MOBAs are a relatively newer gaming genre on mobile. For those who don’t know, MOBA stands for Multiplayer Online Battle Arena. The MOBA has proven to be one of the most challenging yet highly rewarding genres in the mobile games market, producing a string of enormous successes and stinging failures. The genre is so popular that many sites cover it as a sport and teams can compete for actual cash prizes.
The game style is fairly simple. You and other players must invade and take the opposing team’s side. The MOBA market on Android isn’t big yet, but there are a few decent titles to choose from. The big three right now are Arena of Valor, Mobile Legends: Bang Bang, and Vainglory so we recommend those first Honestly, we also think Onmyoji Arena is right up there as well.
It’s rare to see a genre flourish beyond its original platform, but MOBAs were born for mobile. Just as with deck builders, the best iOS and Android MOBAs are about being able to quickly dip into a match for a speedy bout when you have a chance. It’s a great format for gaming – rather than throwing hours at a time into a titanic session, you can hop in and out, becoming invested in a different way.
MOBA games market revenue worldwide 2017-2021
The multiplayer online battle arena (MOBA) games market size worldwide in 2017 and 2021. according to the source's estimates, the MOBA and MMO games accounted for 25 percent of the 100 billion U.S. dollars worth digital games market in 2017. By the end of 2021, the MOBA and MMO games are projected to reach a value of 43 billion U.S. dollars.
The global market for digital games is set to generate more than $94 billion in annual revenue, according to a recent research from market intelligence firm Newzoo.
The numbers were staggering. Fifty-four percent of all translation projects in 2017 exclusively covered the MOBA (multiplayer online battle arena), MMO (massively multiplayer online), and MMORPG (massively multiplayer role-playing game) genres. This is more than double the meager 22 percent in 2016. All other gaming genres had a notable drop this year.
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Mobile MOBA genre generates $300 million per month
The global COVID-19 pandemic and lockdowns, as with the rest of the mobile games market, sparked a surge in player spending in MOBAs globally, with average monthly revenue rising by 43 percent year-over-year in 2020. The sub-genre has continued to grow, with average monthly revenue rising by an additional 14 percent so far in 2021 to more than $300 million per month, driven by Honor of Kings.
Honor of Kings Hits $10 Billion
Following its release in 2015, Honor of Kings, known as Arena of Valor in the West, has become the highest-earning mobile game globally across the App Store and Google Play, surpassing $10 billion in total player spending. The title continues to be hugely successful and has already accumulated more than $2 billion in 2021.
Brawl Stars ranked as the No. 2 mobile MOBA by player spending thanks to its innovations in the genre that increase its appeal to a more casual audience, while also including a variety of game modes. Between January 1 and August 31, 2021, the title generated more than $320 million in player spending.
Pokémon Unite Surpasses 30 Million Downloads in Seven Days
The latest high-profile MOBA to release on mobile is Pokémon Unite from The Pokémon Company, developed in partnership with Tencent's TiMi Studio, the team behind Honor of Kings. Within its first two days, Pokémon Unite surpassed 15 million downloads, making it the genre’s biggest launch ever. By the end of its first week, the title had hit approximately 30 million installs.
It should be noted that League of Legends: Wild Rift has had a staggered rollout, which started in Asia in October 2020, before launching its open beta in the Americas in March 2021.
MOBA's Mobile Market
Increasing adoption and monetization of MOBAs in the West is still an important consideration. This has been a constant struggle for this genre
Genre Spotlight: Mobile MOBA Market Penetration
The Local Players: Here we find a long list of games that provide a similar experience to the category leaders but fall short in terms of market penetration and revenue. In many cases, their user base is located in specific countries.
In MOBA, the games below the Top 5 of the category represent a very small share of the downloads (~19%) and revenue (only ~1%). This presents a very different structure to the Puzzle taxonomy, for example, where games that are not in the Top 5 represent ~90% of the downloads and ~61% of the revenue.
mobile MOBAs are an extremely hard-to-enter market for new games, due to the few and well-positioned competitors, the high standard of game quality and production value, the infrastructure required (low latency gameplay), and the requirements of high DAUs to provide quality matchmaking. It’s unlikely that a new contender has the chance to disrupt the market without an IP able to massively attract the audience. It’s a battle among titans, and the incumbents seem best set to expand their reach to new audiences and geographies.
It’s also a taxonomy where the key differences that explain success are not necessarily related to game design (the bar here is already so high), but rather to market penetration. While there are some design differences between the category leaders, what will decide their performance in the future is their ability to reach (and hook) a wider audience in key territories, particularly in hyper-local markets in Asia. Brawl Stars, for example, pioneered a new format for their Western audience and in doing so, captured decent market share.
Intensive competition of MOBA in the mobile gaming battlefield
If your goals are to take over and grow the MOBA market in the mobile device the first step is to examine who is it you're competing against. The easy way would be to narrow down the competition to just MOBAs on a mobile device. This approach may easily lead you to the conclusion that direct competition is both limited and weak.
Playing a MOBA requires between 10 to 35 minutes of uninterrupted playtime. Because of the nature of the session and the time it requires, most people play MOBAs at home, where the player will have the opportunity to choose between a mobile device or browser version. This is why I suggest including browser MOBAs into the list of competitors as well.
Winning Over Players
Mobile Mid-Core Players
After playing games like Clash of Clans, Kingdoms of Camelot and Game of War for several years I doubt how many repetitions of these games players can endure. Building and battling is fun but we all know that free-to-play tower defense genre is about timers and speedups instead of action and progress.
Because of the longest uninterrupted sessions, MOBAs don't compete directly with card battlers and tower defenders. They won't fight mid-core games for those short sessions that occur throughout the day but they will take over players when they get home to their smart phone. Because the major portion of monetization in mid-core games takes place with longer sessions and the fact that these players are getting bored out of their mind, MOBAs possess that billion dollar market opportunity.
Lapsed Browser MOBA Players
Browser MOBAs require an extensive investment of time from their players. Just getting into the game will take hours and then in order to enjoy it an average user will need at least a hundred of hours of playing and watching gameplay videos. With each match taking anywhere between 30min to an hour it is safe to say that despite enjoying the genre, not everyone can afford to spend tens of hours a week on a game.
mobile device MOBAs aim to target this audience of lapsed or lapsing browser MOBA players by offering them a bit lighter and a bit more action-centred version. These players are extremely valuable as they not only know how to play these games but also understand the importance of community. The hardest part is finding the balance between accessibility and depth. Simplifying too much will take away the much-needed depth of gameplay while not simplifying enough will result in a browser MOBA on a mobile device with inferior controls and the limited amount of content.
New Players
As the mobile device market grows so does a number of players on the platform. New players, who aren't looking for short sessions will be compelled to spend their evenings with an entertaining hero brawler instead of speeding timers.
My personal view is that in order to reach this audience game requires strong word-of-mouth. This is an audience that owns a mobile device for other reasons than playing games but with encouragement from a friend, this may change. And by the encouragement, I do not mean a Facebook invite. The thing what makes mobile device MOBAs great is that there's no effort in taking your smart phone without when you go and see your friend. Few team battles after you're hooked.
Tough Competition, Great Prize
Mobile devices offer an opportunity to grow the MOBA market and engage new player segment that hasn't previously played these games. As the growth of high-end mobile device segment continues we'll be seeing a rush of MOBAs on mobile devices and extremely tough competition for the top position. In addition to the platform-specific competition, mobile device MOBAs will also face competition both from existing and upcoming browser MOBAs as players will seek deeper experience and more content.
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