Global Mobile Gaming
Discussion of global "cluster" patterns in mobile game play
Below is a more in-depth look at the global “cluster” study discussed in Project 1: Global Mobile Play explaining what each country and territory cluster means and looking at each cluster’s mobile gaming habits.
This project was completed with data from 
.
Please note that analyses are based on data collected between October 2020-October 2021.
Overview
Mobile games make up the largest portion of the games market with more than 2.8 billion people playing mobile games globally. Despite the scope of mobile gaming, specific behaviors like playtime across different places on the globe were unknown. In part, this is due to the difficulty gaining access to games data, particularly extensive data about players in a wide range of countries and territories.
This project explores these dynamics and play factors across the globe, providing previously unavailable insights into global trends and patterns in engagement with mobile games. This is important for political and industry-related insights, providing clear and detailed information about player behaviors to determine impacts of gaming and market landscapes.
Behavioral Clustering
The country and territory clusters shown in the maps below highlight patterns identified via machine learning to distinguish patterns in behavior based on place. This resulted in categories linking countries and territories to one another based on hours of playtime per capita, minutes of daily playtime per user, and playtime inequality.
Play Behavior and Country Clusters
A-Type places (which include 51 countries and territories) represent unequal gaming cultures, but highlight player engagement as strong, but with moderate mobile gaming habits. For example, these countries and territories have playtime duration averages in the middle of the mobile gaming spectrum, with about 29 hours per capita per year and about 10 minutes on average per day. Players in this category live in Europe and some areas of the Middle East and Asia.
B-Type places (which cover 47 countries and territories) have less common mobile play, with an average of only about 3.6 hours per capita every year. Players in this category live mostly in areas of Africa, Central and South America, Central and South Asia, and the Pacific Islands.
C-Type places (which are made up of 36 countries and territories) are similar to A-Type places in terms of overall playtime per year, with about 26 hours per capita per year, but has lower playtime engagement in comparison.
D-Type places (which include 27 countries and territories) have generally uncommon engagement with mobile gaming and include areas in Africa, Asia, and Southern and Central America. While players in these places spend more time playing than those in B-type and F-type countries, their averages are low, with an average of about 13 minutes per day and 12 hours per year.
E-Type places (including 23 countries and territories) have much higher playtimes than most other categories, with an average of about 44 hours per capita per year. These are players for whom mobile play is extremely common and holds a significant position in their lives, although daily averages vary between places. This group includes the United States, Canada, Japan, and the Russian Federation.
F-Type places (including 19 countries and territories), like B-type areas, have less mobile gaming engagement. These countries and territories, though, have even lower overall averages, with only about 2 hours of mobile gaming time per capita per year. Players in these places are relatively uniformly disengaged with mobile gaming.
G-Type places (which include 7 countries and territories) are mostly represented among the Pacific Islands and include places like Papua New Guinea, Vietnam, and Guinea. While there are not many mobile players, the players who are engaged in mobile gaming spend a lot of individual time playing. These players play for 30 minutes per day on average.
Finally, H-Type places (with only 4 countries and territories) are wealthier countries and territories in east Asia, specifically Singapore, South Korea, Macao SAR, and Hong Kong SAR. These places include players with very different mobile gaming habits when comparing individual players, but also have high averages per day at about 19 minutes and a very high gaming duration per year with about 70 hours per capita per year on average.
Behaviors By Cluster
The first interactive map below looks at each individual behavioral cluster in terms of yearly average play - or duration per capita. Note: data for this map was collected between October 2020-October 2021.
The final interactive map below looks at each individual behavioral cluster in terms of average daily play. Depending on the cluster outlined above, keep in mind that these averages may be more or less evenly distributed across mobile players in each place.
Conclusions
The landscape of mobile gaming time and engagement is much more diverse than common knowledge would lead us to believe. There is a wide variety of player habits across the globe, beyond a typical assumption of unique dynamics in east Asia compared to every other area. Instead, there are surprising overlaps, categories, and trends.
Mobile playtimes in China and Europe are similar based on mid-range daily play and low comparative yearly play, with most play happening among each region’s top 1% of players. Japan, the United States, and Canada all have similar playtimes among their mobile players. South Korea matches previous studies based on self-reported gaming behaviors, with overall heavy engagement with mobile play.
Each cluster shares some play behaviors and engagement with other clusters. Each player’s playtime between A-Type and E-Type countries, for example, is pretty similar despite differences in daily or annual average playtimes.
Although these dynamics should be further explored and are somewhat limited due to having data only from games that were developed using Unity and have analytics enabled, this is an important step toward better understanding global mobile gaming behaviors and the landscape of the market for mobile games.
To keep up with trends in behaviors, refer to other projects currently underway!
