Hi, I'm James. This post is part of foundation works for my Free Fire coverage. This post was first published on July 2, 2020. Hope you find the Free Fire Series & Others interesting. I can be reached via [email protected] :)
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💡 I analyze Free Fire not from a product perspective but from a platform business perspective. The key differences between two perspectives are the length of lifespan, the shape of lifecycle in terms of revenue, and the optionality while both might have some similar business model attributes such as live game (on-going operation, Game-as-a-Service) and monetization methods applied. I don't have the luxury to get access to premium analytics so I start with some free information available online.
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Guess from Historical Data - All from Senor Tower
2019 Top Games
- Garena Free Fire was No.2 game in 2019 by downloads
- The smaller share of App Store in Garena Free Fire compared to those of PUBG Mobile and Call of Duty indicates the market segment difference (customer segment, device, spec, demographic)
- Device spec requirement for the game needs to fit the market. And the monetization methods need to fit as well.
Source: Q4 2019 Store Intelligence Data Digest
2019 Q4 Data
- Performed well in 2019 Q4 by downloads
- Very low App Store share in worldwide download
- Not in the worldwide App Store chart but ranked No. 3 in Google Play
- Not even in the US Google Play which indicates major markets are outside of the U.S.
Source: Q4 2019 Store Intelligence Data Digest
Source: Q4 2019 Store Intelligence Data Digest
Source: Q4 2019 Store Intelligence Data Digest
Source: Q4 2019 Store Intelligence Data Digest
The State of Mobile Battle Royale as of Q2 2019
- Garena Free Fire was the only Battle Royale app which quarterly downloads trended upward from Q1 2018 and Q2 2019. This might indicate that 1) Garena Free Fire had not reached the inflection point of S-curve yet and/or 2) Garena's TAM was expanding by entering into new market or further penetrating existing markets.