According to the latest report from Sensor Tower focusing on the US App Store, the average file size of mobile games has increased by 76% in the last five years. The possible reasons cited for this growth are the publishers now launching larger-sized games and releasing more materials in the existing titles. Also, the growth of mobile gaming comes mainly because of the advancement of the latest technology and hardware support for the devices.
File size hit a magnanimous growth of 76% over this period
After the analysis, it was revealed that the average file size at the end of 2020 was increased to 465 MB from 264 MB in 2016. That’s a magnanimous growth of 76% over the period. Moreover, the popularity of mobile gaming has surged over the years and developers are trying hard to port popular PC and console games to mobile. As per the reports, in 2020, the Covid-19 outbreak induced worldwide lockdown which as a result witnessed a significant yearly rise, growing by 30.3% Y/Y.
If we leave aside all the other facts and talk about the median size of the mobile games, then the growth shoots up by more than 102% over the same period. The median size of mobile games in 2020 in the US App Store stood at 299 MB. Interestingly, the growth of file size last year was 18.7% on a yearly basis, which was slower than what was seen in previous years.
Now, if we talk about popular games in terms of revenue generation then Roblox had a file size of 222 MB. The users had to update its new version which took approximately 20% more space in their smartphones. Among 2020’s top 10 revenue-generating App Store games in the U.S., DoubleDown’s file size grew the highest – 106.9%. Furthermore, before being removed from the App Store, Fortnite also saw great growth in file size as it hit a 41.3% increase year-over-year. Interestingly, PUBG Mobile witnessed a reduction in the file size by 21%. The mobile game with the largest file size was CSR Racing 2 that requires a whopping 3.8 GB of storage.
Advancements in technology play a big role in this growth
A major reason behind the massive increase in mobile games file size is the technological advancements in the field of smartphones. The storage capacity of smartphones across the globe especially iPad and iPhones has grown tremendously. All the latest budget smartphones now come up with 128 GB of space with the latest iPhone 12 Pro having 512 GB of space. This has led to more “triple-A” experiences on mobile, such as Call of Duty Mobile and Genshin Impact, which have been able to take advantage of the hardware improvements and take up more than 1 GB of space. This shows that mobile gamers now don’t have much issue with respect to the space required by the games. They are always are ready to install the high graphics-oriented game on their devices to try out new things irrespective of the fact that mobile games file size has increased massively now.
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