Cellular Sport Market Evaluate August 2023

Stumble Guys didn’t journey up with its efficiency within the cellular market throughout August, combining an all-new shard system with a collaboration with one in every of YouTube’s largest influencers, MrBeast, to launch one in every of its most profitable occasions so far within the US. 

In the meantime, Umamusume Fairly Derby dominated downloads and income in China with its launch and topped the charts in Japan with its two-and-a-half-year anniversary occasion, including a Parisian coaching simulation and a large gacha marketing campaign with greater than 20 completely different gachas that resulted in an enormous each day income spike. August additionally noticed some attention-grabbing experiments throughout cellular, significantly from Blizzard, who introduced battle royale to Diablo followers for the primary time and soft-launched a tactical battle spin-off of its ever-popular MMO, World of Warcraft. 

That’s solely scratching the floor of all of the unbelievable updates our analysts got here throughout within the largest iOS video games throughout August. Try our August Cellular Sport Market Evaluate beneath for a breakdown of all the pieces they uncovered throughout the US, China, and Japan. 

US Market Overview

First up is Stumble Guys, which added a brand new materials system, Pores and skin Shards. Because the title suggests, these are used to unlock unique beauty skins, with the rarity of the pores and skin dictating what number of distinctive shards are wanted. Gamers can earn a restricted quantity of pores and skin shards without spending a dime by occasion rewards, however gaining sufficient shards to unlock a pores and skin often requires buying an IAP bundle. 

The Pores and skin Shards have been launched alongside a brand new collaboration occasion with MrBeast, that includes a number of unique skins themed across the in style YouTuber that might solely be acquired with the brand new useful resource. The collaboration additionally added a brand new MrBeast-inspired Warehouse map alongside three limited-time recreation modes the place gamers may earn Beast Bucks and Beast Tokens; these have been used to spin occasion gachas to amass additional shards.

In comparison with the sport’s previous monetized collaborations, which embrace Ubisoft’s Rabbids and Barbie, the MrBeast occasion was extra profitable when it comes to income efficiency. That is probably a mixture of a well-matched collaboration IP and the brand new Pores and skin Shard system. A each day calendar view, with precise dates and durations of the MrBeast occasions, provides, gachas, and different particulars, could be present in our Reside Occasions Tracker. 

We’ve written extensively about interactive story video games, the place gamers comply with the journey of various characters and make choices that affect the course of the narrative, and the way their builders aren’t scared to incorporate mechanics which are barely uncommon for the subgenre. That pattern appears to proceed with Episode implementing its first limited-time gacha in August, the Gumball Machine: Bubblegum Restricted Assortment.

Gamers draw the gacha in two methods: utilizing a premium forex generally known as gems or with one in every of their 5 free each day turns. The gacha prize pool contains unique Bubblegum avatar outfits and different cosmetics, gems, small gumball tokens (that give extra free turns), and extra. Every Gumball Machine gacha has a novel theme, corresponding to Ok-pop or goth.

Different US Market highlights embrace:

• Diablo Immortal launched a limited-time battle royale mode on 9 August referred to as Wild Brawl. The mode, which lasted till 22 August, labored equally to different main titles within the style and noticed 24 gamers divided into six groups of 4, who then entered a map and battled in opposition to one another till only one was left standing. 
• Triple Match 3D continued its spectacular scaling streak in August, reaching an all-time excessive each day income peak at grossing 9. One other title with an identical find-three puzzle core, Completely happy Match Cafe: ASMR, additionally scaled nicely all through the month. Peak Video games additionally soft-launched its personal triple match title, Match Manufacturing facility.
• Blizzard took its well-known MMO on the go together with the tactical battler spin-off Warcraft Rumble. The title is in gentle launch within the US, however preliminary impressions recommend it might show to be a worthy competitor to Conflict Royale.  The sport is extra PvE-focused than Supercell’s titan, with a stunning quantity of depth and tactical parts, together with battles in opposition to legendary World of Warcraft characters.

August was a big month for Umamusume Fairly Derby, marking the sport’s two-and-a-half-year anniversary. The sport celebrated the milestone with the launch of its sixth coaching state of affairs on 24 August, Attain For The Stars – Challenge L’Arc, centered round conquering the legendary Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe in Paris. The brand new state of affairs launched recent coaching mechanics, new Parisian race tracks, and formidable opponents.

The anniversary replace additionally featured an unlimited gacha marketing campaign with over twenty distinctive gacha swimming pools. These included the Anniversary Pickup Gachas, that includes new help playing cards primarily based on Challenge L’Arc, and Group Choose Gachas, which could possibly be divided into one in every of ten particular character specialty swimming pools and required premium forex. 

These have been complimented by varied IAP bundle provides, that are hardly ever featured in Umamusume, stuffed with premium forex or gacha tickets. Mixed, these resulted in a dramatic improve in each day income of over 1000% in Japan.

Different Japan market highlights embrace:

• Cellular video games primarily based on the anime and manga sequence One Piece, together with Treasure Cruise and Bountry Rush, noticed vital obtain and income spikes throughout August following the discharge of ‘Gear 5 Luffy’ in these video games in addition to within the anime. Netflix’s extremely profitable live-action adaptation of the sequence has additionally saved the IP on the floor.
• In August, two uncommon successes within the Japanese market have been the idle RPGs Wan-chan GochaGocha Dai Sensou and KonnichiWAN! Hero, which prominently characteristic Shiba Inu – a Japanese canine breed that’s one thing of an web meme sensation. These video games launched after one of many world’s most well-known Shiba Inu, Cheems, handed away on 18 August, each hitting the highest 20 downloads and prime 200 grossing of their first week.
• Pokémon Sleep continued to dominate Japan and held the highest obtain spot for nearly all of August. It additionally sat comfortably as the highest 20 grossing title. For extra details about how this gamified sleep app works in observe, take heed to episode 48 of our podcast, the Cellular Video games Playbook. 

China market overview

Main the cost in China over August was the survival shooter 黎明觉醒 (Undawn), which introduced a brand new specialised occupation system to the sport. On prime of the opposite occupation techniques Undawn already had, the title added 5 extra professions, every with distinctive abilities to unlock and improve. These abilities are unlocked by finishing varied designated duties. Every of those professions impacts the participant’s playstyle in all recreation modes. The system additionally launched everlasting boosts referred to as Skills.

Different China market highlights embrace:

• Whereas it is probably not extensively identified within the West, basketball enjoys vital reputation in China. As evident from its fast rise, All-Star Streetball Occasion (全明星街球派对) achieved outstanding success out there throughout August, reaching seventh in grossing and fourth in downloads. The sport is a 3v3 road basketball multiplayer title with a Fortnite aesthetic and extremely customizable characters. 
• Umamusume Fairly Derby was launched within the China market, catapulting it to first place in downloads and the highest 10 grossing. 
• The 2D sidescrolling MMORPG Maple Story Cellular carried out fiercely in August, inserting fifth in grossing and 13 in downloads.