Analytics: 97% of mobile games released in the last three years have failed
Achieving success is only possible for a very small percentage of mobile games. Anton Slashchev, director of the Playhero studio, calculated that only 2.7% of games that have appeared on Google Play and the App Store in the past three years have reached even relative popularity.
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In his analysis, Slashchev relied on data from the AppMagic service. According to his estimates, 139,396 games were released on Google Play and the App Store over three years. Their combined numbers may seem large: in 2024 alone, these projects generated a total of $16.89 billion in net IAP revenue and amassed 23.96 billion downloads.
However, the overwhelming majority of games did not attract a wide audience. As Slashchev noted, only 3,704 titles surpassed the milestone of one million downloads.
Data on games released on Google Play and App Store in the last three years
According to Slashchev, new teams in the market currently have two main paths for development:
1. actively test games and learn from numerous failures. It's advisable to allocate at least two years for achieving success;
2. consider releasing on other platforms. Perhaps a game would be better suited for PC, web, or UGC platforms instead of mobile. They have a different profit-risk ratio.
