Team players: the synergy of mobile gaming and eSports Its popularity in the region can be partially attributed to its good performance across all types of smartphones, including low-specification models. Their flagship app, Vietnamese-developed Garena Free Fire, is a free-to-play battle royale game supported through in-app purchases. Singapore-based Garena is the leading local publisher of mobile games in Southeast Asia. However, as data privacy is becoming increasingly relevant to consumers across all software systems, publishers will have to find ways to incentivize more users to opt-in to data capture. Given that Southeast Asia has a significantly higher penetration of Android users, this is not as big a problem for advertisers as in other regions. The App Tracking Transparency (ATT) framework implemented by Apple in April 2021 has hampered this practice on iOS systems, as users are now presented with the option of opting out of in-app data capture.

In-game advertising relies heavily on collected user data for targeted programmatic ads. Many games initially attract a huge number of players by being free-to-download and later generate revenue through in-game purchases or advertisements.

From a developer perspective, mobile games are attractive for their different monetization opportunities. As many consumers in the region already own a smartphone, games using mobile apps are more accessible than those requiring a console or a PC. Mobile is the most widely accessible systemĬontinuous investments in internet penetration and increased smartphone ownership are among the main catalysts for Southeast Asia's booming mobile gaming industry.

Esports vs online gaming