Super Mario Run just sprinted into the app store and despite lackluster reviews, it accounted for 30 percent of all mobile game spending on iOS devices during the first three days after launch. In-app spending on Mario even surpassed Pokémon GO, the former mobile game king.
Super Mario's premiere had more buyers than Pokémon GO
Super Mario Run's launch day was bigger than Pokémon GO's July 6 premiere with 3.3 times the number of in game spenders heading to the Mushroom Kingdom. While the game's launch day was impressive, the population of spenders declined the next two days. This trend differs from Pokémon GO's trajectory, which took nine days to reach its peak paying population. When Pokémon GO did reach its nadir on July 15, the number of in-game spenders was 74 percent larger than Super Mario Run's launch day.
Super millennial bros
Millennials are helping drive Mario's mobile popularity and account for 43 percent of the spending population. Pokémon GO spenders are similar in age to Mario players. These players are younger than the wider mobile gaming population, however, where we see GenX account for the largest portion of spending.
Nearly everyone paying for Mario is male – maybe it's the mustache. Eighty percent of paying players are men. In contrast, women account for 42 percent of the Pokémon GO paying pool, and 51 percent of all other mobile games.
About this data
With a panel of over 4.4 million online shoppers, Slice Intelligence gives the most detailed, and accurate digital commerce data available, and is reported daily.
Slice Intelligence is the only service to measure digital commerce directly from the consumer, across all retailers, at the item level, and over time. Our retailer-independent methodology precisely measures commerce as it happens. By extracting detailed information from hundreds of millions of aggregated and anonymized e-receipts, Slice can map the entire Purchase Graph, connecting each and every consumer to all their purchases.
Slice gets its data from e-receipts – not a browser, app or software installed by the end-user – so its measurement reflects comprehensive shopping behavior across multiple devices, over time which are key in an increasingly omnichannel retail world. Slice Intelligence is the exclusive e-commerce data provider for the NPD’s Checkout Tracking e-commerce service.