The latest episode of the PocketGamer.biz podcast was so big we had to split it in two. Here's the complete interview. Enjoy...
In 2023 the challenges facing games companies seem greater than ever. Falling revenues, increasing competition, marketplace saturation and a decline in consumer spend are all contributing to a far tougher market than we've seen in years.
Thankfully help is at hand and in this episode of the PocketGamer.biz podcast, hosts Brian Baglow and Peggy Anne Salz talk to the amazing Lexi Sydow, the director of corporate marketing and insights with data.ai.
In an information-packed interview, Lexi talks the team through the company's recently released 2023 Gaming Spotlight Report which is powered by data.ai’s Game IQ and created in partnership with IDC.
Kicking off with one word to describe the current state of the market ("Stabilising!"), Lexi gives an overview of the games world, before getting granular and exploring some of the key findings, trends and changes from the report, taking in genres, monetisation, user acquisition and more.
Chapter Timestamps
- 00:00 Intro
- 02:56 An adjective to describe the current mobile market and latest report
- 05:29 The Gaming Spotlight report
- 09:37 Publishers, watch out for these subgenres
- 14:09 What does the data say about cross-platform gaming?
- 17:39 Are in-game ads coming to an end?
- 22:07 Contextual data to get your ad seen
- 26:09 Vote for PocketGamer in the British Podcast Awards
Mobile First
Despite a noticeable decline in direct consumer spend, the report predicts revenue of $108 billion through the app stores - not including ad revenue, or ad spend - ensuring that the mobile market remains the primary growth driver for digital games consumption around the world.
Data from the report highlights shifting opportunities for developers, with data.ai's Game IQ service breaking down the market leaders by genre and sub-genre, showing the market leaders in each game type and reporting on market share, monetisation methods and more.
Lexi, Peggy and Brian discuss the fierce competition in the match3 genre, where market leader Candy Crush, is facing renewed competition from the increasing user acquisition activities of Royal Match. Oddly however, the challenger does not seem to be eating into the Candy Crush market share indicating that players are coming from... elsewhere?
The whole interview is a delight. Data? Dull? Not a bit of it. Despite our efforts to keep it under an hour, we couldn't resist talking to Lexi and picking out all of the interesting elements of the report. So uniquely we are turning this podcast into a two-parter.
Part Two
Chapter Timestamps
- 00:00 Peggy's garden intro
- 01:24 Four components of the mobile performance score
- 05:38 Making waves with Monopoly GO
- 09:37 FIFA Soccer fights its way to the top
- 13:12 Royal Match ranks highly
- 16:16 What do successful games have in common?
- 20:38 Who is the "new gamer" to watch out for?
- 25:36 Q&A with Lexi
You can find and download the whole 2023 Gaming Spotlight Report on the data.ai website.
You can also subscribe to the PocketGamer.biz Podcast on all of your favourite services, tune in on Spotify, or find our back catalogue over on our podcast page.
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