Middle-aged man became a VIP in a mobile game market. Because their ARPU is increasing, past indicator of a jackpot such as “100 million downloads’ became useless.
‘MUOrigin’, which came out in May, became number 2 in Googleplay sales within a week. Based on South Korea’s Googleplay sales, top 2 games usually have daily sales of more than 500,000 dollars.
A reason why MUOrigin was so successful within a short period of time was due to middle-aged male users in their 30s and over. “Most of the users are males in their 30s and 40s. It was important that these users responded quickly to this game.” A person associated with Webzen explained about this statistic.
‘Raven’, which came out prior to MUOrigin and holds first place in Googleplay for 50 days, also has many users in their 30s. “Between users in 20s and 30s, it has the most users in their 30s.” A person associated with NetMarble Games said about ages of its users.
‘Blade’, which made more than 100 million dollars in sales last year, has males in their 30s and 40s covering half of its users, and 30s cover about 30% according to 433. A person its company said that the company makes its banners and words targeting males in their 30s and over.
A mobile game ‘Top of Tanker’ by Nexon, which was released recently and is gaining popularity, has males in their 30s as its main users. A person in Nexon said that most active members in its café are males in their 30s and 40s. 40% of ‘Com2usbaseball’ users are males in their 30s and 40s.
‘Raven’, ‘MUOrigin’, and ‘Blade’ all became very popular without having 100 million downloads, and their common denominator is making most sales within a short period of a time and being successful for a long time.
Indicator for a success of past mobile games was having 100 million downloads. While puzzle and social network games became successful while securing females and middle-aged people, a trend is starting to change where games nowadays become successful by having small amount of people investing much more money. ‘Legion of Heroes’ only had only 70 million downloads, but it was able to secure a top 10 spot in a year sales.
“100 million downloads is still an appealing indicator because it can still show a force in cross marketing. But it is true that there is definitely a less of a demand of 100 million downloads within a company.” A person affiliated with gaming businesses said about current atmosphere in a gaming market.
“It is becoming a trend that most users are in their 20s and 30s in most of the mobile games and not just hardcore RPG games. Most of the people who spend a lot of money are in their 30s and over, and users who spend the most are males in their late 30s.” Lee Sang Tak, a team leader in Tapjoy development partner, said about this recent trend.
He also added that most hardcore RPG users play couple similar games at the same time, and chooses to spend money on one specific game. It is saying that many hardcore users who like to spend a lot of money also appeared on entire mobile games.
Staff Reporter, Kim Siso | siso@etnews.com