China’s mobile gaming market has been growing every year, but it has never been a big chunk of the country’s overall gaming pie. That’s still true, and it’s still true that mobile games don’t make much profit. But mobile games did generate a lot more revenue in 2014 than they have in previous years, despite the fact that the number of mobile gamers didn’t jump that significantly. That means mobile games themselves were generating more revenue than they have in previous years.
As you can see, the number of mobile gamers in China grew only slightly between 2013 and 2014, from 310 million gamers to 357 million. During that same period, mobile gaming revenues more than doubled, from RMB 11.2 billion (US$1.8 billion) in 2013 to RMB 27.4 billion (US$4.3 billion) in 2014. That’s according to data from research firms GPC, CNG and IDC, according to Technode.
So what’s responsible for the disproportionate jump in revenue? An influx of games based on popular IP. Games based on popular intellectual property, either old or new, apparently had double the conversion rates of games based on unique and previously unknown IP.
If you’re a mobile game developer looking at the Chinese market, the message is pretty clear: figure out what entertainment IP is popular and license it for your game.
(Source: Technode)
UPDATE 2/12: This article has been updated to correct an error that understated the total revenue sums by writing “million” instead of “billion”.
Photo by Henrik Berger Jørgensen
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