Zenless Zone Zero Got Off to a Slow Start, But Here’s Why That Might Be About to Change
This is a single insight from This Week in Apps - Summer Games. Check out the full article for more insights.
Ever since Genshin Impact made such a massive impact on the gaming world (and not just on mobile) in the fall of 2020, each new release from developer miHoYo has been eagerly anticipated.
MiHoYo's latest release, Zenless Zone Zero (henceforth ZZZ), has been out for a few weeks now, and it's not doing as well as expected...
Touching down at the start of July, the highly stylized role-playing game spent its first couple of days of availability at or near the top of the global download rankings. Our data shows similar performance to the preceding HoYoverse title, Honkai: Star Rail (HSR), before ZZZ began to underperform compared to both it and Genshin Impact (GI).
It just isn't getting traction. The total downloads for the three games 20 days into their releases underscore the situation.
ZZZ's total downloads worldwide sit at an estimated 5M — that's half of HSR's 10M in the same amount of time and even less than GI's 12M. While day one downloads exceeded 850K, they’re now around 70K per day, less than a tenth.
There are plenty of potential reasons for the lack of initial exuberance translating into sustained uptake of the game.
For one, reviews, both from app stores and top gaming publications, place ZZZ behind its predecessors in terms of overall fun. The overriding criticism from gamers and professional reviewers alike centers on the lack of depth of gameplay versus the number of story sequences, minigames, and other content.
It's also possible, as we'll see when we talk about revenue, that the game appeals less to the mainstream contingent of gamers — something GI was great at early on — and more to a core gamer audience.
The great news for miHoYo is that, as a live service game, adjustments are possible — there's no doubt every bit of player feedback is being weighed and considered as ZZZ's long-term roadmap comes together.
Our App Intelligence shows the first inklings of what to expect as a handful of new in-game events kicked off on July 24. While ZZZ brought in more consumer spending on day one than its two precursors at $6.4M, nearly 6X the $1.1M grossed by GI on its first day (HSR was closer at $4.9M), the amount spent by players declined approximately 78% by day 19 of release to an estimated $1.4M.
Then the events kicked off, and revenue soared!
Our estimates reveal that spending skyrocketed by about 4x, reaching $5.7M on day 20 — and rank data shows it remaining elevated. The game's core players who've stuck with it, unlike the mainstream crowd that also showed up at launch, are clearly hungry for more content and ways to enjoy the game.
While refining the core gameplay of ZZZ will take time, it's clear that the live content miHoYo has planned is striking a positive chord. Hopefully, it continues to be music to players' ears.
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All figures included in this report are estimated. Unless specified otherwise, estimated revenue is always net, meaning it's the amount the developer earned after Apple and Google took their fee.
