New research from mobile revenue growth engine SuperScale has found that 83% of launched mobile games fail within three years, while 43% are cancelled during development.
Conducted by Atomik Research, SuperScale’s Good Games Don’t Die report was published this week, and is based on interviews with 500 game developers in the UK and US.
According to the report, 76% of launched games reached peak revenue within the first year, but only 4% reached this peak during the second year.
The report also found that while over half of developers use live ops in their games, 38% don’t release regular content or updates, with less than half releasing monthly updates to their games, leading to just 5% of games receiving support seven years post-launch.
Despite the failure rate of new titles, 78% of developers prefer working on them. However, over a third of respondents said that uncertainty in the industry “is stopping them from developing new games,” with 30% feeling as though the current market “is too difficult to succeed in.”
This comes as a result of two-thirds of studios having to conduct layoffs, downsize, or cut budgets according to SuperScale’s report, with 29% of developers cutting their UA budget.
“These are volatile times for the games industry,” said SuperScale CEO and founder Ivan Trancik. “Many mobile game developers are finding it hard to remain profitable in the face of challenges such as ATT, heavy competition in a mature mobile market, and macroeconomic conditions like high inflation.”
He continued: “Findings from the Good Games Don’t Die white paper serve as a wake-up call for the industry, a source of inspiration with actionable data; equipping developers and publishers with insight on how revenue can be maximised across their portfolio – for games both new and old.”
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