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🎮 How Mobile Games Can Buck the Recession

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In Today’s Email

🚀 This week, we dive into the games that are defying headwinds from the recent economic slowdown in every category.

On the go? Listen to one of our podcasts from this week, we’ve got

🎧 TWiG #211 - ATT's Effects on the Industry / Loot Box Legislation / Boom Beach Frontlines Shuts Down

🎧 Tokenomics #21 - Former Covet Fashion GM Sarah Fuchs on Muus Collective and Bringing Fashion Gamers to Web3

Lastly

🎮 We review the game of the week: Talking Tom Time Rush from Outfit7

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These are the Mobile Games Defying Economic Headwinds — and Why

In data.ai and Deconstructor of Fun’s latest collaborative report, we dive deep into a comprehensive analysis of the mobile gaming sector and which genres are defying the economic slowdown

After soaring to new heights in 2020 amid a surge in consumer demand for entertainment and escapism, the mobile gaming space was hit by platform privacy changes and an overall decrease in engagement as real-world experiences became viable once more. Nevertheless, the category still represents an impressive 61% of all consumer spending in apps, a figure that would be even larger if accounting for in-app ad revenue.

Bucking the Economic Slowdown

In Q3 2022, consumers spent more than $6.7 billion per month and downloaded nearly 5 billion new titles every month. While impressive, both totals represented a slight decrease in the year-ago quarter but were still a comfortable 25% higher than pre-pandemic levels in Q3 2019.

What continues to make mobile games an appealing market is their unrivaled player base, established distribution platforms, and performance marketing which enables titles to scale. These three factors have traditionally made mobile gaming venture capital (VC) friendly, which brings in the funding that keeps the flywheel turning. That said, as the market has matured and experienced considerable privacy restrictions, VCs have needed to be much more strategic and data-driven in their investments. 

During the past year, mobile gaming has encountered headwinds for the first time since microtransactions were enabled on handheld devices. The major challenge is, of course, privacy changes that have made it much more difficult to scale games on iOS. These changes are expected to hit Google Play in some capacity in the near future. Another challenge looming in the perhaps more distant future is cloud gaming. As mobile device specifications and internet bandwidth continue improving, it might only be a matter of time before certain mobile gaming genres are in direct competition against the PC and console platforms that offer outsized value through their various subscription services, such as Xbox Game Pass and PlayStation Plus.

🎙️ Deconstructor of Fun Podcast

🎧 TWiG #211 - ATT's Effects on the Industry / Loot Box Legislation / Boom Beach Frontlines Shuts Down

Eric Seufert, Kress and Laura cover 2 major headlines this week: an update to Loot Box legislation down under and looking back at the effects of ATT on mobile gaming from Mobile Dev Memo. Smaller updates include the ATVI & MSFT deal, Boom Beach Frontlines’ sunset, a PocketGamer sponsored piece wanting to coin a new genre, Wildlife Studios layoffs and Supercell’s first hire in Austin. Until next week.

🎧 Tokenomics #21 - Former Covet Fashion GM Sarah Fuchs on Muus Collective and Bringing Fashion Gamers to Web3

Sarah Fuchs's background and success in game development is formidable to say the least. With a career spanning James Bond, The Godfather, Spore, We Rule, serving as the Head of Production for The Sims Mobile and the GM for Covet Fashion, Sarah's experience leading top-grossing mobile games is hard to match. Now, she has red-pilled on Web3 and teamed up with Amber Bezahler to bring fashion gamers to Web3. With $5m in funding from Griffin Gaming Partners and an all-star team, Muus Collective is poised to take the world of Web3 gaming by storm. 

In this wide ranging interview, Ethan and Sarah go deep on Sarah's experience developing games, how you go about building team and company culture, the importance of building a people first game studio and how Muus Collective is going to bring Web3 gaming to fashion gamers. 

The Game of the Week

Talking Tom Time Rush (Outfit7)

Yet another game is globally launched from the world’s biggest mobile franchise - Talking Tom Time Rush. The franchise is said to have generated more than ten billion downloads to date (1) and it was recently reported that the games together amass impressive 470 million active users (2).

Talking Tom Time Rush is an endless runner similar to the two of the publisher's other titles (Talking Tom: Gold Run and Talking Tom: Hero Dash). As the franchise skews young, it might not be the most exciting game for the newsletter audience, but we will leave that to you to decide! 

Weekly highlight by Jesper Gustavsson, Director of Product at SYBO Games

📝 NEWS

📊 INDUSTRY

💻 PUBLISHER

  • Boom Beach: Frontlines to shut down its servers in January, just six months after soft launch 

  • Genshin Impact gets in on the biggest trend of this (or any) year: card games 

  • Limit Break will do free NFT mint during Super Bowl commercial 

  • Wildlife Studios lays off almost 300 staff in Brazil and Argentina 

  • Bethesda is working on a new mobile game 

  • RealityScan is Epic Games’ new 3D scanning iOS App 

  • Supercell starts up two new studios, with four ex-Riot employees on board 

  • Tencent aims to branch from mobile for their big international push

💎🙌 INVESTING / M&A

  • Game7 launches $100M grant program to accelerate Web3 gaming 

  • Roboto Games raises $15M, working on survival and crafting MMO 

  • HitBox Games raises $1.6M for hack’n’slash Web3 game Swords of Blood

👾 NEW GAMES

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