Daily Active Gamers: Diversity Is The Name Of The Game

The Daily Active User (DAU) is a common engagement metric, often used in gauging companies’ performance and value. In gaming, DAUs vary markedly across mobile, PC, console and social. The differences are seen in penetration rates, demographics, engagement and spending trends. As the silo walls between gaming formats gradually break down, the DAU measure will be increasingly used in a cross-format, cross-platform context. To assign value to the DAU accurately in the always-on world, it is important to remain aware of the nuances daily gamers’ carry on each format.

MIDiA Research has published a report Mapping Daily Active Users Across Platforms. It examines demographics, engagement and spending behaviour of daily active gamers and puts into perspective the real meaning and value of a daily active user across console, pc, mobile and social.

Here is an excerpt from the report:

The Daily Active User Has Different Meanings Across Formats

Distribution By Gaming Engagement And Spend, Daily Mobile, Console And PC Gamers

Assigning value to the DAU segment requires accounting for each format’s individual attributes:

Half of DAU gamers show low spend and engagement: The DAU metric is traditionally viewed as a key indicator of engaged, commercially active users. However, not all DAUs fit this super-fan profile. X% of mobile DAU gamers spend less than six hours per week on gaming across all platforms, and less than $6 per month, again across all platforms. This compares to X% of console DAU gamers and X% of PC DAU gamers.Console DAU gamers are super-fans: X% of console DAU gamers spend more than $5.99 per month on games, compared to X% of mobile DAU gamers and X% of PC DAU gamers. The key reasons are console games’ higher price points and the typically low payment conversion rate of mobile games (companies like King operate on converting around X% of their user bases to paid). Despite the lower spend on mobile, time engagement is more similar to consoles. X% of mobile DAU gamers spend more than 6 hours per week gaming, compared to X% of console DAU gamers. All in all, the average console DAU gamer reflects more of a super-fan profile than the average mobile DAU gamer. X% of console DAU gamers are in the high time/high spend Gamer Aficionado segment, compared to X% of mobile DAU gamers.

Other findings include, but are not limited to:

X% of consumers play mobile games daily, which represents X% of monthly active mobile gamers.X% of consumers play PC games daily, which represents X% of monthly active PC gamersX% of consumers play console games daily, which represents X% of monthly active console gamersX% of social DAU gamers and X% of mobile DAU gamers are female, compared to X% of PC DAU gamers and X% of DAU console gamers

Report Details

Title: Mapping Daily Active Gamers Across Platforms: Diversity Is The Name Of The Game

Words: 2027

Graphics: 3

Dataset: MIDiA Research Consumer Survey April 2017, US, UK, Germany, Sweden, Japan, Brazil (n=3500)

Report Assets: PDF, Excel Dataset, PPT slides

The full report is now available to MIDiA Research subscribing clients. Please contact Stephen MacLellan to learn more about becoming a MIDiA Research Subscriber.