The new Unity Gaming Report 2023, which is based on data from 230,000 developers surveyed, says that the number of daily mobile gamers has increased by 8%, but the number of paying players has dropped by 2%.

A side note: SensorTower has named the most popular mobile games genres of 2022

Unity noticed that the majority of players (31.5%) prefer games that are free-to-play but supported by in-app advertising. Very close (31.2%) in popularity are free games with in-game purchases. Interestingly, 6.5% of players prefer premium purchases to subscriptions and 15.5% prefer free games with the option to remove ads through a one-off payment.

Unity Gaming Report 2023
Indie games launch in less than 12 months

Unity also reports that indie developers are increasingly able to create and launch games in as little as one year – and do so while working fewer hours. This is partly due to the use of off-the-shelf assets to prototype ideas, as well as the use of other tools to streamline production processes.

Studios have created more games than in 2021

Likewise, large development studios saw a 44% year-on-year increase in the number of mobile games, well above the next-highest growth area for upper mid-sized studios (150 to 299 people) by 11%.

Read the full report here.

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