SuperData, a Nielsen’s company specializing in game research across all platforms, has launched Arcade Forecaster. The new tool uses metrics like revenue, monthly active users and in-game spending to evaluate the performance of digital titles. It also provides publishers and developers with a broader picture of the current macro-level trends in the digital market.
The Forecaster user interface
For example, it shows how much revenue came from full-game sales versus in-game spending data (revenue from subscriptions and microtransactions). Based on that, it makes projections about monetization trends.
Besides, the Arcade Forecaster specifically looks at the premium console segment. With free-to-play games like Fortnite and Apex Legends growing in popularity, the premium console segment will level off throughout 2019. However, according to the Arcade Forecaster, 2020 will be a game changer for the console market, with Sony preparing to launch the next-generation hardware accompanied by the new titles.
“The pace of game innovation and player preferences has never been faster, and clients will now have a comprehensive understanding of how current trends are likely to affect the future performance of top console, PC and mobile games.”
Sam Barberie, VP of Business Development and Product of SuperData, a Nielsen company
In addition to broad market analysis, the Arcade Forecaster will also allow users to zoom in on individual titles to understand how they affect the industry.
To simulate how markets and individual titles will perform, the Arcade Forecaster takes transaction data collected from publishers, developers and payment service providers. The generated averages take into account historical patterns like user growth-decay curves and average revenue per paying user. It also uses fresh data to update the forecasting models on a monthly basis.
You can learn more about the Arcade Forecaster here. The demo version of the SuperData Arcade, which includes the Forecaster feature, is available for download here.