Data & Research

Wooga's debut Apple Watch game is retaining players twice as well as mobile games

A new way to play

Wooga's debut Apple Watch game is retaining players twice as well as mobile games

Apple hasn't released any official numbers when it comes to Apple Watch.

Indeed, despite that launch (and various Android Wear devices) the whole wearables sector could still be politely filed under the description 'nascent'.

However, there remain some true believers.

Finnish developer Everywear wears its optimism in its name, while German developer Wooga has set up an entirely new team to fulfill what it thinks will be strong future demand.

It's also highlighting that potential with some data from the release of its debut Apple Watch game Farm Time.

Quick fire

As tends to be the way with everything Apple Watch, there are no absolute figures.

Screenshots from Farm Time

But, as befits the watch form factor and the idle games faming mechanic, retention is off the scale.

  • On average, a player plays 20 sessions a day
  • That works out as 13 minutes game a day
  • The top 2% play more than 200 sessions a day, and
  • One player completed 900 sessions in a day

How does think compare to 'an average mobile game'?

Wooga reckons short-term retention is double, while after a month, retention is three times higher.

It's a good starting point for sure, although at some stage, developers are also going to have to generate some revenue from their Apple Watch games.

Wooga hopes that's going to happen as Apple sells more watches and makes them more useful as standalone devices; something that will kick off as watchOS 2 SDK content hits the App Store.

You can read more about Farm Time via Wooga's blog

Contributing Editor

A Pocket Gamer co-founder, Jon is Contributing Editor at PG.biz which means he acts like a slightly confused uncle who's forgotten where he's left his glasses. As well as letters and cameras, he likes imaginary numbers and legumes.