The notion that the music industry can learn a lot from the lucrative mobile games market is currently popular, but a full picture of the latter industry requires understanding how much companies are making lower down its tail. A new report by Newzoo puts numbers to iOS App Store chart rankings, claiming that in June alone, a top-20 mobile game for iOS earned around $3.8m in the EU, $3.7m in China and $6m in the US.
But games ranked between 21 and 50 saw average revenues of $700k, $625k and $1.5m in those markets respectively. Meanwhile, those lower down the tail – ranked 101-1,000 on the App Store – averaged $13.8k in the EU, $1.7k in China and $7.8k in the US in June. Newzoo puts this into perspective: around 170 companies are grossing more than $1m annually from iOS games – the amount it reckons is necessary to support “a small game studio of 5 to 10 people”. Even so, Newzoo is positive: “There is no market segment or screen that has such a long tail of games and companies making their living from it,” said CEO Peter Warman.
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