The mobile gaming industry isn’t faring well in terms of downloads and revenue

A new report published by mobile intelligence firm Sensor Tower indicates that the mobile gaming industry saw its first decline in revenue in quite a while during the first half of 2022, with the market falling by 9.6 percent on a year-over-year basis.

The report was devised by comparing downloads and revenue of major mobile gaming genre (14) data in the United States from the first half of 2022 to that of the first half of 2021 across the App Store and Play Store.

Out of 14 game genres, only two, namely “Arcade” and “Tabletop” and recorded revenue growth, with the former’s revenue growing by 14.8 percent to $176 million and the latter’s by 0.9 percent to $388.8 million. “The No. 1 Arcade game by player spending was Clawee from Gigantic, which generated $16.5 million in the U.S. during the year’s first half. It was followed by Gold & Goblins from AppQuantum Publishing at No. 2, and Idle Mafia from Century Games at No. 3.,” reads the report.

All other mobile game genres saw a decline in the first half of 2022, with racing games bearing the brunt with a 28.8 percent decrease. While puzzle games had a revenue slash of 8.8 percent year-over-year, it still was the largest category by spending, raking in $2.3 billion, whereas casino games came in close second, with $2.2 billion in revenue in the first half of 2022.

In terms of downloads, the action game genre saw the fastest growth, rising by 5.4 percent year-over-year to 54.7 million. “The No. 1 Action game for downloads was Genshin Impact from miHoYo, which accumulated 2.3 million downloads, followed by Galaxy Attack: Space Shooter from Rocket Go Global at No. 2 and Galaxy Attack: Alien Shooter, also from Abigames, at No. 3.,” reads the report.

Apart from action games, all other mobile game genres saw a decline in downloads year-over-year, with Casino games bearing the brunt with a 17.8 percent decline. Overall, downloads decreased by 2.5 percent to 2.4 billion, and U.S. mobile game revenue fell by 9.6 percent year-over-year to $11.4 billion.

Read the full Sensor Tower report here.

Image credit: Sensor Tower

Source: Sensor Tower