A new report revealed that midcore titles accounted for 35% of iOS revenue in the United States.
The findings come courtesy of the latest analytics firm LiftOff Midcore Gaming Market Report, which broke down many aspects of the performance of mid-core titles in the current mobile market. The report also revealed that 70% of the top midcore titles were part of the strategy genre, perhaps partly attributable to the lower CPI – shooters were $7.47 CPI, while strategy was just $2.77, with RPGs the lowest Only $0.60 more.
Shooters and strategy games were also nearly equal when it came to D7 ROAS (return on ad spend on the seventh day), with shooters at 6% and strategy at 5.4%. However, LiftOff noted that mid-core games struggle to achieve the same ROAS rates as casual game genres.
Joel Jolkonen, head of analytics at GameRefinery, a Liftoff company, said: “While casual games still dominate mobile, the challenges facing user acquisition, including Apple’s IDFA changes and rising inflation, have caused a growing number of developers to put their sights on the middle market.”
He added: “Midcore games are an enticing prospect for developers, as their increased depth allows them to build a more dedicated fan base with a reliable revenue stream. Those looking to create midcore games must maintain a substantial LiveOps content output to keep players engaged. They also driving a constant flow of IAP packs and gachas to boost their monetization efforts and achieve this coveted status.”
What it means?
The first obvious result is that midcore performance remains strong overall, despite challenges first from hyper-casual and now hybrid games.
LiftOff noted that in the top 200 mobile games in the world, the mid-range titles outnumbered the casual games by a large margin. Third-party web stores – which you may notice have been used by major developers like Supercell – are also marked as a growing trend for developers to efficiently monetize their titles.
Marvel Snap and Honkai: Star Rail are also marked as case studies. With LiftOff joining the general consensus is that the main advantage of these intermediate games is that, despite a relatively high barrier to entry, the depth they offer can actually capture a better audience than more casual titles.
LiftOff themselves have previously touched on the slowdown in the growth of hyper-casual, with the genre becoming oversaturated after a major boom over the past few years. This report may be an early indication that midcore will be the next genre to receive a boost in popularity.
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