For the global mobile game industry, in the past year, the main trends that emerged in 2020, such as battle passes, continued their strong growth momentum. Many features and in-game activities have become increasingly popular and are now "standard" and are spawning new trends. In addition to tactical competitive mobile games, the battle pass system began to penetrate into other categories, and in those games that adopted mixed gameplay elements, various activities helped developers increase player activity and retention.
In 2021, we also witnessed a variety of mobile game products trying to innovate and launch new ways to play in exciting new ways.
At the same time, many traditional game publishers began to create mobile game versions for their own game IP, such as Final Fantasy VII: First Soldier and Marvel Future Revolution. Games such as Top War use mixed gameplay elements to attract new players, improving user acquisition efficiency, while others, such as Cooking Diary, have improved player retention by adding social elements.
So in 2022, what new development trends will emerge in the mobile game industry? Game Refinery made predictions in an article.
First, the outbreak of AAA mobile games, cross-platform play functions have become more and more popular
In 2022, Blizzard will launch a mobile version of the classic ARPG series "Diablo", known as Diablo: Immortal. Similar to Square Enix's mobile game Final Fantasy VII: First Soldier, the game will feature more online elements than the Dark Series' most widely known action RPG gameplay. In addition, Blizzard also intends to fill the narrative gap between Diablo 2 and Diablo 3 through Diablo: Immortal.
Ubisoft's action RPG The Division is about to land on mobile devices, and Riot's new FPS game "Valorant" will also launch a mobile game version - throughout 2021, the average monthly active player number of "Valorant" reached 15 million. As more AAA games launch mobile games, cross-platform play will become more and more popular. Games such as Apex Heroes, Star Wars: Hunters, Doomsday, and Crash: Stardambar Will all support cross-platform play.
On the other hand, a considerable part of the AAA mobile games that are expected to come out in 2022 belong to the shooting category. These new titles may have an impact on the market segment dominated by PUBG Mobile, Call of Duty mobile and Garena Free Fire.
Second, new types of draw cards will appear in mobile games
Card draw games are especially popular in Japan. 92% of the top 100 best-selling mobile games in the Japanese market have a card draw mechanism – for comparison, the US market is only 80%.
While most of the draw-out gameplay is considered an F2P element, they are also closely associated with loot chests. In console games such as the FIFA series, the unboxing mechanism is a very powerful monetization tool, but many countries are asking developers to make adjustments to ensure that players can see what items they can get before deciding to buy.
Game Refinery believes that in 2022, a similar preview mechanism will appear in the card draw mobile game. While it may sound counterintuitive, with clever design, developers may be able to earn more money from players through preview options. For example, developers can limit the number of times a player previews per day, incentivizing players to buy more times.
At the same time, we look forward to seeing more innovations from mobile game developers in the direction of social draw mechanisms. A good example is the Sega mobile game Kotodaman, which allows up to 7 players to enter the draw pool together, and all players can choose a character from the card pool: when all the characters have completed the draw, the player will receive each other's characters.
In the past 12 months, the proportion of games that use 5 or more draw mechanisms has risen from 37% to 45% of the top 100 best-selling mobile games in the U.S. market. It is believed that in 2022, the types of cards drawn in the field of mobile games will become more abundant.
Third, the design of activities and mini-games undergoes innovation, and developers will try meta elements
From 2020 to 2021, the epidemic has prevented many people from meeting up offline, but mobile games have given people the opportunity to meet in the virtual world. Players can participate in a variety of activities in the mobile game, including brand cross-border linkage, virtual concerts, seasonal events, anniversary events, limited-time events, new server events, etc., and it is worth noting that many developers have also added special play modes or mini-games through the activities. For example, the popular card game Phase 10 and the elimination game Best Fiends both used (house) renovation elements in limited-time events.
Another important trend in terms of event design is that some games use core play mechanics. For example, Playrix's Fantasy Aquarium has launched mini-game events that have nothing to do with its regular match-3 gameplay, and Lilith's Sword and Expedition has also frequently had a match-3 mode that unrelated to RPG gameplay.
Game Refinery also found that many publishers are starting to incorporate hybrid elements as part of their marketing and buying strategies because it's easy to create interactive ads around them, or eye-catching promotional videos.
Pocket Soldier, for example, is a 4X strategy game with synthetic elements, and its combined gameplay is easier to show in ads and more attractive to casual players. Some mobile gamers may have initially been drawn to the crafting elements of Pocket Raiders ads, but became interested in 4X strategy games after actually getting started.
Fourth, there will be more games that use blockchain technology in the mobile game market
Blockchain games have been one of the hot topics in the industry in recent years and have sparked huge differences of opinion.
At present, a number of games that use at least some blockchain technology have emerged in the mobile game market, such as the multiplayer online competitive game "Thetan Arena", the MMORPG "MIR4", and the higher-ranked simulation games "Upland" and "Highrise" on the best-seller list.
NFT characters from Racecence Andreas and NFT skins from Highrise
The gameplay of the four games is completely different, but they all use blockchain technology to some extent. For example, in Racer de La Citoena, players can earn cryptocurrency by having NFT heroes fight, while in Upland you can own your own in-game NFT properties and trade them with other players.
Blockchain trends seem to be getting hotter and hotter since the beginning of 2022, so we believe there will be more blockchain games entering the mobile game market this year. Many startups are developing or planning to launch blockchain games within this year, and the more noteworthy new titles include Heroes of Mavia, MOBA, Cryowar, and the online game Embersword. In addition, some large AAA studios have also publicly expressed interest in blockchain games and announced future plans.