Nielsen: Mobile games live and die on how fast developers can crank out new content

Mobile gamers can be insatiable. And that appetite is the key challenge for developers trying to maintain momentum for a popular app.

Nielsen, the intelligence firm that studies consumer media behavior, has released research that looks into long-term success of mobile games. The company has found that popular games — especially those that it describes as “big bang titles” that erupt onto the market in a flash — struggle to maintain a place at the top of highest-grossing apps chart. Instead, games like the strategy battler Clash Royale, the human-management sim Fallout Shelter, and even the location-based creature-catching adventure Pokémon Go often lose ground to established favorites in the $36.6 billion mobile gaming industry. Nielsen explains that the reason these new hits fall behind perennial attention-grabbers like Game of War or Clash of Clans is that developers are not prepared to keep up with the demand that players have for new content.