Publisher Take-Two is rolling around in stacks of Grand Theft Auto and NBA 2K15 cash, according to its fiscal third-quarter results, but it’s also building up a business for the future with its mobile and free-to-play offerings.
The company reported that WWE SuperCard, a simple strategy game for smartphones and tablets, has surpassed 6 million downloads since its August release. NBA 2K Online, a free-to-play version of the basketball game specifically for China, has almost 24 million registered players. The mobile gaming market is worth around $25 billion, and China has an $18.5 billion game sector that continues to grow year after year.
These two games represent parts of Take-Two’s strategies when it comes to mobile and free-to-play games. While the company didn’t share how much money NBA 2K Online is making, we can figure out how well WWE SuperCard is performing in relation to the rest of the app market.
Today, WWE SuperCard is ranked in the top 100 highest-grossing apps in important and lucrative countries like Canada, United Kingdom, and Sweden, according to App Annie. In the United States, the second highest-spending country on mobile games, SuperCard comes in at No. 159 on the highest-grossing chart.
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In terms of downloads, however, SuperCard is ranked quite low. It is No. 584 in the U.K. in terms of downloads, and that’s its best placement in any country. In order to add more players to the total of 6 million downloads, 2K may need to invest more in user acquisition.
It’s possible that publisher Warner Bros. Interactive’s WWE Immortals, a Mortal Kombat-like fighting game for mobile, is eating into SuperCard’s potential audience. If that’s the case, SuperCard may struggle to regain momentum.