(Yicai) Aug. 2 -- It is becoming increasingly expensive for Chinese game publishers to distribute their games in foreign countries, due to factors such as privacy clauses and global economic uncertainties, industry insiders told Yicai.

The per capita Cost Per Install of Chinese game developers in the three main markets of the US, Japan and South Korea topped USD7 this year, according to a report released by marketing and monetization growth agency Liftoff Mobile last week. The CPI, which refers to the advertising fee that game developers need to pay to acquire a new user, in South Korea was USD8.02, followed by the US at USD7.68 and Japan at USD7.27.

“In recent years, I have witnessed many industry changes, including the adoption of privacy policies, Apple's App Tracking Transparency framework for controlling ad tracking, and the impact of economic uncertainties, which have led to a decline in overall consumer spending and a sustained increase in game publishers’ distribution costs,” said Simon Bobby Dussart, chief executive officer of mobile marketing analytics platform Adjust.

Factors such as privacy clauses have had a big impact on targeted customer acquisition in the past year, Man Xinru, head of the Asia Pacific region at Liftoff, told Yicai. A balance needs to be struck between protecting user privacy and precisely pursuing targeted users. Judging from the current trend, the CPI will increase year by year, she added.

Choosing a more cost-effective market is one option, Man said. The CPI in countries such as Brazil, the Philippines and Malaysia is under USD1, she added.

Although the growth of game downloads has slowed down, the competition among developers to acquire new users has become increasingly fierce, Man said. In-game purchases, though, have increased quarter-on-quarter for the past year and a half. This means that once users who want to play games sign up, they are likely to make purchases.

In the first half, China's self-developed games raked in overseas sales income of USD8.6 billion, an increase of 4.2 percent year on year, according to data released by the China Audio-video and Digital Publishing Association's China's Game Industry Group Committee last week.

Editors: Shi Yi, Kim Taylor