As of mid-2023, the global mobile gaming market continues to face constant challenges and pressure. With the continuous advancement of tools and platforms, the mobile gaming market is showing a trend of explosive growth. The expansion of users, including teenagers, adults, and seniors, from different regions and cultural backgrounds, provides game developers with tremendous business opportunities. However, along with these opportunities comes intense competition, thousands of game developers are competing for limited user attention and market share, making the competition fiercer, and successful games require unique appeal and excellent marketing strategies.
To address this, SocialPeta released the 2023 Q2 Global Mobile Game Marketing Trends Insights report, which delves into the competitive landscape of the mobile gaming market in 2023 Q2. It explores the key factors and best practices in marketing and offers suggestions for successful marketing strategies. Through an in-depth analysis of market trends, this report will reveal the key elements to achieve success in this challenging market.
90% of advertisers introduce new creatives every quarter
In 2023, mobile game marketing has witnessed a resurgence, with a significant increase in the number of new advertisers and newly deployed creatives since Q1. In the face of intensifying marketing competition, designers and marketers have contributed eye-catching and imaginative high-quality creatives for mobile game products.
During Q2, the number of new advertisers reached a new high, with a total of nearly 52,000 advertisers. Currently, 90% of advertisers introduce new creatives every quarter, maintaining a stable trend. This quarter, the cumulative volume of new creatives exceeded 9.3 million, accounting for a total proportion of over 74%, which is a new high since Q1 2022.
Q2 saw an increasing number of advertisers with new creatives
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Source: SocialPeta
North America still maintains the highest number of advertisers, but there has been a change in the third place for this quarter. Southeast Asia has surpassed Oceania with an average of 17,000 monthly active advertisers, securing the third position. Moreover, Southeast Asia stands out as the most competitive region in terms of mobile game user acquisition in Q2, with an average of 147 creatives per advertiser per month, the highest among all regions.
Marketing trends for global mobile games by region
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Source: SocialPeta
Among various types of mobile game advertisers, the number of casual game advertisers still remains the highest, accounting for 30.46% of all advertisers in this quarter. However, the star of growth in Q2 is casino game advertisers. In this quarter, casino game advertisers accounted for 7.05%, a 1.83% increase compared to Q1 of this year and a 2.82% increase compared to the same period last year.
Thanks to the release of numerous new RPG games, RPG-related creatives performed remarkably well in this quarter, with an increase of 3.41% compared to the previous quarter, making up 9.78% of all creatives. Casual game creatives experienced a significant surge compared to last year, showing a year-on-year increase of over 13%.
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Download NowCreatives by game genre
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Source: SocialPeta
Southeast Asia dominates, TikTok marketing surges
Southeast Asia has emerged as the most competitive region for mobile game marketing in this quarter. With the region’s economic development and the influx of numerous overseas companies, this vast blue ocean has become even more vibrant. Therefore, understanding the latest marketing trends in this region has become particularly important.
Role-playing, strategy, and action game genres continue to dominate mobile game revenue in Southeast Asia. The role-playing genre has experienced the largest decrease in the share of advertisers, while the share of creatives used in this genre is on the rise. Individual advertisers are deploying more creatives, resulting in faster consumption.
In terms of game downloads, action games account for a significant 14% of the market, ranking first globally. Highly competitive and rewarding PVP action games, such as MOBA and battle royale games, are particularly popular among Southeast Asian players.
Southeast Asia: An overview
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Source: SocialPeta
New RPG games are emerging, revenue of gacha games soars
Anime-style RPG gacha mobile games have become frequent revenue climbers. With regular rotations of characters in the gacha pool and the introduction of popular and powerful characters, the genre’s revenue has been soaring.
MiHoYo has struck gold with their signature game, Honkai Impact: Star Rail Odyssey (henceforth referred to as Star Rail). On the day of its release, it topped the free charts in 114 regions, and within 5 days of launching, it generated $20.6 million in revenue, reaching a cumulative revenue of $112 million within 30 days.
RPG games, with an average of 2,800 advertisers and 850,000 unique creatives per month, have risen to become the second-largest category in terms of advertising spending. Almost 83% of advertisers introduce new creatives every month. Among RPG categories, image creatives make up a high proportion of 21%, surpassing other game genres by a significant margin, while video creatives account for approximately 77% of the total creatives used.
MMO mobile games, due to their unique strong social connections and impressive storytelling features, were the earliest to introduce real-time interactive AI.
RPGs and gacha games performance
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Source: SocialPeta
Star Rail stands out with over 1,000 daily creatives
In Q2, Star Rail has been one of the most prominent games, with its May overseas revenue even surpassing its sibling game Genshin Impact at one point. Moreover, the game’s marketing efforts have been exceptionally dynamic, breaking the traditional notion that anime-style mobile games do not invest in user acquisition. According to data from the backend, the game received nearly 1,700 daily creatives on its launch day across different platforms. Throughout the rest of Q2, it has maintained a strong momentum with over 1,000 daily creatives across these platforms.
Honkai: Star Rail performance
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Source: SocialPeta
To find out more about marketing trends for the mobile gaming industry, download the full report here.
