By Sagar Mankar 
AppsFlyer, a leading platform for mobile app ad data, has released its annual report on the mobile gaming market, reported by VentureBeat. This report provides valuable insights into how game developers and marketers are spending their money to attract new users.
The data is drawn from 15,000 gaming apps, each with at least 3,000 non-organic installs per month. These insights offer useful benchmarks for game developers, marketers, and studios looking to understand the current landscape.
How Developers Spend on Gaining New Users in 2023
The report reveals significant differences in how much developers spent to attract new users across various markets, game genres, and platforms in 2023.
Market-wise:
The United States was a favorite among developers as they spent a staggering $12.2 billion to acquire new users in the U.S. alone. This accounts for over 40% of the $29 billion spent globally on user acquisition.
In comparison, Japan and South Korea, the next most big markets, saw spending of $3 billion and $1.5 billion, respectively.
The U.S. alone outspent the other top 10 markets combined, highlighting its importance among mobile gaming developers.
Top 10 Markets:
- USA
- Japan
- South Korea
- UK
- Germany
- France
- Brazil
- Canada
- India
- Australia
Genre-wise:
When looking at different game types, match games (like Royal Match and Candy Crush Saga) saw the highest spending on ads to gain new players. Developers invested $8.65 billion, or about 30% of global spending, to attract players to this genre in 2023.
Strategy games followed, with $4.57 billion spent on ads, while role-playing games (RPGs) saw $3.84 billion in spending.
Top 10 Ad Spender Genres:
- Match
- Strategy
- RPG
- Casino
- Simulation
- Puzzle
- Hypercasual
- Tabletop
- Sports
- Action
Interestingly, casual games saw a 13% increase in non-organic installs (NOIs) and ad spending compared to previous years, one of the major reasons behind the success of Monopoly Go! as developers stated in various interviews.
Simulation and action games also showed strong growth, but RPGs and strategy games, despite their high ad spending, experienced declines.
Device-wise:
The report also highlights the cost differences for developers to attract new users on iOS and Android platforms, known as Cost per Install (CPI). In 2023, ad costs dropped by 17% on iOS but increased by 48% on Android.
Despite this shift, iOS still had a higher CPI overall, with costs averaging $6.80 on iOS compared to $1.35 on Android.
Early Marketing Efforts:
The report emphasizes the importance of early marketing efforts for developers. On both iOS and Android, about 50% of lifetime payers make their first purchase within the first three days, underscoring the critical window for developers to maximize their revenue.
For the full report, visit AppsFlyer, and don’t forget to subscribe to Gaming Foodle for more updates and insights!
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