miHoYo, Tencent, NetEase, and IGG Heavily Advertised, Top Developers from China Lead the New Year- Jan 2024 Global Mobile Game Advertising Review

Here is AppGrowing's analysis of the global mobile game advertising markets in January 2024, based on advertising data from 25 global media platforms in 50 countries/regions.

?

01 Advertising Trend

The global mobile games advertising market in the first month of 2024 continues the high heat of the end of 2023. Except for Week 5, mobile game weekly ad volume remained above 2M in January, the same as in December. App volume exceeded 22K, up more than 10% MoM. Weekly creative volume remained steady at over 500K.

In terms of a single day, the peak of ad volume appeared in Week 1, exceeding 1.66M on January 23. The peak of app volume appeared in Week 4, with 19,970 mobile games advertised on January 23rd.

By market, North America, Southeast Asia, and Western Europe are the Top 3 regions in terms of ad volume, but all saw a decline in share. In 4th place, Latin America grew to 21.3%, continuing the growth in emerging markets. Specifically, the United States, Canada, and France were the Top 3 regions, but all saw declines in ad volume share. The overall regional trend in January shows that advertisers are relocating resources from the top-ranked mature markets to emerging markets.

Looking at categories, Casual returned to No. 1 with a 14.7% share of ad volume and a 17.6% share of app volume. Puzzle followed at No. 2. Role Playing and Simulation remained 3rd in ad volume share and App volume share with 11.0% and 10.8% respectively. In terms of the average ad volume for a single app, Music stayed at No. 1 but continued its downward trend from December 2023.

There were no significant changes in media, with Google Ads and Meta Ads rounding out the Top 6. AdMob ranked No. 1 with 32.6% of ad volume. Specific to the ad volume by category on Facebook, Casual, Puzzle, Role Playing, and Simulation games are still the main source of ads, all accounting for more than 10%.

02 Most Advertised Games

For mobile game developer regions in January, China's mainland continued to rank No. 1, with 34.5% of ad volume and 21.8% of App volume. The No. 2 and No. 3 spots on both lists were the same as last month, all decreased in proportion except for a small increase in App volume share in Vietnam.

Among January's Top 10 Developers by Ad Volume, SayGames maintained a massive ad campaign at No. 1. Top 2-5 were Onesoft, Matchingham Games, IGG, and Azur Games. miHoYo came in at No. 8.

In terms of most advertised mobile games, more midcore and hardcore games appeared on Google Play's list in January compared to previous months. Strategy games began the new year with massive ads, with 4 games on the list. IGG's Lords Mobile and Doomsday were the standouts, coming in at #5 and #6 respectively. miHoYo's Genshin Impact increased advertising investment and moved up to #9.

On App Store, Top Games' Evony overtook MONOPOLY GO! to rank No. 1. Wanda Cinemas Games' new game 『聖闘士星矢レジェンドオブジャスティス(Saint Seiya Legend of Justice)』 ran a massive pre-registration ad campaign and ranked No. 11.

The No.1 spot on App Store's Top pre-registrations was taken by SPGame's new RPG 『Land Arcana -ふしぎの大陸-(Land Arcana -The Mysterious Continent-)』. The game was pre-registered on January 26th and officially released on February 19th. 『ぽちゃガチョ! (Fatgoose Gym)』, which is based on the popular WeChat mini-game in China, came in second, also targeting the Japanese market.

On Google Play, NetEase Games' new FPS Battle Royale game Blood Strike expanded its ad campaign further, ranking No. 1. Tencent Games' Honor Of Kings followed. Anime RPG OUTERPLANE from Korean developer Smilegate started pre-registration ads in Japan, ranking No. 3.

?

03 Mobile Game Advertising Case Analysis

Case 1: 『聖闘士星矢レジェンドオブジャスティス(Saint Seiya Legend of Justice)』

According to AppGrowing, Wanda Cinemas Games' new game 『聖闘士星矢レジェンドオブジャスティス』 started pre-registration on December 1, 2023, and was officially released on January 16, 2024 and immediately topped App Store and Google Play in Japan. Previously, the idle game based on the famous anime IP "Saint Seiya" had achieved good results in Hong Kong, Macao, and Taiwan of China.

According to AppGrowing's ad stage analysis, the game took Japan as the main ad region during the pre-registration period. In terms of creative type, video ads accounted for 83.3%, with horizontal & square videos taking up 57.1%. Like most IP-based mobile games, 『聖闘士星矢レジェンドオブジャスティス』 is good at utilizing brand keyword awareness to attract players and evoke nostalgia. As a classic anime IP, elements of “Saint Seiya” were widely used during the pre-registration to arouse fans’ emotions. In this creative, a number of famous scenes and characters were seen.

After launch, the share of video creative increased to 97.1%. The main ones are horizontal & square videos, whose share increased to 72.7%.

Creatively, the game employed the spokesperson strategy that has worked in Asia and utilized elements of popular videos on TikTok to attract young players. For example, the game invited well-known local comedian Hidetaka Kano as its spokesperson, shooting TikTok dance videos, sitcoms, and other forms of commercials to expand its reach to the user base.

?

Case 2: Snake Battle: Color Mode

Snake Battle: Color Mode from a Chinese developer is a mobile game based on the classic arcade Snake gameplay. According to AppGrowing, it was mainly advertised in emerging markets such as India, Indonesia, and Turkey in January. In terms of the creative type, vertical video and horizontal & square video accounted for about 50% each.

Creatively, Snake Battle: Color Mode takes advantage of various non-core gameplays and popular elements to appeal to casual players. The following creative combined the currently popular non-core gameplays of "quick calculation" and "selection gate". While presenting the core elements of Snake, the combat content is omitted, giving a sense of leisure and relaxation. In addition, the classic "Peppa Pig" is shown at the end as an eye-catching point.

Some of the ads for Snake Battle: Color Mode feature visually appealing images that are not directly related to the game. The creative used a real-scene drone performance, which is consistent with the "Snake" theme, to attract users. The game content is only exposed in the upper left corner to reduce the sense of advertising.