2015 was something of a mixed bag for the social casino vertical.
With all the numbers tallied, the overall number of active monthly players was down 13% over the previous year. That’s the bad news.
The good news is that the players they were able to retain, the really hardcore players, are spending more time and money in the social casino space than ever.
These numbers were gathered by SuperData, a New York research firm, and presented in a new report titled, Social casino market—US player insights 2015.
One of the most interesting tidbits from the report revolves around single genre apps and all-in-one casinos. According to the report, mobile players are much more likely to use single genre apps than PC-based players.
The least surprising finding in the report is that slots are still the most popular game in the social casino genre. Slots are particularly suited to horizontal mobile format, and also allow for quick, solitary play.
Speaking of solitary, the study found that the majority of social casino players are acquired through advertising, not word of mouth. But advertising is a double-edged sword in the social casino world.
The report goes on to say that 35% of all social casino players drop out of games because of what they deem to be too much advertising. To do an end run around this problem, free-to-play models that reward opt-in advertising with in-game currency are pretty standard in the social casino world.
Finally, SuperData found that social casino players are a very distracted bunch. At least 63% of them multitask by simultaneously watching TV and playing their games.