Do you remember seeing those very impressive previews of Resident Evil and other AAA console games on iPhones and iPads? It turns out that technical demonstration didn’t translate to financial success.
As reported by MobileGamer, AppFigures and AppMagic estimate that the AAA ports of Resident Evil 4, Resident Evil 7, Death Stranding and Assassin’s Creed Mirage all failed to make good sales on iPad and iPhone.
Now, before we continue, we need to point out that companies like AppMagic and AppFigures do not have a way to access the data that Apple collects on these games. They use some publicly available data, but of course, it’s not as much as SteamDB can siphon off of Steam. You can read their explanations on how they estimate their metrics here and here.
AppMagic and AppFigures have arrived at slightly different numbers, but basically, none of the abovementioned titles reached 1 million downloads, and none of them made revenue at $ 500 million or above.
We won’t list all the estimates here, but we’ll focus on one example. Appfigures estimates that Assassin’s Creed Mirage was downloaded 123,000 times, with less than 3,000 players paying the $ 49.99 price tag to buy it after demoing the first level. That adds up to gross revenue of only $ 138,000.
These would be great numbers for a smaller game like the underrated Get in the Car, Loser!, which is available on Steam and itchio. It’s dismal numbers for a big budget game, that no doubt cost a pretty penny to bring to Apple’s mobile platform. Just to drive the point home, Ubisoft’s mobile game Assassin’s Creed Rebellion reached 1.9 million downloads at the same timespan that Assassin’s Creed Mirage reached it’s 123,000 downloads.
Now, both Appfigures and AppMagic agree that these games clearly are not profitable, but share multiple explanations for this. Appmagic head of content Andrei Zubov points out that smaller budget games on iOS have simpler controls, and can be played more quickly. He also says this:
“What’s equally important is that premium indie games on mobile are usually priced at $5-10. This price range aligns better with the average spending habits of mobile gamers. This likely explains why these games find it easier to expand into the mobile gaming market and why AAA releases are underperforming.”
Meanwhile, Appfigures head of insights Randy Nelson argues that maybe iOS gamers genuinely don’t know there are console games on their platform:
“While the hardware in consumers’ hands has made enormous progress towards technological parity with current-gen consoles, it’s uncertain how many actually realize it and consequently even consider they might be able to play the latest Resident Evil or Assassin’s Creed on their phone.”
Nelson further argues that those gamers who do see it, may be turned off by the price, and may also already own game consoles. But it seems that these games primarily exist on iOS so that Apple can show them off as impressive tech demos on their keynotes.
Apple’s efforts to break into the console gaming market, via Apple Arcade or porting AAAs, have clearly not borne fruit, with Mistwalker now bringing Fantasian to consoles. That’s good news to Sony, Microsoft, and Nintendo, and probably also to console gamers in general. Apple didn’t even realize it when they unleashed the free to play mobile revolution on the industry. Who knows what damage they could do if they actually got a foothold in the market.
