Mobile analytics company, Flurry has gone through the purchase data for about 57 million buys on iOS and Android devices and found out that most users spent money on consumable virtual goods. For example, they bought fertilizer so their crops could grow faster in a farming game or virtual grenades in a war.
Users found virtual durable goods not attractive for their games, these goods were mostly for decorative purposes and users did not seem impressed by such personalisation themes.
Interestingly, the most popular virtual item among the users for their in App purchases is the “in-game currency”. The currency may turn the game play faster for the users, or may enable them to buy something within the game which is not available to free users.
The in app purchases have turned out to be the new major revenue creator for mobile game creators. In the freemium game segment, where some part of games are available to all the users for free and rest is available only to the paid users, about 65 per cent of revenue comes from in app purchases.
In the top grossing category of the iTunes store, the five top titles are freemium games and out of top 25 apps, 22 apps are mobile games.
The Flurry blog post says, “Durable items represent 30 per cent of all in-app purchases in freemium games. From a game design standpoint, it’s important to have a good selection of durable items in a game as it offers important variety to the consumer with respect to the core gameplay, such as erecting buildings in a city. Buying increasingly better performing durable items gives players a sense of progress, which can be important for engagement.”
The mobile analytics company Flurry says it is important for the game creators to offer both kinds of goods to the users, but those items which affect the gameplay are likely to be more popular and cash generating for the developers.