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Exclusive: Educational, Casino and Arcade games on the rise according to Adjust's Q3 2022 report

Adjust analyses the EMEA and UK markets for the third quarter of 2022

Exclusive: Educational, Casino and Arcade games on the rise according to Adjust's Q3 2022 report

A new, Pocket Gamer exclusive, report by Adjust has delved into the performance of EMEA and UK the mobile markets throughout the third quarter of 2022.

In the EMEA, installs of gaming apps have slowed down, however, the installs of several sub-verticals remain above those seen during the pandemic. Racing games have seen the largest increase from Q3 2022 at 154 percent, followed by arcade titles at 68 percent and simulation titles at 39 percent. Board (35 percent), puzzle (30 percent), sports (24 percent), casual (23 percent) and action games (15 percent) all also saw significant rises compared to the same period in 2022.

Compared to Q2 2022, educational (13 percent), casino (11 percent) and arcade (9 percent) games all saw increases in install rates.

Compared to Q322, several genres saw significant increases in average sessions. Racing saw a 133 percent rise in the number of sessions, with arcade games also seeing 50 percent more sessions. However, the rise of session numbers compared to the second quarter of 2022 is much smaller, with only adventure games ( percent) and music games (5 percent) seeing increases.

Despite this, the average session length across mobile games in Q3 2022 has increased to 28.67 minutes compared to the first half of the year (27.95), an increase of almost thirty seconds. Adventure and board game titles saw the largest rise, with adventure sessions rising from 30.07 minutes to 32.5 minutes and board games increasing from 29.71 minutes to 31.68 minutes.

Taken together, this data suggests that while players are downloading fewer games and playing fewer sessions, they’re spending more time playing games they’ve previously downloaded.

How are things in the UK?

Like the EMEA, install rates in the UK have declined, but several subverticals have increased compared to the same period in 2020. Arcade titles saw the largest surge with a 91 percent increase, followed by board games at 30 percent and educational titles at 26 percent.

Arcade (8 percent), and educational titles (9 percent) also saw rises compared to Q2 2022, while racing titles also saw a 4 percent increase.

Arcade games proved successful in terms of sessions as well, with a 75 percent rise compared to the Q3 2020. Educational games saw a larger number of sessions with a 4 percent increase.

However, only one genre, music games, is highlighted as having had a rise in sessions compared to the second quarter of 2022, with a 19 percent increase.

Again, it seems that this slowdown in installs and the number of sessions isn’t reflected in the average session length, which has seen a significant rise compared to H1 2022. Educational games saw an increase from 24.9 minutes to 26.05 minutes. When taken with the increase in both the number of sessions and number of installs compared to the same period in 2020, this suggests that younger gamers in the UK are spending more time playing mobile games than ever before, and are growing increasingly likely to choose educational titles.

Adjust recently published its analysis of the UK and EMEA markets for the first half of 2022 earlier in the year.


Staff Writer

Lewis Rees is a journalist, author, and escape room enthusiast based in South Wales. He got his degree in Film and Video from the University of Glamorgan. He's been a gamer all his life.