U.S. Spending in Post-Apocalyptic Mobile Games Has Doubled During 2020

Player spending in mobile games with post-apocalyptic settings increased by nearly 106 percent year-over-year in the United States during the first three quarters of 2020, Sensor Tower Store Intelligence estimates show, making it the fastest-growing game setting by revenue.

This analysis is powered by Sensor Tower’s new Game Intelligence features, which can delve into titles by setting, art style, camera POV, and theme. For this report, we looked at the top 100 revenue-generating titles by each descriptor to identify the top performers. These new features provide publishers with another powerful data set to utilize in their analyses that enable a deeper look into the market and their competitors. They follow the addition of Game Taxonomy to the Sensor Tower platform, which segments games into relevant genres and subgenres to support publishers in efficiently identifying key trends.

Game Setting Growth

The Post-Apocalypse setting, top titles of which include State of Survival from FunPlus and Last Shelter: Survival from Long Tech, saw the fastest growth of all game settings, with player spending rising by close to 106 percent Y/Y in the U.S. for Q1 to Q3 2020 to approximately $384 million. The second fastest growing setting by revenue during this period was Modern, which increased by about 51 percent Y/Y to $3.7 billion, making it the most lucrative game setting . Ranking No. 3 was Historical, which saw player spending grow by more than 45 percent Y/Y to about $739 million.

Art Style Ascension

Retro - Low Poly was the fastest growing game art style in the U.S. during the first three quarters of this year, with revenue rising by nearly 95 percent Y/Y to $672 million, driven by titles such as Roblox from Roblox Corporation and Minecraft from Mojang. The No. 2 art style by revenue growth during the period was 3D Anime, which saw player spending increase by 84 percent Y/Y to close to $323 million. The 3D Realistic art style rounded out the top three, with revenue for these titles growing by about 54 percent Y/Y to approximately $1.7 billion. The most lucrative art style was 2D Cartoon, which generated about $6.8 billion in revenue, up 38 percent Y/Y.

Camera POV Popularity

Third-Person was the fastest-growing camera POV in the U.S. during the first nine months of 2020, compared to the year prior, with spending in such titles increasing by nearly 53 percent Y/Y to approximately $1.4 billion. Revenue for games utilizing the Third-Person camera POV was led by PUBG Mobile from Tencent and Fortnite from Epic Games, despite the latter title’s removal from the App Store and Google Play on August 13, 2020.

The No. 2 fastest riser among camera POVs was Dynamic, which saw an increase of nearly 50 percent Y/Y to approximately $1.6 billion. Isometric, meanwhile, ranked No. 3 for yearly growth, with player spending up about 44 percent Y/Y to approximately $5 billion, which also makes it the top grossing camera POV type for the period.

Intelligent Insights

Previously, we utilized Sensor Tower Game Taxonomy to produce a deeper analysis into how mobile game genres are performing. Our new Game Intelligence features offer the ability to delve even further and in more granular detail to see which game settings, art styles, camera POVs, and themes are hot right now. Through this analysis, we can see that games with a Third-Person camera POV are seeing the fastest growth, backed up by the immense popularity of titles including PUBG Mobile and Fortnite, before the latter’s App Store and Google Play removal. Such findings can provide publishers deeper insights into emerging market trends, which could be crucial when tracking competitors and researching viability of their titles.