In 2015, gaming sessions became shorter than the year before. Such conclusions were reached by the mobile analytics and marketing firm Flurry.
Last year, the average user spent 52 minutes a day playing the game. This year he spends only 33 minutes on the same activity. Flurry experts believe that the lack of new games is to blame.
“In the gaming industry, everything is decided by hits, and over the past 6-9 months, no major hits have been released. The charts continue to be dominated by Clash of Clans from Supercell, Candy Crush from King and Game of War from Machine Zone. There is simply not enough space for new projects there,” comments Simon Khalaf, senior vice president of Yahoo’s publishing department.
The success of these games has created a situation in which the market is full of monotonous games. Projects copy each other’s gameplay. So stagnation is not only the result of the fact that two or three games on the market earn most of the money. This is the result of other studios trying to follow the same strategy instead of inventing something new.
At the same time, the rigid model of shareware monetization that games adopt from each other creates a paradox. Players spend more money to play less. That is, they prefer to pay for a new cool sword with real currency, rather than grind for hours to get it.
This explains why, despite the decrease in the duration of gaming sessions, the income of stores – and publishers – continues to grow. For example, last month the App Store earned a record $1.7 billion on IAP.
The inevitable consequence is that users increasingly prefer not to play themselves (and spend money themselves), but to watch others play, according to Flurry analysts. As proof of the thesis, they cite the fact that the recordings of how users play Minecraft are among the most viewed on Tumblr.
Perhaps, as a result, there will be very few successful games on the market, – Flurry experts make an unexpected conclusion. But on the other hand, a dense community will develop around them, which will support them for a long time.
A source: http://venturebeat.com
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