Pavel Polovinka is head of publishing at Playgama, a platform for the distribution and monetization of HTML5 video games.
What occurs if you hop from the mobile gaming market into the web one? Are you able to evaluate the 2? Is there any level to this?
The quick solutions to these questions are: ‘nearly easy person acquisition’, ‘to some extent’, and ‘undoubtedly’.
The web game market is comparatively tiny in contrast with mobile. But it surely’s additionally a rising market.
Extra to the purpose, it may be comparatively straightforward to port your mobile title to HTML5 and distribute it to the assorted web platforms. The potential revenue may be a lot smaller than on mobile – however by ignoring the web market, you are leaving cash on the desk.
Case research
Here is an instance of how Playgama enabled a pair of mobile video games to discover a new viewers and revenue stream.
StoreRider, an all-in-one distributor of Android video games on various shops, determined to enterprise into the web game market, and requested Playgama to assist them. More often than not, we offer our providers to studios or web-oriented publishers, so StoreRider was a new kind of consumer to work with.
StoreRider is a distinctive enterprise in some ways. It helps builders earn extra from current mobile video games by distributing them exterior the same old platforms, such because the App Retailer and Google Play. As an alternative, StoreRider explores various channels such because the Epic Video games Retailer, One Retailer, telecom subscriptions, in-flight leisure, US services, and web exports.
StoreRider initially uploaded two video games – Gangsta Island: Crime City and Vikings: an Archer’s Journey – to the Playgama Crazy Games platform. However after reaching round 500,000 play classes, the corporate quickly recognised the market potential and determined to solid a bigger web.
Problems
StoreRider’s experience lies in mobile, and the corporate did not have the time to optimize the supply code for the entire completely different web platforms – not to mention join with the important thing publishers and drudge via compliance.
Take, for instance, Facebook’s guide for Instant Games. One should spend hours studying via checklists, then days making an attempt to alter the game to match the necessities. On high of that, there is the registration course of, SDK integration, and assist.
Multiply each step by the variety of platforms one needs to be offered on, then once more by the variety of video games, and the gargantuan quantity of jobs to do begins to block the solar.
Initially, we did not plan to add any new options to the 2 StoreRider video games. The thought was to get hold of the supply code for each of them after which combine our SDK, which allows compatibility with any web platform.
Nonetheless, we determined to go a little additional. We optimized each video games in order that they might work flawlessly on mobile browsers inside the WebGL context, and we elevated the max reminiscence utilization capability to assure clean gameplay (thus lowering loading instances and decreasing the churn fee).
We additionally localized Vikings: An Archer’s Journey to 15 languages, and Gangsta Island: Crime Metropolis to three, and we added asynchronous saves and engagement instruments, reminiscent of ‘Share with buddies’, to plug into Fb’s social mechanics.
Lastly, we revealed each video games on Playgama, MSN Video games, Fb, Yandex Video games, VK, Game Distribution, Lagged, and Y8.
The outcomes, though modest by the requirements of massive publishers, have been inspiring. Over three months, the video games achieved over a million play classes, a 20% day one retention fee, and primary place within the MSN high ten for a number of consecutive weeks.
There’s little sense in evaluating these figures to the vastly bigger mobile market. However the important thing takeaway is this: a mobile distributor was in a position to discover a new revenue stream with shut to no contribution on their half.
Proper now, we’re publishing the polished variations of StoreRider’s video games to much more platforms. General, the WebGL optimization service appears promising, as we anticipate extra mobile devs and distributors to hedge their bets with web gaming.
A slice of the pie
Let’s backtrack to the questions we posed to start with. At the moment, the web gaming market is thought of a Plan B for the mobile crowd – and rightfully so.
The mobile market dwarfs the web market by way of quantity: the previous was price $106.5 billion in 2024, whereas the latter got here in at simply $16.77 billion in the identical yr. As such, the potential revenue is far decrease.
If you happen to do not succeed on mobile, it prices shut to nothing to win one thing again on the web
Nonetheless, it is essential to remember the fact that the web market is way more accessible by way of advertising and marketing spending and person acquisition. If you happen to do not succeed on mobile, it prices shut to nothing to win one thing again on the web.
As a nearer, this is some meals for thought. The variety of web browser video games has elevated by 4.9 instances over the previous two years, and the HTML5 video games market is projected to grow to $31.9 billion by 2030.
If you happen to starvation for a piece of this pie, it is higher to get your metaphorical fork out now. Getting into this area of interest has by no means been simpler, even for mobile studios and distributors.