Why Chinese mobile gamers delete games, and other fascinating behavioral data

If you develop games for the Chinese market, you’re going to be very interested in some of the data that has just been released by the China Internet Network Information Center (confusingly abbreviated as CNNIC). In the non-profit data tracker’s annual report on China’s mobile gamers over the year of 2013, there’s quite a bit of interesting data.

(See also: 92% of Chinese mobile games lose money)

For example, if you want to get new users playing their game, the data shows that advertising isn’t a particularly effective way to do it. Perhaps unfortunately for new publishers, the biggest reason Chinese mobile gamers chose to pick up a new game was that they saw a friend or classmate playing it. But getting your app recommended on a gaming site, app store, or even by another game all look like more effective ways to get the attention of Chinese gamers than advertising:

Perhaps even more important than why Chinese gamers start playing a new game, though, is why they stop, and thankfully, CNNIC has data on that too. Overwhelmingly, mobile gamers say they drop games because they’re boring, but games being too difficult or too expensive are also major factors.

Also of interest to mobile developers is just how long Chinese gamers keep a game on their phones. Just getting them to install your game is difficult enough, but once they do, how long do you have to make money off of them before they likely move on to the next thing. The answer, apparently, is not very long.

(via Netease Games)