ELA Games, an innovative games studio, has been shortlisted in the prestigious EGR B2B Awards 2024 in the Skill Game Supplier category, for its one-of-a-kind game, Cash Crab This nomination confirms the team’s desire to create unique games that appeal to players worldwide.

The studio’s flagship game, Cash Crab, is a modern take on a popular arcade game, the claw machine. Cash Crab offers a comprehensive gaming experience from remote claw control with high-quality streaming, a variety of game mechanics, and interactive activities with the community. Cash Crab is more than an arcade game; it is an opportunity to bring players together.

Cash Crab presents a maximum win of 1,000 times the bet per round, up to a maximum of €80,000 in prize money. This high winning potential has attracted a large audience of players. The flexibility of the game, offering machines with different bet multipliers and real money bets, attracts players of different backgrounds and interests.

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Over the past 12 months, Cash Crab has been hosted on 45 brands, including Campobet, Boomerang, and Playzilla. The studio has also added 11 platforms, operators, and game studios to its list of key partners, such as 1×2 Network, First Look Games, and Octoplay, with new partnerships being made every month.

Cash Crab has shown impressive metrics, with Player Acquisition and Retention growth of 144% since Jan 2023. Revenue Generation has increased by 200% over the same period, and the number of Game Rounds Played has increased by 149% since Jan 2023 at an Average Bet Size of 3 EUR. Thanks to social engagement in the game’s community through leaderboards, chat, emoji reactions, and regular event organization, Cash Crab registers an average of 3,428 tournament participants per month.

Mike Cini, Business Owner of ELA Games, commented on the nomination, “Being shortlisted for the EGR B2B Awards 2024 is a significant recognition of our commitment to innovation and the commercial success of our projects. Our principle is to create only innovative, high-quality games, and this nomination demonstrates it.”

EGR Global, the world’s leading group of publishers and membership networks in the online gambling and games industry, will host the EGR B2B Awards 2024 to be held June 13, 2024, at The Roundhouse, London. The ELA Games team would like to congratulate all the nominees and look forward to the evening of the ceremony.

The anticipated fourth edition of the annual Mobile Games Index, powered by adjoe and Statista, is now available.

The latest report offers a clear look into the current state of the mobile gaming sector, analyzing the past 12 months of the first-party data from 95 million app interactions across 27 million users. The MGI 2024 reveals what people choose to play on their mobile devices, filling the gap in industry knowledge and enabling game developers and user acquisition specialists to benchmark their products and ultimately target the right audiences with the right content.

Moving forward, it is up to the industry decision-makers to analyze the findings and promptly adapt to the newly-emerged engagement trends from MGI 2024, effectively engaging desired audiences.

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A Peek at Shifting Engagement Trends to Capitalize on

Based on predictions from Statista, the overarching trend in the market is its robust growth with a forecasted expansion from $166.1 billion in 2024 to $227 billion by 2028.

Remarkably, Card games are expected to grow the most dramatically at 13.8% a year, nearly doubling their global revenue by 2028. Judging from the engagement charts of MGI 2024, the main driver of growth in this category is Solitaire games. The audience is showing a clear preference for Solitaire – these games hold 7 out of 10 positions in the top list of card games worldwide by time spent with titles from MobilityWare, Gimica, Scopely, and Playvalve, among others.

What allows the market to show revenue growth is the positive changes in global daily time spent. After the dip in engagement highlighted by the last year’s Index, adjoe confirms that average daily sessions have rebounded to 21.5 minutes from 17.3 minutes reported last year, marking a 22% increase.

The most engaged demographic of mobile gamers globally is the 40-49 age group, which has experienced a remarkable 33% increase in daily gaming time, now at 23 minutes daily. The strategies targeted at older demographics over the past 12 months can be deemed successful. However, this has led to a loss of focus on engaging Gen-Z, which has shown only modest growth in time spent.

The MGI also reveals that women are outpacing men in daily gaming time across most genres – as reported for the 4th edition in a row. This consistent and high performance makes the female audience a continuously safer bet when it comes to user targeting.

