Gaming Industry Trend: ACGN-category Games Emerge and Flourish 2023

   Looking ahead, a list of open-world and strategy category games have merged. ACGN-category games gain popularity based on the overall market performance along with players' expectations. 

Throughout the global gaming market, ACGN-category games have enjoyed sound performance to a large extent. In the European and American markets, games like Genshin Impact, Tower of Fantasy, and Goddess of Victory: Nikke are the epitome of the performance, enabling to set off a new round of ACGN-category games trend across the world. Compared with the sluggish gaming industry, the category almost becomes the hope of the sector.

Outstanding Performance at Home & Abroad

In April, Aether Gazer rolled out with the help of Azur Lane's joint developer. As the first product released in the domestic market in 2022, the game debuted on the top of the iOS free list and App Store Today's Recommendation. What's more, it also rushed all the way to the 10th on the iOS best-seller list. 

In contrast, Path to Nowhere boasts better performance. As per the official data, the game topped the App Store's overall and free charts in August and successfully took 8th place on the iOS best-seller list on its maiden launch. It's estimated that the cumulative revenue in China has exceeded 200 million RMB after the game has been online for rightly one month.

Less than three months later, Path to Nowhere quickly rolled out a new version abroad. The global pre-registration volume of the game exceeded 2 million within one month. Following its official launch, the game won first place in the free charts of various countries and finally reached 7th place in the iOS best-seller list in Korea.

In addition to the games mentioned above, there are various products developed by domestic firms that deliver tangible results abroad. For instance, Tower of Fantasy tops the free-download list in the United States, Japan, South Korea, Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan, China. According to the data from Sensor Tower, the estimated revenue of the game in August is nearly 300 million RMB. As such, Tencent Games' mobile revenue in August grew 2% YoY; Perfect World's mobile revenue grew 34%. Since its inception, the game also has been available in redfinger cloud phone. Players can enjoy Tower of Fantasy with redfinger with ease. 

In November, Goddess of Victory: Nikke, published by Level Infinite, ranked at No. 5 on the global App Store and Google Play in terms of mobile game downloads and topped the Korean best-seller list in App Store. Data from Sensor Tower shows that Goddess of Victory: Nikke's revenue exceeded $100 million within a month.

Dominated by Tower of Fantasy and Goddess of Victory: Nikke published by Level Infinite, ACGN-category games exert a great impact on the global market. The public once believed that Tencent fail to grasp the understanding of ACGN-category games in the past. On the contrary, it has transformed into a global publisher of ACGN-category games and achieved sound results nowadays. 

Technology Graphic Quality Matter

With ACGN-category games in the overseas market continuing to be discussed frequently, game developers across the world also launched novel games like Heaven Burns Red and Memento Mori, which can be said that these two ACGN-category games enjoy the extraordinary performance in Japan.  

Launched in Japan in February, Heaven Burns Red topped the local App Store's free downloads chart upon launch, and also managed to be in the top 30 of the best-sellers list the next day. Meanwhile, according to Sensor Tower, the game's March revenue was about $22 million.

Developed by Bank of Innovation, Memento Mori reached the top one position on the Japanese iOS free list and No. 4 on the best-seller list, and also shot up to No. 10 on the iOS best-seller list in Korea. By doing so, Bank of Innovation's stock price up for five consecutive trading days. Memento Mori's cumulative revenue was 1.8 billion yen in just 6 days, and the number of downloads reached 1 million.

In South Korea, apart from the aforementioned Goddess of Victory: Nikke developed by Shift Up Studio, the open-world MMO Gran Saga has recently rolled out a traditional Chinese version with excellent performance. Adopted by UE4 technology, the ensuring quality of the game once topped the Korean iOS best-seller list, with a peak monthly flow of nearly 150 million RMB and cumulative revenue of nearly 1 billion RMB. 

As previously mentioned, MMO games may cost large storage in smartphone. If players want to enjoy more games in their phones, it's required for them to boast higher specifications than usual. Against the backdrop, a virtual android smartphone may be a better choice for users to address these issues. As yet, there are various cloud phone platforms provided in the industry, like Redfinger Cloud Phone, LD Cloud Phone, Eclac Cloud Phone, etc. 

In addition, the ACGN-category game #Me by Clover Games, a Korean startup game company, gained recognition in July. With a PV of over 2 million views on Youtube, this UE-developed product managed to reach more than 1.5 million pre-registrations. Upon its official launch, the game was directly ranked No. 4 on the free list of the U.S. App Store and No. 1 on the free list of apps.

Recently, Metaverse World, a subsidiary of Netmarble F&C, also announced an ACGN-category game Grand Cross: Metaworld, which is based on the Sui blockchain network and developed with Unreal Engine 5.

In Conclusion 

Nowadays, ACGN-category games seem to have changed again: the creation method has changed, and brand-new themes such as urban weirdness have emerged. At the same time, the production process is also changing, for instance, Heaven Burns Red achieves success according to the plot. By adopting sound music and graphic, Memento Mori has obtained beyond expectations. This also means that the technical emphasis on higher dimensional directions such as the open world is not the only solution for ACGN-category games and fresh the public's mind.