According to reports, mobile data and analysis company Data.ai (formerly App Annie), today released a report, that said 2022 global mobile game spending of $ 110 billion, down 5% year-on-year.
Data.ai analyst Lexi Sydow said, “We’re seeing people become more price-sensitive and financially conservative, and that’s hitting games particularly hard,” according to the report, which said mobile game spending fell last year as consumers became more cautious in making purchase decisions in response to rising inflation. “
Mobile gaming has been in a rapid growth spurt in recent years, and major publishers are placing big bets on mobile game developers. Early last year, Take-Two acquired mobile game company Zynga for $12.7 billion, and in 2016, King, the developer of Candy Crush Saga, was acquired by Activision Blizzard for $5.9 billion. And last January, Microsoft announced it was buying Activision Blizzard for $69 billion.
But this growth in mobile gaming has recently been challenged by a number of macroeconomic headwinds, including the rising cost of living, and rising interest rates. Last year, people were also gradually recovering from the new crown pneumonia epidemic, making home timeless available and impacting game time.
In contrast, non-gaming apps are more resilient. data.ai shows that the value of non-gaming app purchases (consumer spending) grew 6% year-over-year to $58 billion in 2022. This growth is driven by subscriptions and in-app purchases for streaming platforms, dating apps and short-form video services such as TikTok.
Overall, global consumer spending on mobile app stores reached $167 billion in 2022, down 2 percent year-over-year.
The mobile gaming market is expected to face further headwinds in 2023 with Apple’s recent introduction of privacy protections (app tracking transparency), which will put even more pressure on app developers.
Data.ai expects global mobile gaming spending to decline a further 3 percent this year to $10.7 billion due to lower disposable revenue and changes in privacy protections (Google also plans to introduce similar protections to Apple’s).
