Sensor Tower: Nintendo's Mobile Games Reach $1 Billion in Lifetime Player Spending

[MacRumors]

Further cementing its status as Nintendo's most successful mobile game to date, Fire Emblem Heroes has led Nintendo's race to the billion-dollar revenue mark on mobile (via Sensor Tower). The game's $656 million in player spending, which includes players on both iOS and Android, has accounted for 61 percent of Nintendo's over $1 billion in mobile revenue.

The next two highest-grossing Nintendo titles were Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp, which has accounted for 12 percent of all user spending among the company's mobile games, followed by Dragalia Lost at 11 percent.

Fire Emblem Heroes is a free-to-play game that lets players spend real money inside the app once they download it. Most of Nintendo's apps have followed this structure, except for Super Mario Run, which requires players to pay $9.99 to see the full game. Perhaps unsurprisingly, Super Mario Run, which remains Nintendo's most-downloaded title with 244 million downloads, contributed a smaller share of overall revenue at 7 percent.

While its 2016 earnings from Super Mario Run amounted to a modest $26 million, it was in February 2017, with the hugely successful launch of Fire Emblem Heroes, that Nintendo found its mobile footing. Despite being lower ranked in terms of downloads share, the financial success of Fire Emblem Heroes--which boasts average revenue-per-download of $41--suggests that Nintendo has hit upon a winning formula with the gacha model.

Nintendo's experimentation with other models of monetization, such as subscriptions in Mario Kart Tour and Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp, have fallen short of the financial successes of its other titles. However, Sensor Tower reports that, collectively, the publisher earned more than $350 million from its mobile offerings last year, and further experimentation with monetization models is likely to grow that total, along with new releases later in 2020.

Article Link: Sensor Tower: Nintendo's Mobile Games Reach $1 Billion in Lifetime Player Spending

 

[Appleman3546]

For all of those people that complained of Mario Kart Tours money tactics, it doesn’t seem to have worked. Looks like people just play if for free

 

[69Mustang]

Good ole IAP. Nintendo quickly figured out what mobile devs have long known. Generally speaking, if you ask us for $5 or $10 we'll accuse you of being greedy. Ask us for $0.99 about a thousand times? We'll happily hand over the wallet every time you ask.

 

[Menneisyys2]

Great 3DS and Wii U games can be had for REALLY cheap. And no IAP crap! (And, of course, the 3D screen of the 3DS...)

 

[CarlJ]

Good ole IAP. Nintendo quickly figured out what mobile devs have long known. Generally speaking, if you ask us for $5 or $10 we'll accuse you of being greedy. Ask us for $0.99 about a thousand times? We'll happily hand over the wallet every time you ask.

But if it's phrased as "$0.99 per month", people will scream bloody murder.

Personally, I'm quite happy paying $5 or $10 for really useful app - I've paid much more for, say, OmniFocus. But I also don't have problems with games that offer DLC - new campaigns or such at additional cost - or "F2P" games that offer the option of buying things, as long as it doesn't get into "pay-to-win" territory. I throw a little money at Pokemon Go occasionally, and look at it as an entertainment expense, while there are many who play Pokemon Go without spending any money. On the other hand, I loathe games that offer things like paying to bypass artificial cooldown timers.

And there's a special place in hell for companies that take perfectly good games and pour a vat of IAP goo all over them (I have a terrific officially-licensed 32-bit Uno app that runs fine on my old iPad under iOS 10 - the currently available officially-licensed Uno app... well, TouchArcade described it like this: "While the game of Uno is hidden somewhere inside of this new version of the game, it’s obscured through this totally wacky in-game economy of gems, coins, items, keys, VIP points, login bonuses, a level-based experience system, locked game modes, ads, events, first-buy super bonuses, and … well, you get the gist" - it's like a casino, trying to excite and bewilder you into spending money - meanwhile I'd happily pay $20 upfront for an exact port of the old polished, tranquil, no-IAP app that actually just, you know, played the game).

I'm a little surprised Pokemon Go isn't mentioned in the article/study - it certainly isn't wholly Nintendo's property like these others, but they do make money off it, and it's still pulling in an amount of revenue that would be surprising to many.

 

[peglegjack]

And the only money they've gotten from me is for Super Mario Run, which I absolutely loved. I did download Mario Kart Tour and played a few races, but after awhile it started to feel pretty gross and deleted it.

Apple Arcade for life

 

[AvisDeene]

And the only money they've gotten from me is for Super Mario Run, which I absolutely loved. I did download Mario Kart Tour and played a few races, but after awhile it started to feel pretty gross and deleted it.

Apple Arcade for life

I loved Super Mario Run too, was definitely worth the money. I just wish it was more successful so we could get a sequel!