GameAnalytics shares global gaming trends surfaced from the Benchmarks+ platform. Their analysis spans more than 88,000 games, 150 million transactions, 1.2 billion players and 16 billion sessions on average each month - with performance insights dating back to 2016. Expect to learn the latest industry trends for core engagement and monetization KPIs like retention, session length, ARPPU and conversion across all major genres and sub-genres, now including aggregated insights for the top 5%, 10%, and 20% of market performance. This is one of the most detailed pieces of gaming analysis currently available for developers, studios and publishers of all shapes and sizes.

1. GameAnalytics
Mobile Gaming Stats from 2019
The latest industry benchmarks for mobile games
(Q1 2019 – Q4 2019)
Nikolaj Ahlberg-Pedersen
VP of Product at GameAnalytics

2. Insights from Benchmarks+
gameanalytics.com
These findings are from our new insights platform,
Benchmarks+, which features aggregated data from:
1.2B+ 88,000+
Games in
18 genres
Monthly
players
16B+ 150M+
Monthly
transactions
Monthly
sessions
Today, we’ll be focusing on the top % quantiles across
certain key metrics at a category and genre level.

3. gameanalytics.com
Benchmarks+ aggregation
ARPPU example
For each day..
● Include only games with yearly peak DAU>1000
● Calculate ARPPU for each game
● Determine quantile groups (top % values) and store these
Displaying the quantile metrics..
● Show over weeks
● For each week calculate the average over the 7 days

4. Finding 1:
ARPPU peaked in 2018,
2019 getting closer to 2016 level

5. Top 5% ARPPU (all genres) getting closer to 2016 values,
currently around 20% higher
gameanalytics.com
$66 for 2019
$54 for 2016
Top 5%
Top 10%
Top 15%
ARPPU

6. Top 5% ARPPU (classic genres) also decreased,
but remains higher compared to 2016
gameanalytics.com
$67 for
2019
$47 for
2016
Top 5%
Top 10%
Top 15%
ARPPU

7. 2018 saw a record high ARPPU peak in casual games…
gameanalytics.com
Top 5%
Top 10%
Top 15%
$112 record high
ARPPU

8. …and is starting to decline in 2019
gameanalytics.com
Top 5%
Top 10%
Top 15%
ARPPU

9. Finding 2:
ARPPU decreases in December for
classic games

10. ARPPU decrease over the Christmas for the classic category...
gameanalytics.com
Top 5%
Top 10%
Top 15%
ARPPU

11. …but more players are paying
gameanalytics.com
Conversion

12. Top 5% ARPDAU is climbing for casual games
gameanalytics.com
ARPDAU

13. Finding 3:
Conversion rate is increasing,
especially for the Top 5%

14. Overall, conversion rate is increasing
gameanalytics.com
0.5% increase
Top 5%
Top 10%
Top 15%
Conversion

15. Finding 4:
2019 players are more active
spenders in puzzle games

16. Conversion rate for puzzle was declining in 2017/2018…
gameanalytics.com
2017 2018
2.3%
1.6%
Conversion

17. Top 5%
Top 10%
Top 15%
…but is now on the rise again for the Top 5%
gameanalytics.com
2.5% for 2019
1.47%
for 2018
2019
Conversion

18. Finding 5:
Players are
churning earlier

19. What are the top 5% achieving for retention in 2019?
gameanalytics.com
Retention
2018
2019

20. Retention drops in the first two weeks of January
gameanalytics.com
D7 Retention
2016 2017 2018 2019

21. And D28 retention drops in the 3rd/4th week of Jan
gameanalytics.com
2016 2017 2018 2019
D28 Retention

22. Casual games are seeing a hit…
gameanalytics.com
D1 Retention
43% end of 201949% peak at start of 2018
Top 5%
Top 10%
Top 15%

23. …especially for D28 retention
gameanalytics.com
Top 5%
Top 10%
Top 15%
D28 Retention
12% peak at start of 2018
9% end of 2019

24. What we’ve learned
1. ARPPU peaked in 2018. Now getting closer to 2016 level.
ARPPU also decreases significantly during Christmas for Top 5%
2. Conversion rate is increasing. Especially for Top 5%
3. Players are churning earlier (especially in the casual genre)
4. Increase in installs over the Christmas period tends to affect
retention in January

25. Why is this happening?
2. Increased competition for casual games
3. Top studios are getting better at using Live Ops
1. Top 5% seem more aggressive with special offers/content
4. Hyper-casual studios are diversifying

26. Final tips
3. Use Live Ops and advanced UA.
Your competition is likely doing it already..
2. Optimise retention before launching (soft-launch)
1. Consider several KPI’s when estimating success

27. Learn more about
Benchmarks+
gameanalytics.com/benchmarks

28. Thanks for listening
Any questions?
Nikolaj Ahlberg-Pedersen
VP of Product at GameAnalytics
insights@gameanalytics.com