GameRefinery & Liftoff share a report on midcore games in 2023. CPI and ROI data were collected from May 1, 2022 to May 1, 2023. Thirty billion views, 1.1 billion clicks, and 5.5 million installs were analyzed.

  • Liftoff categorizes midcore games as shooters, strategy, and RPGs.
  • Midcore games earn 35% of all mobile revenue on iOS in the United States.
  • The average CPI of midcode games is at $2.03. On Android, it’s $0.73; on iOS, it’s $3.86. The company notes that traffic for midcore games, on average, is twice as expensive as for casual games.
  • The average D7 ROAS for the midcore genre is 4.3%. It’s higher on Android at 6.1%; it’s lower on iOS at 3.4%.
  • D7 ROAS from July 2022 to May 2023 ranged from 3.1% to 6.3%.
  • Over the past year, the peak month for average installation cost was in August 2022 at $2.81. And the lowest was in October 2022 at $1.66.

Midcore games market

  • The highest CPI is in North America, $5.45. In APAC, $1.37; in EMEA, $0.8; in LATAM, $0.27.
  • However, D7 ROAS in North America is also the highest, at 4.5%. Next are EMEA, 4.4%; APAC, 2.6%; and LATAM, 1.5%. It turns out that EMEA is the most attractive region in terms of traffic cost to return percentage.

Mircore games genre

  • CPI in shooters is $7.47. That’s the leader by a wide margin. Price per install in strategies is $2.77; in RPGs, $0.6.
  • D7 ROAS in shooters is 6%; in strategies, 5.4%; in RPGs, 1.7%.

Trends

  • Extraction shooters are a new trend in the market. Arena Breakout is the most popular novelty and the third highest revenue among all shooters in China.
  • More and more midcore games are adding an extra layer of monetization in the form of event passes.
  • Some midcore games are adding a store with special currency to the Battle Pass.
  • Many midcore games are starting to open their own web shops.

 971