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Another continued trend is the dominance of top publishers such as Supercell, Garena, King, and Playrix, while there’s still space to occupy for smaller publishers. For instance, ForgeGames tops the engagement charts with their game Special Forces Group 2 – capturing over 43 minutes of average daily engagement.

The insights continue in the MGI 2024, going granular to segment and visualize global mobile game engagement data from adjoe by genre, region, and demographic. At the same time, Statista’s extensive market research provides a macro-view of the current and future industry, offering figures for global downloads and revenues with forecasts extending to 2028.

Mobile Games Index 2024 Is Available in Open Access

The MGI 2024 goes deep below the surface of market data and creates a comprehensive snapshot of the mobile gaming industry today. Inside are

For developers and marketers, this report is the green light to benchmark performance against industry leaders and align their products with the rising expectations of mobile gamers. This comprehensive tool is now available for free to inform decision-making and help optimize strategies for short- and long-term actions.

Graeme Savill, Account Management Team Lead at Gaming Corps, argues how despite the UK being a highly-competitive market, there are still plenty of reasons why it can provide meaningful opportunities for new entrants

Generating a gross gambling yield of just over £4bn during the 2022-23 financial year, the UK is undoubtedly one of the most established and successful online casino markets in the world. With 2,343 active operators holding a UK licences, it is evident that the market is vast. For online casino suppliers, even a small slice of that market could prove to be extremely lucrative. That was the thinking behind our decision to launch in the UK this year.

It is, of course, undeniable that cutting through the noise in the UK market is a very challenging task. The sports betting markets that we have seen open up in the US ihave provided the perfect example of how difficult it can be to upset the status quo. But the key thing to remember is that with challenges comes opportunities; we believe that finding a place in the UK is far from impossible.

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We’re not entering the UK entirely as a newbie. The partnerships we have with the likes of Flutter Entertainment, Entain, Kindred and LeoVegas – which we are aiming to bring over from other markets where we are active – will likely bring us speedy access. If we were coming into the UK without those existing relationships, it could be a very different challenge, but having that grounding on which to stand is very important.

Localised content is key

It is critical to remain dynamic and agile in any market that you enter, making sure you adapt to fast-evolving industry trends, regulation and player expectations. There are many legacy brands that continue to dominate the UK market with decades of experience. They have shown how vital it is to build products and player experiences which are localised for the UK market – what works for Swedish players may not work too well for UK players, for example. In fact, UK player interests and habits tend to be quite specific.

As a Brit myself, I may not fit into the typical UK player profile. But it’s fair to say that we’re a fairly unique segment in the global casino player base. We know what we like, and more importantly, what we don’t. The balance of offering proven themes as well as popular mechanics, achievable win caps, frequent features and medium-level volatilities has brought us strong early results and we’re very happy to see players coming back to these games.

The ability to innovate is integral to growth in the UK. As we go live with more and more operators, we will continue to push new verticals like our Smash4Cash™ line of games. We believe this can be a game changer in the long-term, as Gaming Corps looks to reach new and existing players.

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In the UK market, there are also opportunities for casino games suppliers to cross-sell their products to sportsbooks, particularly around some of the standout events this year such as the men’s European Championship in football and the Summer Olympic Games.

Regulation leads to adaptation

Admittedly, this is a unique time to be going into the UK, particularly in light of the impending measures of the White Paper, which we all unequivocally have to be aware of. Adapting to, and complying with, increased regulation is part and parcel of competing successfully in all regulated markets. With regards to the UK, a continued increase of regulation does put pressure on operators and suppliers alike, but we believe that the iGaming industry is resilient enough to manage these pressures effectively.

We operate with the understanding that it’s imperative to always adapt and be prepared for new regulations; this is how we can ensure that we have not only a competitive advantage, but also a sustainable business. That ability to adapt will be key to sustaining growth in the UK, regardless of whatever challenge is thrown to operators and suppliers.