The analytical company Apsalar has found out which genres of mobile games are best monetized through micropayments, and which projects should not even be taken up.
According to data obtained from 400 million unique active devices, IAPs are best integrated into strategies, quizzes, adventures, family and role-playing games. On the other hand, action games, puzzles and arcades are very poorly monetized (18.5 times worse than strategies).
Given the current situation in the box office tops, as well as the general midcore trend, this should not be surprising. Casual games are losing their dominant position in the mobile market, following the loss of positions of the paid distribution model.
So casual game developers interested in expanding beyond their “ghetto” need to look towards other genres, Apsalar concludes. However, it seems to us that there is no need to retrain for success, it is enough to integrate casual mechanics with, for example, role-playing. This is how the extremely successful “Mysterious House” (role-playing game + hidden object) and the cult Puzzle Quest (role-playing game + match-3) were made.
Apsalar also found out how much time, on average, users spend in mobile games per day. The ideal session lasts 2 minutes. Interestingly, the arcades, which, as we found out a little above, are not very well monetized, have, despite this, good sessions in length – 1.58 minutes per user.
Analysts draw an obvious conclusion from this: such games should be monetized according to the paymium scheme (aka freemium, aka shareware, aka free to try), as, for example, Big Fish does with its products: downloaded, liked, bought the full version.
In turn, quizzes have, despite the “propensity” for monetization, relatively low engagement, sessions in them are much smaller than those of strategies and adventures.
Otherwise, the indicators for engagement and monetization are the same: games with short sessions (that is, with low engagement), and a low level of monetization. The conclusion is disappointing. If you want to make money on iAP, you should not take up the creation of puzzles, action games and educational games.