Mobile Gaming: A Freemium Economy - [Business Breakdowns, EP.115]

This is Matt Reustle and today we are breaking down the mobile gaming industry. It was several months ago that I was reading an industry report for our Business Breakdown on Electronic Arts. I was shocked to see that mobile gaming was now 50% of the overall gaming market. What really stood out to me was just how different the business model is. You have smaller game developers operating with a completely different monetization model. It's the same industry but with drastically different strategies. To break down the industry, I'm joined by Eric Seufert. Eric spent his early career in the heart of mobile gaming, notably as a Vice President at Rovio, which developed Angry Birds. Today, Eric is the creator of Mobile Dev Memo, a publication focused on mobile monetization. For this conversation, Eric details the history and inflection points for mobile gaming, what the market structure looks like today, and how regulation and privacy have impacted the business model and strategies. For the full show notes, transcript, and links to the best content to learn more, check out the episode page here. ----- This episode is brought to you by Tegus. Tegus is the modern research platform for leading investors, and provider of Canalyst. Tired of calculating fully-diluted shares outstanding? Access every publicly-reported datapoint and industry-specific KPI through their database of over 4,000 driveable global models handbuilt by a team of sector-focused analysts, 35+ industry comp sheets, and Excel add-ins that let you use their industry-leading data in your own spreadsheets. Tegus’ models automatically update each quarter, including hard to calculate KPIs like stock-based compensation and organic growth rates, empowering investors to bypass the friction of sourcing, building and updating models. Make efficiency your competitive advantage and take back your time today. As a listener, you can trial Canalyst by Tegus for free by visiting tegus.co/patrick. ----- Business Breakdowns is a property of Colossus, LLC. For more episodes of Business Breakdowns, visit joincolossus.com/episodes. Stay up to date on all our podcasts by signing up to Colossus Weekly, our quick dive every Sunday highlighting the top business and investing concepts from our podcasts and the best of what we read that week. Sign up here. Follow us on Twitter: @JoinColossus | @patrick_oshag | @jspujji | @zbfuss | @ReustleMatt | @domcooke Show Notes (00:02:24) - (First question) The year mobile gaming took off and the leaders in game development at that time (00:04:34) - The evolution of mobile game publishers since 2012 (00:08:50) - Mobile gaming business models; why “freemium” has thrived (00:14:04) - The 95% rule for freemium; revenue per user is not as important when working truly within a freemium model (00:21:18) - The ratio of average user retention vs great user retention; and measuring retention using DX values (00:24:19) - Comparing game revenue before and after the decline curve of user base at the 30 day mark (00:29:23) - How much in-game advertising revenue makes up in the total revenue for a game (00:34:22) - The current business model for mobile gaming; 25 good games vs 1 viral hit game (00:37:32) - Balancing in-game advertising between outside revenue and a developer’s gaming portfolio; determining high-potential players based on their immediate in-game behavior (00:43:17) - Eco-system development or consolidation; The enduring theme that Eric expects to stick around for the next 3-5 years (00:47:18) - The overall health of the mobile gaming market; how the Digital Markets Act in Europe may lead to the fracturing of app stores and the benefits to the industry of that