I recently came across this article in Gamasutra about the psychological profile of gamers who play mobile Idle games (Android and iPhone) that are also known as incrementer games. His findings are super interesting and explain the commercial success of some of these games.
What are mobile idle games / Android and iPhone clickers
Idle clicker games are games that allow the user to generate virtual wealth by doing two simple things waiting or clicking (hence the name). Once the player accumulated enough virtual currency the game becomes more about the meta game of buying things that help you accumulate more wealth faster. The meta game part resembles mechanics that are found in RPG games, Strategy games and City Simulation games but the core game is so simple that it almost feels like a parody. This genre is considered one of the hottest genres in mobile games today.
The success of idle games with in-game ads
One of the reasons why we see so many incrementer games recently is that they work really well with the rewarded video format. This is hapenning from two main reasons:
1) Great audience for top grossing games
Like the post about the psychological profile suggests, the gamers audience who like idle clicker games is overlapping mostly with the one of core games and hardcore games. Since both these genres are paying very high CPIs for new users the ad LTV per user is typically very high
2) Rewarded video fits in very naturally
Rewarded video is today the most effective format. The eCPMS are 20 times what you get with banners and the users tend to love them. However, to get many users to opt-in to the videos your game needs to ability to offer many rewards to the user. In incrementer game the meta game revolves around achieving more and so they offer many opportunities for rewarding the users.
Here are the the top idle games – Android stats included
| Icon | Name | Publisher | Ratings in Google Play | Downloads |
|---|---|---|---|---|
 |
Adventure Capitalist | Kongregate | 835,659 | 5M-10M |
 |
Cow Evolution | Tapps Games | 435,933 | 10M-50M |
 |
Make It Rain: Love of Money | Space Inch, LLC | 290,941 | 5M-10M |
 |
Cookie Clickers | redBit Games | 249,816 | 5M-10M |
 |
Billionaire | Alegrium | 175,835 | 1M-5M |
 |
Bitcoin Billionaire | Noodlecake Studios | 183,350 | 1M-5M |
 |
Pocket Mine | Roofdog Games | 117,524 | 1M-5M |
 |
PickCrafter | Fiveamp | 141,468 | 1M-5M |
 |
Tap Tycoon | Game Hive | 116,307 | 1M-5M |
 |
Money Tree | Tapps Games | 106,934 | 1M-5M |
