Free-to-Play Games to Generate $88.7 Billion in 2020

The incredible success of free-to-play games seems set to continue this year. There is a huge selection of titles that run from Call of Duty: Mobile and Fortnite to Clash of Clans, Candy Crush Saga and PUBG, as well as many more. This means an ever-growing choice of free mobile games for every taste.

The Growth of Free Games

The free games market is currently dominated by some huge hits that attract hundreds of millions of players around the planet. For example, Fortnite is said to have 250 million players and recently recorded a record 12.3 million concurrent players for the Travis Scott Astronomical concert.

Another example is Candy Crush Saga. This puzzle game was said to have over 270 million monthly active players in 2019. A new entrant expected to make waves this year is League of Legend: Wild Rift, which is a shortened version of the PC classic that has over 100 monthly active users.

Most of these games are hyper-casual, with fast, simple gameplay. Similar games that work to the freemium model include online slots like Wolf Gold and Immortal Romance, which can typically be played as a free demo or as a real-money wager. By allowing players to try games for free, they can engage with a game before investing further in it.

The overall free games markets has been growing year on year. In 2018, revenue from these games was $US82.5 billion and in 2019, it rose to $87.1 billion. In 2020, it is expected to reach as high as $88.7 billion. Those figures cover all free games on different formats.

However, by far the biggest contribution comes from mobile versions, which make up at least three-quarters of the total revenue now. In 2019, free mobile gaming produced revenue of $64.4 billion, putting it well ahead of PC ($21.1 billion) and consoles ($1.6 billion).

The trend is for mobile games to make an ever-greater share of the overall revenue, while PC and console earnings are slowly declining. This will see mobile revenues on free games climb to $67.1 billion this year.

How Do They Make Money?

It may seem surprising that games that are free to play make such vast sums of money. The general idea is that players can download and start playing for free. However, they need to pay to unlock certain levels or to improve some of the features.

The amounts made by some of the top developers of hit games are eye-watering. If we go back to the Candy Crush Saga, we can see that players spent $1.33 billion on it in 2014.

It was revealed by Sensor Tower that Clash of Clans generated $727 million in 2019. This was largely due to a $4.99 Gold Pass that was introduced in April and led to a 58% monthly increase in spending in the first month.

In terms of geographical markets, it is thought that 60% of the free-to-play revenue in 2020 will be generated in Asia. Of the $53.3 billion here, some $41.8 will come from mobile titles. After Asia, North America and Europe are the biggest markets, with mobile revenue leading the way in both places.

"​Candy crush saga’s business model" (CC BY 2.0) by Nguyen Vu Hung (vuhung)

A Look to the Future

At the time of writing, the broad appeal of free-to-play mobile games looks set to continue. With the number of mobile users growing steadily and the games selection increasing, it seems likely that revenues climb even higher in the next few years.

This article does not necessarily reflect the opinions of the editors or management of EconoTimes