Mobile game analytics specialist GameRefinery has released yet another detailed report primarily focusing on Shooter Genre mobile games. In the latest report, the Finnish based company focussed on the earlier issues as well as changing dynamics in the Shooter Genre. It comes under GameRefinery’s Mid-core category and has Battle Royale, Classic FPS/TPS, Snipers, and Tactical Shooter as sub-genre.
How GameRefinery categorizes games
GameRefinery has mentioned it clearly that they have a three-layered approach. They use a Category -> Genre -> subgenre hierarchy to differentiate games and help the audience in better understanding. With the help of a three-layered approach, they offer insights for all individual game types available for Android and iOS.
In order to get help in thorough testing and data analysis, GameRefinery acquired market insight firm Reflection.io in January this year. This helped them to get additional revenue and download data for iOS and Android titles across 35 markets.
Shooter Genre mobile games are making inroads
Things were very difficult for the Shooter genre mobile games in the beginning. The biggest challenges for the genre were to overcome mobile controls and also attracting the shooter audience to mobile. Now the new big “PC/console-to-mobile” titles seem to have cracked the code and proven that shooters can work on mobile as well. For instance, Call of Duty: Mobile has received plenty of praise for its smooth controls.
With only a handful of titles in top-grossing 200, the Shooter genre is not too crowded. Despite this, shooter games still bring in about 10% of all US iOS game revenue – mainly thanks to massive hits like Fortnite, PUBG MOBILE, and Call of Duty: Mobile.
Wilhelm Voutilainen, Senior Game Analyst, US
The report shows that there is still space available in the Shooter genre market and therefore the future of the shooter genre looks bright.
Key points of the report
- The shooter is the 6th biggest genre in the US iOS market that contributes approximately 10% of the market revenue
- In the US iOS market, there are only 8 shooter titles in the top-grossing 200
- 75% of the top-grossing 200 Shooter games are more than two years old
- There were not many significant top-grossing shooter titles before the Battle Royale games
- Call of Duty: Mobile was the first highly successful non-Battle Royale shooter game
- It has been quiet after the release of Call of Duty Mobile in terms of new top-grossing shooter titles
- Battle Pass and decorative item monetization works incredibly well in Shooter games due to them not affecting core game balance
Top Shooter genre games in 2020 Q2
In the 2nd quarter of 2020 in the US iOS market, Fortnite by Epic games is at the top spot with 41.6% followed by PUBG Mobile with approx 21%. The most interesting point in this genre is Call of Duty Mobile, which was released only last year and is at rank 3 with a 20% market share. In recent times, the report mentions the loss of market share for Fortnite. However, after Epic Games breached the payment policy of the stores, Fortnite has been removed from the App Store & Google Play, and currently, there’s no way anyone can download Fortnite on iOS.
“Three waves” of the Shooter genre on iOS in the US
The report tried to explain the emergence of the shooter genre with a set of different waves. In the set of three waves, it shows the evolution of shooter genre mobile games. The model for each game under shooter games remains the same.
The 1st wave had mostly sniper and tactical shooter games in the top-grossing games. The 2nd wave witnessed the emergence of the battle royale with games like Fortnite, PUBG Mobile, and Free Fire dominating the ranking. The 3rd wave started with a classic FPS game like Call of Duty: Mobile. It would be really interesting to see which other subgenres, the next big hit will come.
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