π Ludo King: India's King of Downloads (~1 Billion!)
π Ludo King: India's King of Downloads (~1 Billion!)
At nearly 1 billion downloads, Gametion's Ludo King dominates downloads but suffers from a significant lack of monetization
Hey GameMakers,
This week, we look at Indiaβs most scaled mobile game: Ludo King from Gametion.
This game was discussed on a recent podcast I participated in, so I thought itβd be worth taking a closer look.
A few data points (based on Sensor Tower estimates):
Ranked at #6 top worldwide downloads last week
~70% from India
Has generated almost 1B life of product downloads
Less than $0.01 RPD on Android
Ad revenue is likely to be non-trivial given the detection of non-trivial user acquisition
A more detailed analysis is below!
Top 10 Charts
Gametionβs Ludo King represents the most scaled game from any Indian game development studio (for now) at #6 downloads.
Dragon POW! by Boltray Games, at #4 downloads, is a fantasy shootβem up RPG with rogue-like elements.
Block Craft 3D by Wildlife Studios, at #10 downloads, is a block-based construction game similar to Minecraft but with a free-to-play model and focused solely on construction without survival gameplay elements.
Oh, whatβs this? Candy Crush Saga just leapfrogged Monopoly Go for #2 revenue!
At #2 downloads, Tokyo Debunker is an anime, otome simulation game set in a supernatural version of Tokyo.
Surprisingly, top US revenue has almost no movement in rankings.
At #1 downloads ζ¬’δΉιι±Όε€§εΈ aka βHappy Fishing Masterβ is a fishing simulation game.
Cracking top 10 downloads at #9 downloads is 第δΈεΉ»ε aka βThe Seventh Realmβ which is a team based idle RPG
Top 10 Mobile Publishers
Waiting for Squad Busters to global launch to see if Supercell can crack top 10β¦ hopefully that team has some Franks to boost their liveops.
Top 10 Steam Games
βNo Rest for the Wickedβ is an ARPG developed by Moon Studios known for their Ori series games. This game, however, is set in an interactive 3D world rather than in 2D like their previous titles.
βMahjongSoulβ is a free-to-play online mahjong game initially launched in China in June 2018 and then worldwide in April 2019. In the game characters have unique abilities and players gacha for these characters.
π¦ Ludo King: King of downloads, monetizationβ¦ not so much
Ludo King by Gametion Technologies is on its way to 1 billion downloads, according to Sensor Tower (data.ai) estimates. Launched in 2016, Ludo King is essentially the mobile and digital version of the classic board game Ludo, one of Indiaβs most popular board games.
The game has been a download monster but experienced a significant surge during Covid and hasnβt looked back. Further, given its leading audience catering to India, most downloads are for Android rather than iOS.
Itβs 956M downloads on Android relative to 38M downloads on iOS.
So, how massive is India for downloads? Well, most of the downloads, ~70%, are from India:
Interestingly, despite a tiny percentage of downloads, the United States contributes a relatively significant portion of revenue. Note that the chart above only shows IAP revenue, not ad revenue, which may be dramatically higher than IAP revenue.
Letβs take a look at revenue and downloads trends over time:
Monetization Problem
While we donβt quite know how much money ads generate, Android's revenue per download (RPD) is less than $0.01, suggesting dramatically low monetization.
Sensor Tower does, however, detect some reasonable user acquisition occurring for the game, so depending on your belief in non-trivial UA, we should believe the game generates a fair amount of ad revenue.
In Conclusion
We should believe that India's sheer volume of download potential presents a massive future opportunity.
With the growth of the middle class in India based on shifting global production there and other macro factors for India, game developers should keep an eye out on this market, which will undoubtedly be not only a download monster but at some point in the future⦠a revenue monster as well.
Insightful as always. Thanks!