Eighty-five percent of social casino gamers now play on smartphones, while PC has fallen to its lowest market share at 49 percent. Additionally, 27 percent of gamers exclusively play on a mobile device, and the share of the social casino audience that only plays on PC has dropped from 15 percent in 2016 to 6 percent in 2017.
Those are the findings from “Social Casino Consumer Insights,” an analysis of the category being released today by SuperData Research, the leading provider of marketing intelligence for the playable-media and digital-games industry.
The popularity of slot games has also fueled the growth of smartphone and tablet usage among social casino players: 74 percent of smartphone users and 72 percent of tablet users play slots. Player preferences have shifted away from apps that contain a wide range of casino games to games that are simple and quick to start. As a result, developers are adapting to consumer demand and focusing on single-genre apps like slots or poker.
As developers have shifted their focus to mobile devices, social casino games that have traditionally appealed to older audiences who play on Facebook are becoming less prevalent as this audience begins to move to mobile devices.
According to SuperData, users who previously played on desktop only have become more comfortable playing on other devices, or have left PC social casino games entirely.
Although developers are creating more mobile social casino games, the PC market is still large for casino-style games. Seventy-nine percent of PC gamers prefer casino-style games, compared to 77 percent who prefer slots, according to the report, compared to spring 2016, when 70 percent of PC gamers preferred slots and 67 percent preferred casino-style games.
“There is still a market for core social casino gamers on PCs” said Carter Rogers, Research Manager at SuperData. “Since most casino-style games are large-scale and contain aspects from several genres, game developers are able to harness PC’s extra screen real estate and create visually interesting casino lobbies.”
PC users are the most engaged and most willing to spend on games, playing an average of 69 minutes per session and spending $79.45 a month on games.
Comparatively, mobile players play 57 minutes per session and spend $39.87 per month on games.
Additional findings from the report included:
- The lifetime value (LTV) of those who play slots on smartphone is $324. Smartphones slots LTV grew as both average lifetime and average monthly spending increased by 40% and 59% respectively.
- Casino-style players on PC have the highest lifetime value of all players at $623. PC has the highest average spend for every genre except poker.
- Social casino play is a secondary activity for 93% of users. 78% of players watch TV or stream content while playing games. Developers can capitalize on this overlap by timing in-game events to primetime TV slots, when users are most likely to be watching and playing.
- Tablet slots games have the highest conversion rate (8%) of all social casino game types. Slots games have a high share of spending players since users burn through free in-game currency faster than when playing poker or bingo.
- Nearly three quarters of the social casino audience are women. They make up a large majority of the smartphone and desktop audiences, 73% and 72% respectively.
- 55% of the social casino players visited a real-world casino in the past 12 months. This segment puts a premium on authenticity, with 69% enjoying playing social slots based on real-life machines.
For more information on SuperData Research or to purchase a copy of the study, please visit https://www.superdataresearch.com/market-data/social-casino-survey/.
About SuperData
Founded by veteran games industry researchers, SuperData is the world’s leading provider of market intelligence covering the global markets for free-to-play games, digital console, mobile, PC, streaming media, eSports, and virtual reality. Using digital point-of-sale data received from publishers, developers and payment service providers, SuperData’s analyses are based on the monthly spending of over 78 million paying online gamers worldwide, in combination with qualitative consumer insights. SuperData helps its customers understand what people play, connect to, watch, and spend on.
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