Casual games attract large audiences but little spend

Rob Clapp

An overview of mobile gaming downloads, consumption and consumer spend broken down by game genre.

Casual mobile games are most attractive to audiences but this fails to translate into higher levels of consumption or in-game spending, according to data from mobile intelligence company App Annie.

Casual games, those with simpler rules and requiring less skill, accounted for four-fifths (78%) of all mobile game downloads in 2020, but just two-fifths (43%) of time spent. In comparison, 'core' games are more complex and take just a one-fifth share (20%) of downloads but over half (55%) of activity.

Marketers need to recognise this and tailor their approachaccordingly – casual games offer a wide but...

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