Difficult times for free-to-play, a little more about Apple Watch, console revenue - and other news of the week for a mobile developer

The profit of free-to-play games falls

Nicholas Lovell, founder of Gamesbrief, believes that the profitability of free-to-play games will fall this year. It's hard to disagree. Moreover, this trend has been outlined since the middle of last year. There are several reasons for this.


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First, the cost and development time increase. The requirements of the audience of mobile games for the quality of products are growing. Developers need to invest more and more power to succeed.

Secondly, an increase in marketing expenses. It's no secret that the mobile advertising market is very hot. The cost of users is increasing, while the quality does not increase. The main markets (USA, Western Europe) are saturated, the audience is growing very slowly, and in some countries is already close to its maximum. There are more and more applications on the market, the struggle for the user is getting stronger.

Lovell confirms these theses with annual reports of the companies that earned the most last year - Supercell and King.

In 2014, Supercell earned € 1.5 billion. This is 3 times more than in 2013. But at the same time, operating expenses increased by almost 3.75 times and amounted to € 1.04 billion. The increase in operating expenses is associated primarily with an increase in marketing costs. The company in one year spent about $ 400 million to promote their games.

The situation with King is very similar. King's revenue last year grew by 20%, the company's marketing expenses grew by the same 20%, while the profit growth was not so tangible - about 8%. The reason is the same - $ 455 million spent on marketing.

This year this trend will continue. We will probably not see any excess returns in this market anymore.

What happened to the pricing for Apple products?

Previously, Apple's pricing model was quite simple: the larger the device's memory, the higher its price. Everyone got used to it, and few people wondered why the 64 GB flash memory module, priced at $ 5, increases the cost of the device by $ 200.


Today, Apple releases its watches , which in fact have only 2 modifications depending on the screen diagonal - this is 38 mm or 42 mm, but at the same time as many as 15 models. And most importantly, all these 15 models do not differ in their characteristics, and the price is different:


The difference between the models in the case, which does not affect their functionality. They, like any other Apple products, will become morally and functionally obsolete as soon as a new model comes out with a new filling. And it's hard to believe that the resources that will be spent on the production of aluminum, steel or even gold case, will differ so much that the price could change so. Yes, the golden case is obviously more expensive, but not so much as to raise the price 10 times.

In 2016, mobile advertising will take $ 100 billion

Analytical company eMarket conducted a study of the mobile advertising market. We suggest you to get acquainted with some of its results.

In accordance with forecasts, the cost of mobile advertising in the next 2016 will amount to $ 101.37 billion, thereby exceeding the same figure for 2013 as much as five times. The very same mobile advertising press all the rest and will occupy 50% of the total advertising market, and by 2019 this figure will increase to 70%. Spending by that time will be $ 200 billion.

Below we present a table of forecasts for the growth of the mobile advertising market by countries.

How much do console games earn

According to SuperData , the revenue of games for consoles in February of this year fell by 3.7% compared with the same month last year and amounted to $ 233 million.


Nevertheless, the console market continues to grow steadily. The end of 2014 was a record in sales, and revenues in December amounted to about $ 350 million. This is due to the release of the new Fifa 15 Ultimate team from EA and, of course, the release of Grand Theft Auto V.

Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare became the most earned game in February. The game brought its developers $ 31.6 million.

Rovio does not give up and wants to shake his publishing

Rovio is one of my favorite companies, no, not in terms of games, they just do not like me at all, but in terms of the flight of ideas and perseverance. Numerous reskins of original evil birds and active attempts to use the brand of birds in other games, a variation on the topic of flappy bird (again birds!), Promise to publish books about brave girls and even soda. I admit, soda doesn’t give me any peace, I really want to know the profitability of this venture.

And here is a new milestone in development - the publishing direction of Rovio Stars! Apparently, the guys are serious and opened vacancies:

• Executive producer
• Senior Game Producer
• Art Director
• Senior Product Manager
• Product lead

I will not joke about their projects, but I wish them good luck in the new business. I look at their development with great interest and wait for a book about girls and new projects from the beloved company.


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