While the mobile game world is growing, the survival game genre continues to be among the indispensables for players. The fact that there are dozens of games in this category is one of the clearest indicators of this. But there are some that are taking the survival genre by storm. Now we will talk to you about what this category is going through in 2021.
PUBG Mobile, one of the stars of the survival game genre, had more than $ 7 billion in revenue in November 2021, two more hit Battle Royale games were released at the end of the same year. On September 28, 2021, Free Fire Max, the new version of the shooter called Free Fire, was released as an open beta, while on November 11, 2021, Krafton released the new battle royale mobile game PUBG: New State. The two games, which attracted great attention with their release, managed to be the first in the number of downloads separately in October and November 2021. Leading advertising and market research firm SocialPeta analyzed these two games in terms of downloads and revenue, ad strategy and popular ads. Let’s look at the details of the report together.
What kind of competition is there between Free Fire Max and PUBG: New State?
How is the download and revenue status of the games?
New State has excellent download numbers, while Free Fire has one more level of revenue:
Looking at downloads, Garena Free Fire Max (GFFM) was released in September 2021, although both games As of December 2021, the number of downloads has exceeded 50 million. We see that the older but well-established PUBG: New State (PNS) is better supported.
GFFM reached 50.5 million total downloads in 2021, with 12.1 million downloads on the App Store and 38.4 million on Google Play. The game achieved its highest daily download with 5.6 million downloads on its third day. It had its highest weekly download in its first week, with 12.2 million downloads between 12 and 18 October 2021. One month after its release, the number of downloads stabilized and reached around 240 thousand per day.
PNS reached 70.5 million total downloads in 2021, with 10.9 million (15.5%) downloads on the App Store and 59.6 million (84.5%) downloads on Google Play. The game has seen 3 million downloads every day on Google Play in the first week since its release. After December 1, 2021, the number of downloads increased excessively, reaching 9 million daily.
If we look at the revenue of the two games, in 2021, GFFM earned $37.2 million and PNS $6.4 million.
GFFM earned $18 million on the App Store, $19.2 million on Google Play, with a daily income of $450 thousand on the App Store on September 30, 2021. It saw the highest level, and it was seen on Google Play at the end of October 2021 with 520 thousand dollars.
earned $2 million in PNS App Store, $4.4 million in Google Play, with daily revenue of $100k on the App Store on December 7, 2021. It saw the highest level and was seen on Google Play with 600 thousand dollars on December 1, 2021.
If we compare the revenues of the two games in the 7 weeks since their release, it is seen that GFFM generated $19.9 million in revenue between September 28 and November 15, 2021, while PNS generated $6.4 million in revenue between November 13 and December 27, 2021. . Although PNS earned less revenue in this process, seeing 70 million downloads in less than 2 months as a newly released game shows that it has great potential in terms of revenue and will have a better performance in 2022.
How were the advertising strategies of the games?
Free Fire focused on Asia, New State Europe and America region:
Both games started to advertise to attract players’ attention before their release. According to SocialPeta, GFFM’s ads go back to January 2017, with 1025 single ads in 2021. PNS similarly started advertising 10 months before its debut. According to SocialPeta, there are 5071 unique ads in 2021.
GFFM delivered an average of 32 ads per day on iOS and 46 ads per day on Android. At the time of its release, the number of ads reached the highest level with 391 ads per day on both platforms, 56% of these ads were video ads. .
The game was generally advertised in Pakistan, Indonesia, Vietnam, and the Pakistani portion comprised 31.57% of all advertisements.
The first choice of the game for advertisement was Google Ads, 38.1% of all advertisements were given here. In the number of interactions, the highest amount was on Facebook, with over 37 million interactions.
PNS, on the other hand, posted an average of 100 ads per day on iOS and 334 ads per day on Android, firmly started its advertising business in July, and the number of ads in late October reached the total of the two platforms. reached the highest level with 1200 advertisements per day, and 61% of these advertisements were video advertisements. The game generally advertised in the USA, Saudi Arabia and Russia, and the number of advertisements in these three countries took up one-fourth of the total advertisements.
The first choice of the game for advertisement was Facebook, 20.99% of all advertisements were given here. In the number of interactions, the highest amount was on Instagram, with over 60 million interactions.
How was the advertising popularity of the games?
Unique Free Fire, Exciting New State:
The two games are different from each other in terms of advertisements. This is mainly due to the fact that GFFM’s commercials focus on new gameplay with new in-game items and skins.
Ad Platform: Google Ads Interactions: 487.9 Thousand Duration: 76 Days
PNS, on the other hand, focused on high quality promotional videos as a new game, making use of exciting battle scenes and advertisements that could match the high quality of PUBG on PC.
Advertising Platform: Google Ads Interactions: 1 Million Duration: 70 Days
Conclusion
When game companies make a battle royale type game, they have certain difficulties in order for this game to be successful. The controls of the game should be comfortable, have a good connection with the server, have a sufficient number of players, fight against cheats and have many different features.
With excellent advertising strategies, the beginning of the game can be brought to a good level. In this regard, SocialPeta helps developers to achieve the best possible result.