NetEase's upcoming third-person shooter, Once Human, boasts over 15 million global pre-registrations, a significant achievement highlighted by its Steam Next Fest success. However, a closer look reveals a noteworthy contrast between its PC and mobile performance.
While pre-registrations are impressive, only 300,000 translate to Steam wishlists. This highlights NetEase's PC-first approach, a strategic shift for a company traditionally focused on mobile gaming. Despite this, Once Human's Steam Next Fest participation attracted a large player base.
This disparity underscores the challenges of achieving comparable visibility and popularity on PC versus mobile platforms, even for established developers like NetEase. Their PC focus isn't necessarily a misstep, but it does illuminate the significant differences in audience reach and discoverability between the two markets.
NetEase's decision to prioritize a PC audience is understandable, and not inherently negative. Nevertheless, the data reveals a substantial difference in audience engagement, suggesting the considerable difficulty even major developers face in replicating their mobile success on PC.
Meanwhile, while awaiting Once Human's release, explore our curated list of the best mobile games of 2024 (so far) or our list of the year's most anticipated mobile games. These lists feature hand-picked titles offering high-quality mobile gaming experiences.
