As part of Pocket Gamer Connects Digital #6, Pangle business development director Jason Parmar took to the virtual stage to discuss seasonal changes in the Asian market and the best times to monetise and acquire your users.
"It is the largest gaming market globally. Asia almost makes up 50 per cent of global games market revenue," said Parmar.
In Asia, China is the biggest market. As explained by Parmar, the freemium model is more familiar to Chinese players. Not just in games, but with other forms of media such as TV streaming.
"China is very high in ad exposure," therefore, it should not come as a surprise that games tend to embrace ads as a focus to generate revenue.
Unsurprisingly, the Chinese New Year is a great period for mobile games as many players become more attracted to certain titles due to limited time events.
As for the Summer holidays, there tends to be an increase in games revenue in China, given university students are off and tend to spend more money.
"An opportunity in China is splash ads, which are not so popular here in the West," Parmar explained.
The advertising type is not particularly popular within the mobile games market right now, but behaviours are changing. "It has proven to be quite successful in China."
Japan
"There has been an explosion of manga, the demand for manga in the Japanese market is huge," said Parmar.
Manga-based apps tend to have a higher frequency of app launches per day, while they also boast longer user sessions.
The big season in Japan is golden week when both manga and core games launch new projects between March and May. Chinese publishers also tend to release their games in the country in this time period.
Again, the summer holidays are a lucrative time for games developers in Japan, much for the same reasons as in China.
Korea and South East Asia
Korea is "a market that is very famous for MMORPGs."
Eight out of the top 10 grossing games are RPGs in Korea. The majority of increased revenue has come through in-game events, particularly when in tandem with real-life events such as the New Year and Summer holidays.
However, events are ever-present in Korea, though they tend to be held at the start of the month when players tend to spend more money.
"The biggest mobile games in Korea use their ad spend during the festivities," Parmar said.
Meanwhile, South East Asia "is the fastest-growing mobile market in the world.
May is a good time for games in the SEA region due to various events such as Ramadan and Songkran in Thailand.
There is a mega sales season in SEA between September and December, thus resulting in an increase in revenue.
However, for maximum user acquisition in South East Asia, Parmar recommends pushing forward with UA during Ramadan.
PGC Digital #6 will run from April 19th to April 23rd. To keep up to date with all of our coverage, check out the roundups here. There's still time to sign up - to find out more and book a ticket, head to the website.
