Mobile interactive story games generated $14m last month
Apps like Choices, Episode and What's Your Story have generated $52.5m since November
The ongoing wave of interactive stories for mobile continues be a major money-spinner for the top apps, with well over $10m generated last month alone.
Mobile research firm Apptopia studied the seven most popular titles in this category, including Choices, Episode and What's Your Story?, and found they earned a combined $14 million in February 2018.
Combined with the $12.5 million taken in January, $12 million in December, and $10 million in November, that's $52.2m in the last four months alone. Apptopia did not disclose which titles were the highest earners.
These titles are all built around a similar design: players read through visual novel-stye stories, then choose what they wish their character to do next. In addition to original stories, many have partnerships with IP holders to create adventures based on popular films and TV shows.
The revenues generated are partly from sponsorships for certain storylines and ads shown around them, but also from the sale of virtual currency which unlocks additional story choices for the player.
The study shows that, in the US, the biggest demographic for these titles are teenagers, with almost 45 per cent of players aged between 10 and 15, and a further 35 per cent aged 16 to 21 - combined, that's 80 per cent of these games' audience. It will also be no surprise that they resonate particularly well with female players, who account for 78 per cent of the audience.
Apptopia reports the three most popular are 2013's Episode - Choose Your Story, 2016's Choices: Stories You Play and last year's What's Your Story? Given their longer lifespans, Episode and Choices have the most current active users, although What's Your Story? is growing rapidly.
Since the start of the year, the latter has achieve more than three million downloads worldwide. Episodes and Choices have managed two million and just over 1.5 million respectively.
The other games studied included Lovestruck, Chapters, My Shelf and My Story. Combined, the seven games have been downloaded more than 11m times since January 1st.
Apptopia's Adam Blacker observes: "Interactive story games are now progressing to their eventual peak with new games launching and hitting the top charts every week it seems."
The success of these titles has no doubt turned many heads in the mobile space. Last week, Wooga announced it was refocusing on story-driven casual games, a strategy that sadly led to around 30 layoffs.