 2018, all of the games they publish. They start by
they knew they needed an analytics tool that asking developers to integrate one of the
could scale as the business grew, without GameAnalytics SDKs into their games.
significantly driving up costs.
They then analyze this data to learn more about
More importantly, because they specialize in the behavior of different players, and get a clear
APAC markets like China and Japan, they were picture of what is and isn’t working, usually
aware that they’d need to track players in both based on the changes that their Beijing-based
the East and the West, and do it accurately. ops teams make to the game.

PLAYERS PLATFORM DOWNLOADS IN 2019

1+ billion iOS & Android 25+ MILLION

18 GameAnalytics Mobile Gaming Benchmarks Report: H1 2019

 Non-Stop
Space
Their story Defence
(WHAT)GAMES
Back in 2018, APAC games publishing specialist,
JoyPac, entered the market with a clear mission:
to make it easy for game developers to reach more
players than ever before. Since forming with this goal,
they’ve worked tirelessly to perfect their strategy and
optimize the distribution process for their partners.
They’re now beginning to see some amazing results.
SkipSchool
Within less than a year of forming, JoyPac released more
EUREKA STUDIO
than 18 games - and in early 2019 one of their very first
titles reached the top 3 most downloaded games on iOS
in China. They claim that their “success is the result of
an uncompromising focus on high-quality
hyper-casual titles, combined with a data-driven
evaluation process using GameAnalytics.
This helps them identify the best new
releases primed for success in the East.”
Master of
Repair
GLOBAL GEAR

Power Painter
CHIMPWORKS
They’ve now released a string of hit titles in
China, including Skip School, Radish Girl,
Master of War, and one of their most successful
releases, Fluffy Fall, published by the Paris-based
What(Games) and created by the talented
developers at Kilosaurus.

A word from JoyPac

“We use GameAnalytics across the whole company. It’s an important part of our tech stack
that helps us understand player data and monitor the health of titles internally, but also update
our partners externally with helpful updates. We use the REST API to pull specific data points
into own own reporting platform and share with them automatically.”

“Most importantly, GameAnalytics is the most reliable platform out there to help us
understand the behavior of our players in China. Very few other trusted systems actually work
in there, but with GameAnalytics it’s simple - and with very little effort we’re able to answer
questions like: what do Chinese players like about the game? What features are especially
sticky? How are they responding to ads? GameAnalytics helps us answer these questions in
an intuitive interface with dozens of well documented SDKs.”

Allison Bilas
CHIEF OPERATING OFFICER |

19
 CASE STUDY

How GameAnalytics helps

Voodoo identify and release hit
mobile games each month

CHALLENGE SOLUTION

Taking a game from initial conception, through Voodoo uses GameAnalytics to get
prototype phases and on to a financially predictive insights about early-phase games.
successful launch is a difficult task for even the They’re able to quickly shortlist the most
most established of games studios. It’s even promising new titles from hundreds of different
more challenging for those in the hyper-casual games pitched to them each month by reviewing
space, especially when you consider the short KPIs like D1 and D7 retention.
lifespans of these types of mobile games.
What’s more, GameAnalytics helps Voodoo
For publishers like Voodoo, using data to identify gather crucial data feedback so they can consult
titles with the best potential, as well as optimize and help their partners improve the core metrics
core gameplay loops, is key to their continued and gameplay of their games.
success.

PLAYERS EMPLOYEES PLATFORM

1+ billion 120 iOS & Android

20 GameAnalytics Mobile Gaming Benchmarks Report: H1 2019

How they use data to release hit after hit

When it comes to predicting the success of a title, simply playing the game is rarely enough.
Data is key for recognizing the games with the greatest potential, and Voodoo reviews this
data with user-level access to multiple studios at any given time via GameAnalytics. They
typically look for D1 retention of 50% or greater.

