© 2015 Newzoo NEWZOO TREND REPORT The Mobile Gaming Landscape 2015 And the power users who shaped it INCLUDES CONTRIBUTIONS FROM What I believe we’ve seen in mobile gaming in 2015 is the beginning of a broader trend toward convergence. As shown by the success of FOREWORD Bethesda’s Fallout Shelter on mobile in June 2015 and Fallout 4 on PC, PS4 and Xbox One, game companies are beginning to realize that consumers desire gaming content to fit the various contexts that form It has been another big year for mobile gaming. In fact, it has been the their lives. biggest year in the history of the industry so far. With the sector generating revenues of over $30 billion and King, arguably the biggest As a result, we’ll be seeing in 2016 onward a move player in the market, valued at $6 billion, it’s fair to say that mobile gaming has reached heights in 2015 that few of us would have expected away from defining games by their platform toward a decade ago. Unfortunately, what this means for the industry now and models that allow game content to be played and, in the future has been clouded by antagonistic models of thinking. Whether deliberately or otherwise, mobile gaming’s success has tended equally important, viewed everywhere. to be framed as a battle with console or PC. Sony’s announcement that PS4 Remote Play, which allows console When I unpacked the data from this report, a different picture emerged. owners to play content without carrying the product around, comes hot In contrast to the usual narratives about mobile versus console or PC on the tail of Microsoft allowing Xbox One titles to run on Windows. within the industry, it’s clear that most players are not in one camp or Meanwhile, mobile VR, such as Samsung’s Gear headset, will ensure that the other; they’re in both. As you’ll see for yourself shortly, Big Spenders gaming’s newest trend is built with mobility and flexibility of use in mind. on mobile games also spend significantly within the rest of the gaming space. Free marketers, who share game content but don’t pay for it, This report from Newzoo has solidified in my mind that soon we will no aren’t casual gamers; they’re an audience who respect and play “core” longer talk about mobile games as a genre, but as a method of games. And though they consume video content on mobile devices, consumption. The whole games industry is about to go mobile; I believe mobile Power Users spend their time and money heavily on services like this will support, rather than threaten, businesses as they create Netflix or Twitch, which work across platforms. diverse, and successful, games in the future. - George Osborn George Osborn is a games writer who has written for The Guardian, Games Industry Biz and Pocket Gamer. He is currently the Editor for Mobile Games Forum and runs a content marketing business called Mobile Mavericks. INTRODUCTION This report is provides a “just in case you missed it” overview of the key trends, For Newzoo, 2015 was a pivotal year in our company’s history as our growth insights and data we have published in the past 12 months. But there are also accelerated. Compared to January of this year, we have doubled our some new gems to be found in this 39-page document. As our data on mobile headcount. Without disclosing our complete strategic and tactical line-up of broadens and deepens through our own data crunching and modelling, we plans and products, the world will see a lot of new and innovative things also rely on a number of strong and innovative partners for insights on China, coming from Newzoo in 2016 in terms of markets tracked, type of in-depth appstore data and game monetization metrics. intelligence that we provide and industries that we serve, particularly in the mobile space. In the first quarter of 2016, we will be expanding our US The biggest news on mobile last year was without a doubt presence considerably including moving to a new San Francisco office: RocketSpace. As the majority of our clients already come from the US, it was ActivisionBlizzard buying King. Not just because it is the biggest just a matter of time before we would move more of our shop into their acquisition in games industry history. It is illustrative of many neighborhood. things that have shaken up our industry in the past years. - Peter Warman CEO and Co-founder of Newzoo “With this report, Newzoo has provided a unique summary of the year. It