Popularity of Mobile Game Art Styles and Genres – Breakdown
The specialized form of computer art is Video Game Art employs Video games as the artistic medium. Video game art sometimes involves patched or changed video games, as well as the repurposing of existing games or game systems, but it also employs a wider range of creative approaches and outputs than aesthetic modification.
Painting, sculpture, appropriation, in-game intervention and performance, sampling, and so on are all possibilities. It may also entail the production of art games from the ground up or the modification of current games.
Cory Arcangel’s “Super Mario Clouds” and “I Shot Andy Warhol,” as well as Joseph Delappe’s “Dead in Iraq,” are notable instances of video game art.
There are three layers of taxonomy in which all games fall which includes Category, Genre, and Subgenre. Summoners War, for example, would fall under the category of Mid-core – RPG – Turn-based RPG.
You should thoroughly investigate the genre you intend to enter to increase your chances of success. This necessitates a comprehensive analysis of your existing competitors’ performance and feature set.
Unfortunately, getting a complete perspective of the competition, or simply defining what genre your game represents, can be difficult. Now we can categorize all games into unique genres using this three-layered method, which serves as a very useful taxonomy for market and game research.
- Game Category
- Game Genre
- Game Subgenres
Based on its features and defining game mechanics, each game is assigned to a Subgenre. A game with a match-3 core and character development Meta elements, for example, would fall under the “Puzzle RPG” Subgenre. After then, the subgenre is allocated to a Genre, which is subsequently assigned to a higher-level category.
As a consequence, each game is assigned to a single Category, Genre, and Subgenre. This “singularity” is a necessary condition for using genres as a strong foundation for market research. When a game belongs to many genres (as in the App Store), determining and comparing genre feasibility (revenues, downloads, etc.) becomes extremely difficult.
1. Game Category:
There are four primary categories, Casino and Sports & Driving games have their distinctive groups, separate from Mid-Core and Casual games.
The rationale for this division is that, in comparison to other games, casino, driving, and sports games have different target markets and key characteristics. Hunting sports games, for example, may share game mechanics with sniper games, but the player base is vastly different.
2. Game Genre:
Things grow even more fascinating at the genre level when certain game archetypes gain their groups and more real distinction emerges. This second level is frequently thorough enough for many firms to do a wider study into their competitive area.
Games of the “Shooting” genre, for example, share many fundamental game mechanics and compete for relatively similar demographic groups. We can cover the current mobile gaming archetypes and obtain a better grasp of whether genres are gaining or losing momentum in each particular market using these 13 Genres.
3. Game Subgenres:
However, you’ll need to add a third layer to the mix to dig down to your nearest competitors and investigate your game’s market prospects. The Subgenre level provides a genuinely full picture of today’s mobile gaming landscape in all of its diversity, allowing for precise apples-to-apples (rather than, say, pears) comparisons.
When Battle Royale games exploded on the AppStore, we established a new Subgenre to allow our clients to investigate Battle Royale games as a distinct game type and market.
Game Art Genres:
The world and era/age in which the game takes place are described through game art genres. Realistic – Historic, for example, would be the creative genre of a game featuring knights, castles, and catapults set in a realistic setting comparable to ours. The genre would be Fantasy if there were also wizards, trolls, and dragons.
In any of the main markets, science fiction isn’t a particularly popular art form. Realistic — In comparison to Asian markets, modern is significantly more popular in the United States. Angry Bird is an example of a game that does not fit into any other creative form.
The genre was more popular in the United States than in Asia, but it has grown in popularity in China and Japan in the last two years. Historic themes appear to be more prevalent in Asia (Three Kingdoms and Japanese Edo-era games are the most common).
For example, hybrid themes (for example, combining Fantasy and Science Fiction) are more popular in Asian markets, particularly Japan.
Distinguishing different types of game art Genres based on Categories:
In the United States, the number of Mid-Core games in the top 200 has fallen in the last two years, indicating that Casual is now significantly larger than Mid-Core (in terms of the number of games in the top 200).
Japan and China, on the other hand, are dominated by Mid-core games. Fantasy is included in over 30% of Mid-core games in the United States and Japan, while it is considerably greater in China, at over 60%. Almost every Realistic – Historic game is a Mid-Core game.
Hybrid games (games that combine multiple genres, such as Fantasy and Science Fiction) are the most popular in Japan, accounting for around a fifth of all Mid-core titles.
Almost all markets are controlled by Realistic – Modern in Sports & Racing games. Only a few games outside of this art type are available in all three marketplaces.
Between 2019 and 2021, the number of casino games in the top 200 grossing list in the United States rose dramatically.
There has been a modest growth in the popularity of casino games in China in Asia, although the genre is not as popular in Japan. The majority of Casino games are from the Realistic – Modern art category.
Game Art Styles:
In the US and China markets, not much has changed in terms of game art style popularity from 2019 and 2021. Because Manga hasn’t been able to gain traction in the United States, the industry is virtually evenly split between realistic and cartoon game art types.
In this sense, the Chinese market is more balanced, with Realistic taking the lead, followed by Manga and Cartoon. The most major development between 2019 and 2021 occurred in the Japanese market, as the Cartoon art style has surpassed Manga in terms of market share.
Despite this, Manga is the preferred art style in 54 percent of the top 200 games. Realistic and “western” Cartoon styles are about evenly split in the remaining 46%.
Manga reigns supreme in Japan and has a sizable following in China, but it only has a modest following in the United States.
In comparison to other markets, the cartoon style is by far the most popular in the United States. In Japan, realism is not as popular as it is in the United States and China.
Distinguishing different types of game art Styles in Categories:
In Asia, realistic art is practically never used in casual games, whereas it has a 27 percent share in the United States. Only 50% of Sports & Racing games in Japan are realistic, compared to far higher percentages in the United States and China. Almost all Manga-styled games in the United States are Mid-Core games.
Art Genre and Art Style:
Since 2019, the number of games in the US top 200 grossing list that employ the Realistic – Modern art genre has risen by around 20%. In comparison, the number of games that employ Fantasy art has dropped by almost a third in the last two years.
Furthermore, the Realistic art style used to be the most popular in the Fantasy art category, but Cartoon has recently surpassed it as the most popular. The artistic styles of Realistic – Modern and Fantasy were about equal in popularity among Japan’s top 200 grossing in 2019, but Realistic – Modern is obviously the most popular today in 2021.
However, in terms of the number of games in the top 200 grossing, both art styles have shrunk, whereas the Realistic – History art genre, for example, has increased significantly since 2019.
Manga is the most popular style in hybrid games across all platforms (even in the US). In 2019, there were relatively few Realistic – Historical or Science Fiction games with Cartoon graphics in any market.
However, we may expect a little increase in the use of Cartoon art in these creative genres in 2021. Cartoon-styled games are more or less solely found in the other art genre.
Game mechanics’ and feature-based genre taxonomy’s greatest strength is their ability to map the market in a meaningful way.
You’ll be far more aware of which genres are trending or declining if you can correctly categorize games. Even more significant, you can determine which games are the kings or queens of particular genres, as well as how large a market share they represent.