Every Wednesday we break down the latest data, research and financial results into digestible chunks.
Read on for the numbers you need to know about without the fluff.
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H1 2025’s top earning publishers
Appmagic has published a list of the top 10 publishers of H1 2025 measured by IAP revenue.
Tencent leads the rankings with revenue of $3.2bn, which is over three times that of its nearest competitor. Its top titles, Honor of Kings and PUBG Mobile, accounted for 42% of its total revenue.
The next two entries on the list were newcomers to the top 10 and the biggest year-over-year growers. Whiteout Survival and Kingshot publisher Century Games brought in $996m in revenue (+112% YoY).
And Funfly earned $888m (+90% YoY), with Last War: Survival accounting for 98% of its H1 2025 revenue.
Fourth-placed Dream Games is estimated to have brought in $877m (+28% YoY), with growth driven by Royal Match, while Monopoly Go publisher Scopely rounded off the top five with $841m in revenue.
Fortnite’s new mobile-first gameplay mode is a big hit
Fortnite’s new Blitz Royale mode is sticking around for longer than initially planned after attracting an all-time peak of 443k players, GameRefinery reports.
While it’s available on all platforms and supports cross-play, the 32-player mode has a “rogue-like design crafted for mobile play” and victory on its small map can be achieved in under five minutes.
It was initially due to be available as a limited time mode for four weeks, but it has proved popular across all platforms, at times attracting more players than Fortnite’s flagship battle royale mode.
Epic recently confirmed that Blitz Royale’s availability has been extended by another month until August 12, and has even acknowledged calls to make it a permanent addition to the game.
Lands of Jail and Vita Mahjong top June’s ad charts
Prison management simulation game Lands of Jail was the most advertised iOS title for a third consecutive month in June, according to marketing data firm SocialPeta. It came in ahead of Hero Brushstroke: The Secret Mage, an idle RPG which recently launched in east Asia, and Block Blast, which moved up seven places from May’s chart.
Vita Mahjong was the most advertised title on Android for the second month in a row. Paint By Number: Coloring Game and Jigsawscapes were also non-movers, holding the number two and three positions they occupied on May’s chart respectively.
Mobile drives $6.2bn in gaming M&A activity in Q2
Mega-deals in the mobile space meant gaming M&A activity hit $6.2bn in Q2 2025.
Deal-making was led by Scopely’s $3.5bn acquisition of Niantic’s games business, according to the second quarterly report from investment firm Aream and market intelligence platform InvestGame.
The second largest deal saw Tripledot pay $800m for 10 AppLovin studios, while Krafton became the largest shareholder in mobile-focused developer Neptune following a $115m investment.
Elsewhere, the report estimates that public offerings generated $4.2bn in Q2, while private investments fell to a five-year low of $400m.
Midcore games hit $19bn in H1 2025
Midcore games generated approximately $19bn in IAP revenue and saw 7bn downloads in the first half of 2025, Appmagic reports.
According to its data, the top 10 midcore subgenres accounted for $13.18bn in IAP revenue in H1.
4X strategy led the way with $4.1bn, representing 22% of total midcore IAP revenue.
The subgenre’s IAP revenue was up 29% year-over-year, driven by Whiteout Survival and Last War: Survival, which contributed 41% of 4X strategy revenue during the six-month period.
The next biggest subgenre’s were team battler ($2bn, down 12% YoY) and MMORPG ($1.5bn, down 19% YoY).
Driven by Pokémon TGC Pocket, the card battler subgenre saw explosive growth of 225% YoY to reach $756m in the first half of 2025.
Million Victories raises nearly $40m
Mobile game studio Million Victories has raised almost $40m in a funding round made up of primary and secondary investments by US private equity firm Haveli.
The Lyon, France-based company was founded in 2017 and released its debut game, Million Lords, on iOS and Android in September 2019.
The real-time strategy MMO has been downloaded 4m times and attracts 100k monthly players, according to Million Victories, which plans to use the funding to grow its operations on a global scale and double its 35-strong workforce by 2027.
Circle Games closes $7.25m seed round
Istanbul, Türkiye-based mobile game studio Circle Games has closed a $7.25m seed funding round led by Bitkraft Ventures, with participation from a16z Speedrun, Play Ventures, APY Ventures, and e2vc.
Circle plans to use the funding to grow its 12-person team and ramp up content and live ops for its debut title Sort Express, which is currently in soft launch.
The studio was founded last October by former Gram Games product manager Gokturk Balıkcı, ex-Dream Games software engineer Arda Özarslan, and Mustafa Ozdemir and Mehmet Ay, who were previously product manager and growth manager respectively at Good Job Games.
Green Game Jam reaches 108m users
2024’s Green Game Jam reached over 108m users, according to Playing for the Planet’s annual impact report.
45 games participated in the jam (+73% from 2023), which saw developers add environmentally-themed content to their titles designed to inspire real world climate action related to food, waste, and restoration.
They included Subway Surfers, Pokémon Go, Merge Mansion, Love & Pies, and PUBG Mobile. Tencent’s Play for Green activation saw PUBG Mobile’s Erangel map transformed by the effects of global warming, was reportedly played over 1.4bn times.
