miHoYo launched the hit mobile game Honkai: Star Rail in April and attracted global gamers' attention. A month later, on May 17, another adventure game, Light of Thel: New Era, was officially released in Southeast Asia and then topped the game charts in several countries. According to AppGrowing, this mobile MMORPG, published by Chinese developer LR Games, conducted a massive advertising campaign for the last 30 days and overpowered such hugely popular games as Coin Master and Honkai: Star Rail to lead the ad volume charts. Source: AppGrowing In 2019, this anime-themed game was first released in Mainland China, and has entered Hong Kong, Macau & Taiwan of China, Japan, Korea, Europe, and North America over the past 4 years […]

MMORPG mobile games are one of the most popular categories in Vietnam. According to Sensor Tower, MMORPGs have always led the Vietnamese mobile game market. In June 2023, Hoa Kiếm Mobile, a new game officially released by local Vietnamese game developer Funtap, won the Top 1 of the App Store game chart at the beginning of its beta test. According to AppGrowing, the game ran massive advertising campaigns in its pre-registration and early launch period, which was a major reason why it managed to win among popular games from well-known developers such as VNG and VTC. Source: AppGrowing Hoa Kiếm Mobile is a typical Chinese Fantasy MMORPG with "swordplay" as the main selling point, allowing players to choose from 5 […]

After unveiling Watcher of Realms in April this year, Moonton has taken the next step. According to AppGrowing, Moonton's Watcher of Realms placed the No.1 pre-registering game by ads on App Store in the last 30 days. The card RPG is due to release on July 13, that is to say, Moonton started the pre-registration advertising more than a month before its launch. Source: AppGrowing Since it was acquired by Bytedance for $4 billion in 2021, Moonton has accelerated its expansion. Watcher of Realms is supposed to be Moonton's first self-developed game released after the acquisition.   01 New Card RPG Topped the Pre-registration   Officially billed as the "Next Generation Fantasy Card RPG Mobile Game", Watcher of Realms hit […]

Here is AppGrowing's analysis of the global mobile App advertising markets in May 2023, based on advertising data from 24 global media platforms in 50 countries/regions.   01 Mobile App Advertising Trends   Overall, apps advertised in May 2023 were 25,537, up 3.6% compared to April (Click for Review of April 2023). The ad volume was 3.69M+, up 3.1% MoM. Ad creative volume was 1.30M+, a 24% surge over April. Evidently, similar to mobile games, the global app ad market showed a recovery in May. The peak of the ad volume was in the latter 20 days, with the highest single-day ad volume on May 30 with over 860K; the peak of App volume was on May 15 with 13525. […]

In continuation of the advertising competition trend in April, the global mobile game ad market in May showed a further recovery, according to AppGrowing. Not only the ad volume grew, but the App volume also rebounded significantly, indicating that game developers are more willing to do user acquisition with ads. We can see some new games from China debuting globally and emerging as strong competitors in the ad market, such as Aether Gazer, an ACGN ARPG published by Yostar, and 流浪方舟 which made a breakthrough as a game from small studio last year. The latter is expected to be released in June and in May has begun massive advertising in the pre-registration period. IGG's SLG Viking Rise, launched in April, […]

In March this year, AppGrowing observed that many new MMO games emerged in the global market in Q1, showing a strong momentum of revenue growth. This widely recognized red sea category seems to have become a hot spot of attention for global developers. Recently, a new MMO has emerged - Eskyfun's "神蹟：血舞者(Miracle: Blood Dancer)" broke into the app store revenue charts of Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan market. This Korean-style MMO was officially launched on May 3, and basically maintained in the top 10 of Taiwan iOS revenue chart, once won the first place, overpowering "Honkai: Star Rail" "暮色双城" and other games.     At the same time as "神蹟：血舞者" broke through the Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan market, Eskyfun […]

According to the April 2023 Global Mobile Game Advertising Review by AppGrowing, Glaciers Game's 超能世界(Super World) took the 1st in App Store ad ranking and 11th in Google Play, with a significant increase in advertising. Since 2022, Glaciers Game has been the "dark horse" in the industry. With weirdly hot "Doge Ads", Glaciers Game's X-hero has been revitalized after 2 years of release, and has not only reached the top of the app store in several countries/regions, but also contributed over 120 million in revenue, accounting for 46.21% of Glaciers Game's gaming revenue. The success of X-hero has proven the viability of the "Non-Core Gameplay + Doge" advertising strategy. Glaciers Game rapidly scaled up the replications, as represented by the […]

Here is AppGrowing's analytics of April 2023 mobile App advertising based on data from 24 global media in 50 countries/regions.   01 Advertising Trends   Looking at the overall data, the number of Apps advertised in April 2023 was 24,648, an increase of 2.1% compared to March. (See the report of March 2023.) The Ad Volume was 3.58M+ and the Creative Volume was 1.05M+, both lower than in March. It can be seen that while more Apps were advertised, developers scaled back their advertising. In addition, both App Volume and Ad Volume peaked on April 25, with the former over 13k and the latter reaching 760K+. Among the Ad Volume of a Single App, 78.96% Apps were concentrated in the […]

Entering Q2 2023, the demand for advertising of mobile games is increasing. According to AppGrowing, the app volume of global advertised mobile games increased minimally in April, but the ad volume increased by 28.2% compared with March, which indicates that game advertisers are further expanding their advertising campaigns and the "battle to acquire users" is becoming fiercer. Meanwhile, April was also a month of intense competition for Chinese games. miHoYo Honkai: Star Rail, Lilith Games Call of Dragons, Eskyfun 魔鏡物語 and other new games were released one after another, becoming new competitors in the market; while "old" games such as Glaciers Game 超能世界 have also boosted their advertising. What about the macro advertising statistics in April? Are there any new […]

2022 was a year of advertising contraction for the global mobile gaming industry, a trend that continues into Q1 2023, with developers showing a more cautious approach to new releases and advertising campaigns. AppGrowing, together with Youxiputao.com and diandian.com, released Q1 2023 Mid Core & Hard Core Mobile Games Global Advertising Report in order to help practitioners in the mobile game industry to better grasp the changes in the global market. The report provides a systematic review and analysis of market revenue and download volume, advertising, game categories and market development. The following are extracts from the report, and the full report is available at the end of this article. 01 Mobile Game Market Summary According to diandian.com, in Q1 […]