🚀 MarketWire | Monster Hunter Now Explodes Worldwide but Especially in JP, India To Hit Hypergrowth!

Hello GameMakers,

Niantic has primarily been a one-trick pony with the success of Pokemon GO, albeit a massive success.

• Every other attempt at recreating location-based magic like Pokemon GO has not worked.

• Has Niantic finally found another “nail” as it tries to hammer the world with location-based themes?

• The latest shot on goal is Monster Hunter Now, a joint “cooperation” between Niantic and Capcom.

Quick overview and more data on Monster Hunter Now below!

A new report by Niko Partners suggests that the Indian game market is booming!

• Amongst other estimates, Niko suggests a 5-year CAGR of 17.2% and growth to over 640M (from 444.4M in 2023) total gamers by 2027. Crazy growth!

Check below for more info.

Top 10 Charts

• Monster Hunter Now from Niantic gets to #1 Worldwide Downloads with some UA push, but not at Monopoly GO types of UA push levels.

• Royal Match proves young new companies can compete globally for revenue with incumbent giants.

• Monopoly GO continues to dominate in US for downloads and revenue.

• Top Revenue for US from #2 through #10 are pretty old games. Still amazed to see Evony in Top 10.

• Some people believe US markets will follow Chinese in tastes over time. If so, which games from China Top Charts do you think have the greatest chance to make it in the West?

Top 10 Mobile Publishers

• OMG, what happened to Mihoyo?

Top 5 Mobile Trending

• Cats and Indian board games = downloads.

• The top 2 are both Azur Lane.

• #3 is Battle Girls Band Party (Japanese)

• #4 is Dragonball Z Dokkan Battle

Top 10 Steam Game Sellers

🔦 Spotlight | Monster Hunter Now! Shows Strong Initial Downloads, Can It Sustain?

Last week, Niantic’s Monster Hunter Now, developed with Capcom, became the #1 downloaded game worldwide.

The game achieved #1 despite not pushing nearly as hard as other games at the top, like Monopoly GO.

The game was developed in cooperation between Niantic and Capcom:

At least initial installs and reviews have been positive, but can it sustain success?

Let’s check the data!

While downloads have trailed down and seemingly leveling off over the past 3 days, the current levels are still significantly higher than Pokemon GO downloads:

Monster Hunter Now vs. Pokemon GO (downloads):

On the revenue side, while revenue from Monster Hunter Now seems to be catching up to Pokemon GO, we are seeing a big gap between monetization in Japan vs. the West. Pokemon GO generates most of its revenue from the US by a factor of 3X US to Japan. Monster Hunter Now, is generating over 7X its revenue from Japan vs. the US. This suggests that long-term success may come from Japan more than the US, unlike Pokemon GO.

🇮🇳 Niko Partners suggests a huge boom in Indian Gaming Market

Daniel Ahmad, the Director of Research at Niko Partners, recently posted a summary from a new report indicating their forecasts for growth for the Indian gaming market.

As someone actively living in India (50% of my time) and closely following India, I have to strongly agree that the growth and monetization potential of the local Indian gaming market is mainly under-represented.

One of my company’s investors feels VERY strongly about the potential for India, as I have already posted about before:

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