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The mobile market has grown to such an extent that revenues are trickling further down the charts.
That’s according to Warner Bros Interactive’s senior VP of mobile, social and emerging platforms Greg Ballard, who told Games Industry that a top 50 title can in today’s market still make decent returns.
"You can make a lot of money at number 20, and, by the way, two years ago that wasn’t the case," he said. "Two years ago we were much more concerned about the rigidity at the top of the charts. There just wasn’t that much money being made at numbers 10 through 20. Today, there’s money to be made even as a top 50 title. It’s a very robust market. It’s no longer winner take all. It’s winner take a lot, but not all."
Ballard also questioned the viability of free-to-play kids games. Notably its successful line of mobile LEGO titles have all to date been premium purchases.
"Nobody has really unlocked the secret box of how to monetise kids in a free-to-play environment,” he added. With that brand, and how carefully guarded it is – not just by Lego, but by Warner on behalf of Lego – we want to make sure that, if we ever go down that path, we are extremely careful in how we do it.
"So you take the two: free-to-play is difficult to do to begin with, but doing it with excellent standards regarding how to behave with kids, those are pretty big hurdles. We won’t make as much money on Lego titles as we do on free-to-play titles, but we do just fine. In the meantime, we continue to build that brand in a way that serves Legos interests and our own interests."
