We have already written more than once that the revenue of the shareware game is provided by a small percentage of “whales”. Mobile marketing platform Swrve clarified the figures in its research. Only 0.23% of the players are responsible for 64% of the revenue.
Of those who are still willing to spend money on IAP, 44% do it only 1 time. Only half – 20% – pay twice or more.
A typical paying player makes about 3.4 purchases per month. Their average cost is $8.27. The most popular are medium-cost IAPs – those whose price is within $10 – $20. They account for up to 21.9% of all purchases and up to 38.6% of the total revenue of the game.
If the user is set up to pay, then he makes his first purchase fairly quickly – within 15 hours from the moment he started playing. This is less than in 2014. Then the player needed an average of 24 hours to start paying.
In addition, most users (more than 50%) make their first purchase on the 1st day after installation.
There are more players willing to pay for in-game purchases with real money. Their number has increased from 1.5% last year to 2.3% this year.
“The numbers are self-evident: the mobile gaming business is growing and changing,” Swrve CEO Christopher Dean summarizes the study. – Despite the fact that it still relies on a relatively small number of players, there is a tendency to increase the user base. <…> We are leaving the user acquisition phase as developers begin to understand that success determines what happens after installing the game.”
SWRVE
The key idea of the study, according to Swrve, is to attract the target audience and create “all conditions” for it – that is, to take care of maximizing the gaming experience. This, in turn, should increase the ROI indicators.
A source: https://www.swrve.com
Other materials on the topic:
- Swrve: 0.13% of players are responsible for 60% of revenue from mobile games
- Swrve: 19% of new users log into the game only once
- Opinion: in the mobile business, the most important thing is user retention