Top mobile games ‘grossing four times more’ than a year ago

The top mobile games are earning four times more revenue than they were generating just a year ago, claims Gree’s SVP of studio operations.

Speaking to TechCrunch, Anil Dharni said that iPad had been a major factor in the rise in revenues, and also suggested that Android would continue to grow more rapidly and would see an improvement in per-user monetisation rates more similar to iOS.

“It’s four times and beyond in terms of revenue [compared to a year ago],” said Dharni.

Developers such as Clash of Clans and Hay Day developer Supercell are now raking in up to $1 million a day, while Mojang’s Minecraft: Pocket Edition has been downloaded more than seven million times on iOS and Android.

Other companies such as King.com and Wooga have also seen their revenues rise since breaking onto the mobile scene.

The Gree exec went on to say that the US branch of the mobile gaming giant had learnt a lot about how to monetise users from its Japanese parent, and that running a free-to-play game means generating content on a daily and weekly basis to create more depth.

“While we had been running live games, we weren’t running them at the depth at Gree was,” he said.

“What that means is creating new fun and engaging content on a daily or weekly basis. You want your players coming back every week to check what’s new. We conceptually understood this, but didn’t see the extent to which it improves our metrics.”