Microtransaction purchases in Japan drop for third consecutive year 

According to an analysis by The Nikkei, payments toward mobile game microtransactions in Japan showed a downward trend for the third year in a row, dipping to 80% of what they were in 2019. This tells of possible changes in spending power, Japan’s mobile game market and players attitudes towards microtransaction-oriented mobile games. 

The report by The Nikkei analyzes credit card usage data for the year 2023 and compares the pre- and post-covid performances of 85 industries. Among them, the mobile game market has shown a steady decline, and interestingly, even during the peak of the covid crisis in 2021 and 2022 (during which Japan’s game industry thrived) the mobile game industry was not able to achieve the profits it did back in 2019. 

Individuals from Japan’s game industry have offered personal observations about mobile/gacha game developers facing difficulties and planning transitions to PC and console games. As for the causes of this decline, The Nikkei suggests that with mobile device performances improving, expectations of mobile games have risen too, leading to higher development costs and longer development periods on the provider’s side. This may have led to developers being unable to put out new content at the same tempo as before, thus resulting in less sales.  

On the other hand, the mobile games that are managing to maintain their success are the high production value titles which have a global player base large enough to sustain the high development costs, such as miHoYo’s Genshin Impact.  

Against this backdrop, many gamers wish for full, one-time purchase mobile games such as Resident Evil 4 to become commonplace again, but unfortunately, current app stores’ policies have grown increasingly incompatible with this model.