Mobile gaming companies don't play around--the market rakes in big bucks. New data from Slice Intelligence suggests the average gamer spent $77.60 on mobile games in 2016, an increase of seven dollars over last year.
Pokémon GO is the most popular mobile game of 2016
Niantic’s mobile game drove 86 percent more money than any other game in 2016, capturing 11 percent of all mobile game sales. Candy Crush was the second most popular mobile game based on revenue last year, and Clash Royal takes third place.
Pokemon GO and Game of War: the story of mainstream vs. hardcore gamers
Pokémon GO's success was predicated on its ability to recruit a mainstream audience. Its players spent an average of only $32 on the game, the lowest amount among 2016's top 25 mobile games. In contrast, Game of War players spend upwards of $336 for their chests of gold, and $309 for Mobile Strike.
Santa loves mobile games
Mobile game sales were strongest in the second half of 2016. Christmas Day was the single largest day for in-game spending. July 15–when we hit peak Pokémon GO–was the fifth largest day for mobile spending. The existence of Pokémon GO provided a lift to the entire mobile gaming market through early October.
About this data
With a panel of over 4.4 million online shoppers, Slice Intelligence gives the most detailed, and accurate digital commerce data available, and is reported daily.
Slice Intelligence is the only service to measure digital commerce directly from the consumer, across all retailers, at the item level, and over time. Our retailer-independent methodology precisely measures commerce as it happens. By extracting detailed information from hundreds of millions of aggregated and anonymized e-receipts, Slice can map the entire Purchase Graph, connecting each and every consumer to all their purchases.
Slice gets its data from e-receipts – not a browser, app or software installed by the end-user – so its measurement reflects comprehensive shopping behavior across multiple devices, over time which are key in an increasingly omnichannel retail world. Slice Intelligence is the exclusive e-commerce data provider for the NPD’s Checkout Tracking e-commerce service.