S.Korean mobile game’s spending, downloads fall last year

South Korea's mobile game market experienced a decline in 2022, with both downloads and spending decreasing, according to a report by data analytics platform company Data.AI released on Friday.

The report also revealed that the global mobile games market saw a total of 90 billion downloads, with $110 billion spent on games. Although the download volume increased by 8% compared to the previous year, spending decreased by 5%, which may be due to the economic slowdown and inflation.

In South Korea, the number of downloads decreased by 70 million to 510 million compared to the previous year, and spending decreased by $501 million to $5.3 billion. Different age and gender groups preferred different games, with Roblox, Brawl Stars and Infinite Stairs ranking high among 18-24 year olds.

Dungeon Fighter Mobile was the most popular game for 25-34 year-olds, while Pmang New Matgo by Neowiz and HanGame Shin Matgo ranked first and second, respectively, among players aged 45 and older. Male players favored Brawl Stars, Pokemon Go and Minecraft, while female players enjoyed Roblox, Infinite Stairs and Cookie Run: Kingdom.

Among game genres, role-playing games (RPG) were the most lucrative, with Korean gamers spending $3.6 billion in the last year. Among RPGs, MMORPGs accounted for $2.5 billion in spending, with Lineage W and Lineage 2M by NCSoft Corp., and Odin: Valhalla Rising by Kakao Games Corp. ranking high in the charts.

Write to Seung-Woo Lee at leeswoo@hankyung.com