📈 Free Fire's Billion Free Downloads
📈 Free Fire's Billion Free Downloads
While most mobile FPS moves upstream to higher fidelity, Free Fire keeps sweeping up the downloads
Hello GameMakers,
This week, we look at Garena’s Free Fire, the many times #1 worldwide downloaded game.
I mentioned last week (Top 5 Insights from the State of Mobile Gaming Report by data.ai) that despite Free Fire’s massive download success by supporting low-end devices, almost every other mobile shooter studio is moving towards higher production value and jumping to Unreal Engine.
Let’s take a look at the download data below.
Top 10 Charts
Garena’s Free Fire often sits at #1 free worldwide free downloads. We’re taking a closer look this week at the data behind the downloads for the game.
Royal Match is at #2 downloads as they have significantly increased paid user acquisition on Google Play for the past month or so. Grudge match with Scopely’s Monopoly Go?
NBA Infinite at #8 downloads is an incredibly high-fidelity PVP (3v3 or 1v1) NBA basketball game by Tencent. Just think of a mobile version of EA’s NBA Live. Keep an eye on this game looks hella dope!
Invincible: Guarding the Globe at #1 US downloads is another team battle RPG game similar to Star Wars Galaxy of Heroes or Marvel Strikeforce. In this case, however, Ubisoft has licensed the Invincible IP from Skybound.
Eggy Party, which we covered in May last year, is the Netease version of Fall Guys, which has finally arrived in the US from China.
Unsurprisingly, NBA Infinite is #8 worldwide downloads and, as the US is the biggest market for the NBA, also in the US.
Interesting that the top charts for revenue in the US seems pretty locked in.
消消英雄 aka Puzzle Legend: Crush Heroes at #10 downloads is a team battle match-3 game.
Oh look at that, Love and Deespace broke top 10 revenue sitting at #9 top revenue. We have some lonely people in China! Lol.
Top 10 Mobile Publishers
So goes Dragon Ball Dokkan Battle, so goes Bandai Namco’s top mobile publisher rankings.
Top 10 Steam Games
Ok, so everyone is playing Helldivers, and everyone loves it. Just buy it already! I have, although I haven’t played it yet. Congrats to Arrowhead for staying at #1.
Nightingale is a shared-world survival crafting game set within a cool fantasy universe. The former GM of Bioware leads developer Inflexion Games, and you can see the influence of titles such as Mass Effect and Dragon Age on Nightingale.
🔦 1B Free Downloads for Garena’s Free Fire
Garena’s Free Fire was initially released on September 30, 2017.
Over its over four-year run on iOS and Android, the game has accumulated over 1.3B downloads and roughly ~$1.3B in net revenue, according to data.ai estimates.
The game came to popularity as one of the first, if not the first, battle royale shooter games to launch on mobile. While other games also launched around the same time, such as Rules of Survival from Netease, PUBG, and others, Free Fire has accumulated more downloads than any other battle royale game.
While the game has dropped from its high of generating over $2M in net revenue in December of 2021, it still performs well and makes between $500K - $1M in net revenue daily.
However, compared to other top shooter games such as Call of Duty Mobile ($1M - $2M in daily net revenue) or PUBG Mobile ($1M - $1.5M in daily net revenue), while winning in downloads, the game makes significantly less revenue than those other shooter games.
Details on Downloads
This post is not meant to be a comprehensive overview of Free Fire. Check out Naavik’s report, Free Fire Bringing Battle Royale to the World, for an in-depth analysis.
Instead, I want to focus on downloads.
From data.ai estimates:
A few points to note:
Free Fire derives almost 8X more downloads on Android relative to iOS
Despite the gap in installs, net revenue is only off by 1/3rd or so, meaning iOS drives significantly more ARPU (average revenue per user)
Based on estimates for paid installs, Free Fire has accumulated over 1B organic downloads on both platforms!!!
Strategic Implications
Why is Free Fire getting more organic downloads compared to other shooter games?
Well, the answer becomes apparent when we look at the relative mix of Android vs. iOS above and two additional data points for the game below:
#1. Device Support: Free Fire has the lowest minimum spec requirements among all top shooter games. Without going into very specific details, as a high-level swag, you can see Free Fire has significantly lower minimum spec requirements:
This enables many more lower-end Android phones to play the game.
#2. Geographic Distribution: When looking at the top countries by cumulative downloads, we see that emerging markets with lower-end devices make up the bulk of the geographic distribution:
What about competition?
Oddly, not many studios seem to focus on lower-end device support.
Netease recently launched Blood Strike (Sept 2023), a mobile 100-player battle royale shooter game. The game is marketed as targeting lower-end devices but still requires 2GB of RAM to run.
Most likely, the strategy is to go after Free Fire with an expanded player experience. While Free Fire has lower device requirements, Blood Strike is likely targeting a time window in which the eventual replacement cycle of mobile devices would eventually situate 2GB RAM phones to where 1GB RAM phones sit today.
Blood Strike currently gets about 60K - 100K downloads daily but with higher paid UA on a % basis than Free Fire. In comparison, Free Fire gets about 600K - 800K downloads daily.
So What?
As mentioned in previous Marketwire editions, most mobile shooter games studios are moving to higher production value products and jumping to Unreal Engine if they aren’t there already.
Everyone seems to be leaving the lower-end market for Garena to sit on until the device market catches up to their specs.
I firmly believe a smaller game studio with some innovation that stays in Unity and targets lower-end devices has a strong opportunity to take some of Garena’s lunch.
Your margin is my opportunity.
- Jeff Bezos
Your dive into Garena's Free Fire achieving a billion downloads is an eye-opener. The contrast you've highlighted between Free Fire's strategy of focusing on low-spec devices and the industry trend towards higher fidelity games is particularly striking. It's fascinating how this approach has not only allowed them to dominate the download charts but also tap into a vast market of gamers with lower-end devices, especially in emerging markets. This strategic choice seems like a classic case of understanding and catering to your audience's needs, which many high-fidelity focused developers might be overlooking. Your insight into the potential for smaller studios to carve out a niche in this underserved market is a valuable takeaway for developers looking to make an impact.
This is a good read. Thank you.