Around 19/20 games with low retention get set aside, whilst studios with promising
numbers and a great concept are given consultation to help improve core gameplay
elements. Voodoo has now become a world leader at finding and refining diamonds in the
rough, using GameAnalytics to see critical KPIs (and even game error logs).

Once a game has been released, GameAnalytics still plays a role in progress tracking for
the entire Voodoo team, with custom integration via the GameAnalytics Rest API that feeds
GameAnalytics data into their own proprietary dashboard.

Within this platform, product managers, game designers, and even partner developers work
together, using GameAnalytics as a way to regularly monitor and optimize the lifecycle of
each and every game across their entire portfolio.

A word from Voodoo

“At Voodoo we review hundreds of games each month. Thanks to the data collected
with GameAnalytics we’re able to help our partners with upcoming trends, clear creation
guidelines, features to increase retention and a unique ideation process.”

“One of the great perks of working as a publisher is seeing how the titles of enthusiastic
developers can be optimised to make a huge impact on their success. With the many different
GameAnalytics SDKs and a custom API integration into our own platform, we can synchronise
insights and feedback with our partners and streamline the consultancy process. Using data
to make judgements and informed decisions has proved critical to our success.”

Hugo Peyron
PUBLISHING EXPERT |

21
ARPPU

How much do users spend?

In this section, we look at the average revenue per paying How to increase
user across games on our platform. player spend
To keep the data clean and accurate, we’ve only There are loads of ways to
considered games with actual revenue. encourage players to spend
more in a game, including push
notifications, timely promotions
At a glance... and dynamic pricing to cater for
different player demographics.

Spending habits are highest in the lead up to the Before optimising IAP,
holidays and summer months, suggesting the developers should focus on
top performing studios ramp up their marketing overall gameplay. After all,
people can’t spend money if
efforts around here.
they aren’t playing that game.

There is little difference between the average and

underperforming games, but there is a 3-4x gap
between them and the top performing titles.

For top performing genres, Action, Role Playing

and Strategy take the lead, with ARPPU over $26.

YoY, ARPPU is showing

similar results. As expected.
ARPPU drops around the holiday
period, picking back up in the
new year
Yearly Overview
for ARPPU

22 GameAnalytics Mobile Gaming Benchmarks Report: H1 2019

 Breakdown of Genre for ARPPU

Top performing games Genre median Underperforming games

Action, Role Playing and

Strategy take the lead, with
ARPPU over $26.

23
ARPDAU

What’s the average value for

each of your players?

Offers are key

We break down average revenue per daily active user to
see how much money a developer makes from a user in a Providing in-game offers to your
single day. Similar to ARPPU, we only consider games with players is key to increasing your
actual revenue. ARPDAU.

Player types should be

At a glance... considered in these offers, as
well as how much they can
actually afford. A/B testing
The Strategy genre has overtaken Role Playing, different price points is a good
however Role Playing still performs up to 2x tactic to see which IAP amounts
better than most other genres. players prefer, and to get a grasp
of what their budget will allow.
Again, there is little difference between average
and underperforming games, but a 6-7x gap
between them and the top performing titles.
Thanks for the tip!
ARPDAU is low over the hoiday period, but picks
back up in spring, hitting as high as $0.14 for top
performing games.

And similar to ARPPU, there’s a

decrease in ARPDAU over the
holiday period, picking back up
again in the new year. Yearly Overview
for ARPDAU

24 GameAnalytics Mobile Gaming Benchmarks Report: H1 2019

 Breakdown of Genre for ARPDAU

Top performing games Genre median Underperforming games

The Strategy genre has overtaken

Role Playing, however Role Playing
still performs up to 2x better than
most other genres.

25
Conversion

Which genre gets the most

players converting?

