Indonesia’s mobile gaming landscape

*This article was originally published at Warc.

The COVID-19 pandemic has increased demand for entertainment via mobile devices and with most mobile gamers being Gen Y and Gen Z, brands can connect to this audience not only through the game itself but also within the mobile gaming ecosystem.

The pandemic has impacted key consumer behaviours across the world without exception. It has impacted what consumers will buy, where the transaction will happen, why they make a purchase and how much they are willing to spend.

A report issued by Nielsen in September 2020 showed how consumers are re-calibrating what to put into their grocery basket, re-prioritising their needs, switching focus to in-home spending and becoming more risk-averse to products and services. But this behavioural shift can be an opportunity for marketers.

Most interesting is that at-home behaviours are more pronounced in Asia compared to globally. For instance, working from home increased 52% in Asia or 12% higher than the global figure, while online shopping reached 35% in Asia or 9% versus global. On top of that, online entertainment consumption rose 33%, or 8% higher than globally.

Looking specifically at Indonesia, a report by California-based analytic company AppsFlyer, released on Sept 17, 2020, noted that average online purchasing rose by 5.7% in April 2020, with Android users causing an upward spike in the rate of retargeting conversions – meaning the number of times a user actually views or buys a product – of 2.3x from January 2019 to June 2020.

Another 50% retargeting conversion rate occurred in the January-February 2020 period. The retargeting conversion peaked in the May-June 2020 period, surpassing the previous 2019 fourth quarter rate of 36%.

For a better understanding, we must also look at the overall digital landscape in Indonesia. With its population of 274.9 million people, the country has 126% mobile subscription with a 74% penetration on internet users and 62% penetration on social media with 99% using their mobile devices.

As the preferred channel for Indonesian consumers to access online entertainment, whatever the consumer behaviour shift, mobile devices play an important role for market engagement.

This means that businesses must adapt to the digitalisation era and place their products on Indonesia’s various digital platforms, especially mobile, or they will miss out on the country’s large population and its increasingly growing upper middle-income demographic.

So what are the activities taking place in the virtual world and who are the biggest digital consumers?

From the point of view of digital advertising only, we identified the audience as 13-65+, with 90.3% from 13-44 but showing dominant influence by Gen Y and Gen Z (18-34) as the Bullseye.

To be specific, 30.7% are 18-24 while 34.1% are 25-34.

In May 2020, dentsu X Indonesia conducted a study to find out the digital consumer behaviour of the 15-44 group with some interesting results.

• 94% accessed the internet on a daily basis
• 97% use a smartphone as their main gadget
• 93% of the gadgets run on the Android platform

Furthermore, their top three free-time activities are playing online games (71%), accessing social media (64%) and chatting (36%).

The research assured us that mobile gaming has the potential to cater to and engage with the digital advertisement target audience, which is mainly Gen Y and Gen Z.

We must also point out that the increasing demand for mobile games continues with the support of the fast-growing penetration rate of mobile internet devices in Indonesia. More affordable mobile devices – under IDR 1 million (around US$65) – for lower and middle-income consumers are also boosting mobile gaming.

In Indonesia’s mobile gaming landscape, the type of games preferred are Multiplayer Online Battle Arena (MOBA) and FPS (First Person Shooter), with titles like Mobile Legend and Free Fire as the most preferred ones (61%). The Sports genre is ranked second (25%) and strategy is third (18%).

There are 14 genres for mobile gaming, with Augmented Reality at the bottom (8%) for game titles such as Pokemon Go.

But our hypothesis, which requires further research, is that the preference of gaming genre and title are in line with the game publishers’ campaign efforts. MOBA and FPS genre are fully occupied with esports game titles (which is different in each market) that are very much supported by a 360-degree marketing campaign including off-air engagement in the form of competition. As with conventional sports competitions, this strengthens the consumer’s engagement to gaming.

A report by datareportal.com on overall mobile gaming title performance, published in February 2021, shows similarities to our findings. It put Mobile Legend Bang Bang (MOBA) at number one with the most monthly active users, Warm Zone (Casual Fun Game) second and PUBG Mobile (FPS) third.

The top three most downloaded games are: Worms Zone, Mobile Legend, and Brain Out (another Casual Fun Game).

The key takeaway is that mobile gaming preferences are very dynamic and result in different trends within only a few months, especially for the Casual Fun Game genre.

However, esports related titles still have their own growth and loyalty with the high acquisition of new users every year, as well as their high monthly active users (Mobile Legend, Free Fire and PUBG).

We can conclude that the COVID-19 pandemic has increased digital activities because of shifting home-based behaviours, which also includes rising demand for entertainment. Access for entertainment via mobile devices is the most preferred activity, with most mobile gamers being Gen Y and Gen Z. Within mobile gaming, esports is interesting as it offers a wider ecosystem than casual gaming.

The increase in e-commerce due to work from home can also be considered for direct engagement with consumers. With COVID-19 still prevalent in Indonesia, we are sure consumer behaviour will continue as it is, and marketers should adapt to the situation in order not to miss out any opportunities.

Each way will have its own pros and cons depending on the campaign objective. Further to that, as esports is also an essential part of mobile gaming, rights utilisation is not limited only to the gaming assets but can come from the surrounding ecosystem. For example, the pro teams, players and sportscasters for esports competition can act as Key Opinion Leaders.

Bank Mandiri, one of the biggest state-owned banks in Indonesia, had a campaign for opening a new savings account in collaboration with the Mobile Legend Professional League in 2021.

The brand managed to gain acquisition of new saving accounts through the engagement with esports fans, using the competition rights and combining them with in-game items as rewards for their new consumers. A customer only needs to watch the competition and click on the advertisement to be re-directed to the microsite to open the new savings account remotely and be rewarded with in-game items.

Warunk Upnormal, an instant noodle restaurant well known among Gen Y and Gen Z, collaborated with one of the biggest esports teams in Indonesia, RRQ, for a short campaign. They utilised the team’s mascot for a special menu and adapted the nuances of the team inside their restaurant, resulting in 8.73 million impressions with a 3.57 million reach towards their campaign during a three-month period, exceeding online sales expectations during the pandemic.

UltraMilk, a local RTD milk, collaborated on a mobile gaming coaching clinic featuring Kenbo, a famous gamer, that resulted in one million impressions with 24,000 engagements for one session with the brand.

We believe that campaigns designed by marketers should also resonate with the inner motivations of consumers through the experience. This strengthen the belief that experiential design is an essential part of a campaign. Otherwise, in the context of the market’s digital acceleration due to COVID-19, our awareness campaign would only be another visual to be skipped amid the clutter.

Connecting to the mobile gaming audience is not necessarily embedded inside the game only but also to the surrounding ecosystem as part of the story-telling journey to engage with mobile gamers.

Author:
Rommy Yosef Pantouw
Associate Content Director, dentsu X Indonesia