details not only macro-economic consumption patterns in the gaming eco system, but also their derivation In 2015, Tencent expanded its lead as largest company in the world by game revenues, generating $4.2Bn in the first half of 2015 alone. It also has a from player transactions. An essential read for anyone significant minority stake in world’s new number two: ActivisionBlizzard. involved in the business of game development.” - Mark Robinson CEO and Co-founder of deltaDNA 1. The Mobile Market A snapshot of developments in 2015 KEY SOURCE: NEWZOO’S 2015 GLOBAL GAMES MARKET REPORT The industry standard for trends, gamer numbers and revenue projections, used by the majority of global games, media and hardware companies. MOBILE REVENUES CONTINUE TO GROW 2014-2018 GLOBAL MOBILE GAMES MARKET REVENUES SPLIT BY SMARTPHONE & TABLET © 2015 Newzoo | Source: Newzoo Global Games Market Report Premium Smartphone Tablet 2014-2018 CAGR +15.9% $44.2Bn $40.4Bn $35.5Bn +23% $12.9 $30.0Bn $12.8 $24.5Bn $11.2 year-on-year global $9.4 growth between 2014- $7.4 2015 $17.0 $20.6 $24.4 $27.6 $31.3 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 ASIA LEADS AS WESTERN MARKETS MATURE 2015 MOBILE GAMES REVENUES PER REGION & YoY GROWTH RATES © 2015 Newzoo | Source: Newzoo Global Games Market Report Premium E-EU $0.8Bn W-EU +10.0% NAM $6.5Bn $3.7Bn CHINA KOREA +12.0% +15.1% $6.5Bn $1.9Bn +46.5% +8.7% +69% MEA year-on-year growth JAPAN $1.1Bn REST APAC +82.8% $6.2Bn $1.8Bn +5.8% for the greater +69.1% Southeast Asia region. OCEANIA LATAM $0.6Bn $1.1Bn +12.0% +72.9% CHINA BECOMES #1 MARKET IN 2015 COUNTRY 2015 MOBILE SHARE OF 2014-2015 REVENUES GLOBAL GROWTH 1 China $6,530M 21.7% +46.5% 2 Japan $6,180M 20.6% +5.8% 3 US $6,020M 20.0% +15.2% 237M 4 South Korea $1,850M 6.2% +8.7% Apple devices were 5 UK $1,010M 3.4% +11.3% actively used in 6 Germany $820M 2.7% +12.7% China (October 2015), 7 France $520M 1.7% +10.9% or 29% of all 8 Australia $520M 1.7% +10.8% smartphones & tablets 9 Canada $510M 1.7% +13.5% 10 Taiwan $480M 1.6% +51.2% $24,440M 81.3% +18.9% ACTIVISION BLIZZARD ACQUIRES KING TOP 10 COMPANIES BY GAME REVENUES, H1 2014 VS. H1 2015 Source: Newzoo Global Games Market Report Premium Activision Blizzard’s acquisition of King makes it the #2 PUBLIC COMPANY BY GAME REVENUES MERGER ENTERTAINS 81.4M AMERICANS OVERLAP ACTIVISION/BLIZZARD ACTIVISION/BLIZZARD KING PLAYERS & KING PLAYERS PLAYERS © 2015 Newzoo 51% 43% PLAYERS HAVE PLAYED ONE OF 48.5M 24.5M 57.3M PLAYERS HAVE PLAYED ONE OF THESE KEY FRANCHISES IN THE THESE KEY FRANCHISES IN THE PAST 3 MONTHS Americans have played at least one Americans have played at least one of Americans have played at least one PAST 3 MONTHS of Activision Blizzard’s key Activision Blizzard’s franchises and one of King’s key franchises in the past franchises in the past 3 months of King in the past 3 months. 3 months SHARE OF ACTIVISIONBLIZZARD PLAYERS THAT ALSO PLAYS KING FRANCHISES | PAST 3 MONTHS | 26 COUNTRIES © 2015 Newzoo 33.3% 63.9% 55.5% 35.0% 41.3% 28.0% 46.5% 45.5% 52.8% 27.0% 38.7% 38.1% 31.2% CAN BR MEX AUS UK GER FR ES IT SE NL BE PL 19.8% 64.7% 76.0% 60.0% 58.3% 63.3% 67.3% 44.6% 57.6% 42.5% 34.6% 39.6% 32.4% RU TR IN TH IND VN PH SI MA TW CN JP KOR © 2015 Newzoo Consumer Research in 27 Countries, Newzoo Data Explorer, Consumers Aged 10 to 65 2. Mobile Power Users Who are the Free Marketers & Big Spenders? KEY SOURCE: NEWZOO’S 2015 COUNTRY CONSUMER INSIGHTS Get access to in-depth consumer insights and data on 27 countries on over 200 variables. Size and profile your market in terms of your target group INTRO TO THE MOBILE POWER USER Free Marketers Big Spenders Free Marketers play games > 10 hours per week Big Spenders in the US spend > $25* per month on without spending money or in mobile games *varies country to country Defining value in mobile game monetization has focused almost With only 2.8% of mobile gamers classified as Big Spenders entirely on how much money a player spends. This has come at the globally, gaming companies have focused more and more on expense of considering a group of users who don’t spend but are unearthing these “whales”, measuring their value and still highly valuable. Among non-paying mobile gamers, there is a attempting to increase their spend. Globally, there are 49.3 user segment that delivers meaningful value to marketers, even million mobile gamers who can be classed as Big Spenders.