How to increase
Conversion data is the percentage of users who made a conversion
purchase that day. In the following graphs, the conversion Developers should know what
rate is analysed on a daily basis. will help players with their
gameplay and push offers and
promotions relating to these.
At a glance...
A couple of examples include
knowing which level they get
Overall, conversion rate is declining for most games. stuck on, when they need extra
This is likely due to the rise in ad-monetization, lives or if they have run out of
which is something we’ll be exploring in our H2 hints.
benchmarks report.
Reactive in-game offers are a
Average games convert just north of 0.2% of players great way to remind players of
(compared to 0.4% in 2018), however the top the items they can purchase,
performing titles are getting 3x more in and can make the game more
helpful.
comparison.

Role playing games have up to 2x better

conversion rates than other top performing genres.

Conversion rate for top performing

games is declining, suggesting that
developers are focusing more on ad Yearly Overview
based revenue and less on IAP.
for Conversion

26 GameAnalytics Mobile Gaming Benchmarks Report: H1 2019

 Breakdown of Genre for Conversion

Top performing games Genre median Underperforming games

Role Playing games are still on top,

having 2x better conversion rates
than other top performing genres.

27
 Other cool stats
you should know

In Q1 2019, global iOS and Google Play

consumer spend surpassed $22 billion
Research from App Annie shows that globally, the industry saw 30 billion
global combined app downloads — also the largest quarter ever, up 10%
year over year.
Source: AppAnnie Blog

Ad mediation is on the rise, with 63% of

developers saying they had tried it
The latest findings in Chocolate’s App Developer Survey 2019 highlight
that ad mediation adoption is on the rise with 63% saying they had tried it,
whilst 28% were happy to and 9% did not plan to use it in the near future.
Source: Business of Apps

Special live event currencies in games

have increased from 32% to 38% YoY
News from GameRefinery shows that having special live event currencies
has become more common within the top 100 grossing games, rising from
32% to 38% year-on-year.
Source: GameRefinery

28 GameAnalytics Mobile Gaming Benchmarks Report: H1 2019

More than 46% of all “gaming
enthusiasts” are women
Analytics firm Newzoo reports that there may be over 1 billion female
gaming fans worldwide, as seen in their new breakdown of gaming
demographics.
Source: PC Games Insider

In 2019, the number of mobile gamers

worldwide hit 2.2 billion
According to ironSource, they predict that there will be over 2.2 billion
mobile games in 2019. Which is nearly 30% of the global population. In the
US alone at the moment, there are 203M mobile gamers.
Source: ironSource blog

By 2022, mobile’s share in total media ad

spending will increase to 41.9%
At the moment, mobile accounts for two-thirds of digital ad spend,
showing a 30% annual growth. In 2018, mobile ad spending worldwide
amounted to $147.6 billion. Soomla predicts that in 2019, the global ad
spending will reach over $160 billion worldwide, and over $186 billion in
2020.
Source: Soomla blog

29
 Features any great
analyst should use
We’ve listed some of the most powerful GameAnalytics features you
should use to level up your games and keep your players happy.

Stay up-to-date with

custom dashboards
Build, annotate and share custom
dashboards with different stakeholders
across your studio, so everyone sees the
metrics that matter most to them.

View your
entire portfolio
Easily search, find, pin, and access
your most important titles from one
convenient view. Get a quick snapshot
into the health of your studio, or even
the games that you’ve helped publish.

30 GameAnalytics Mobile Gaming Benchmarks Report: H1 2019

Slice and dice data
until it’s just right
View and report on the exact data
slice you need, then identify player
segments with advanced combinations
of filters - across multiple dimensions!

Change the game

experience without
updating code
Create variables inside the Command
Center which automatically update to
your players’ devices, allowing you to
trigger certain campaigns, or even adjust
the price of in-game items on the fly.

Learn how campaigns

influence players
See metrics relating to specific
audience groups and track changes
over time to find out how well a
particular campaign, promotion, or
in-game update is doing.

Want to take your

analytics to the next level?
Sign up for free at: www.gameanalytics.com/signup

31
 Take your game
to the next level
Sign up for free at:
www.gameanalytics.com
Got questions?
Email: [email protected]

32 GameAnalytics Mobile Gaming Benchmarks Report: H1 2019