News

Mobile game downloads have shot up by 75% in Q1 2020 due to Covid-19 impact

132% rise in installs over the last week in March 2020

Mobile game downloads have shot up by 75% in Q1 2020 due to Covid-19 impact

Mobile game downloads have seen a rise of 75 per cent in Q1 2020 when compared to the Q1 2019.

As revealed by mobile measurement firm Adjust's report on the effect of coronavirus, gaming has surged under the coronavirus pandemic with installs in the last week of March 2020 more than doubling (132 per cent), compared to the same week last year.

Furthermore, session time in games has jumped by 47 per cent, showing players are spending more time in-game.

Another find in the report spotlighted casual games, stating that activity within this genre has seen an increase of 15 per cent between the hours of 12 to 4 pm. Meanwhile, midcore games have seen a jump early morning (approximately 5 am) before peaking at 1 pm.

"Fundamental shift"

"Beyond these increases in installs and sessions, the report shows little evidence to suggest that there's been a fundamental shift in user behaviour post-install," said Adjust co-founder and chief technology officer Paul H. Müller.

"Users are still taking the same actions in-app, such as averaging a little above two sessions a day, to churning at predictable points in the customer journey."

One of the major takeaways from the report states that newcomers in particular will find it difficult to break into the current market, with marketers advised to "build up their paid activities and focus less on organic" traffic.

Commenting on the data, cloud-based app security firm AppSealing founder and CEO James Sungmin Ahn said, "Those are really good numbers for game publishers and developers. However, with the growing user base for game apps, the threat from hackers is also growing.

"AppSealing with In-App Protection features is defending around 7 million+ hacking attempts in the coronavirus pandemic period that includes cheating tools, tampering, in-app purchase hacks and reverse engineering techniques which are 80% higher than compared to the same month last year for our gaming customers."

Along with this, Adjust recently found that 41 per cent of mobile game players have used a bot to win.

Prior to this, Adjust hired Ville Mikkola as its new head of the Coalition Against Ad Fraud (CAAF).

Deputy Editor

Matthew Forde is the deputy editor at PocketGamer.biz and also a member of the Pocket Gamer Podcast. You can find him on Twitter @MattForde64 talking about stats, data and everything pop culture related - particularly superheroes.