There’s a deluge of new data and research to wade through in the mobile games business. Our regular data digest column breaks it all down into digestible chunks.
Read on for the numbers you need to know about minus the fluff.
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Coin Master has made over $6bn
Casual smash hit Coin Master has generated over $6bn in gross revenue, according to Sensor Tower. The data firm estimates that the title has made almost $1.2bn in annual revenue since 2020. Coin Master’s biggest market is the United States, which accounts for 39% of its revenue.
Merge, match, puzzle genres drive 11% growth in Western casual games
Appmagic reports that casual games revenue hit $6.5bn in its top Western markets – including US, the UK, Australia, Canada, France, and Germany – for the first half of 2024.
That’s an 11% increase year-on-year that has been driven by merge, match, puzzle and casino titles. The match 3 genre saw a 23% decline in downloads for the first half of 2024, though Royal Match helped drive a massive 9% rise in revenue for the period. That game alone saw a 69% increase in its revenue. Furthermore, there is only an 8.3% chance of making over $50,000 in revenue per month.
Over in the merge 2 genre, revenue has more than doubled year-on-year for H1 while downloads are up 20%. Much of this growth is down to titles that have been out for quite some time, such as Travel Town, Gossip Harbour and Seaside Escape. Though those games are doing well, the chance of a new title making over $50k per month in revenue is just 1.6%.
Revenue is up 127% for the match 3D genre, while downloads have shot up 66%. This growth has been driven by new titles, such as Match Factory, Joy Match 3D and Match Frenzy Test ASMR. That being said, the odds of success in this genre are just 2.6%.
Things are less rosy over in the idle tycoon genre. These games have seen a 19% drop in revenue, while downloads have fallen 20%. This is partly due to the first half of 2023 being particularly successful thanks to the likes of Frozen City. The odds of success in this genre are just 3.3%.
Revenue in the casual casino genre has shot up 146% thanks to Monopoly Go, while downloads have only risen by 3%. Monopoly Go was behind 63% of revenue generated by the genre, while previous top dog Coin Master had to settle for just 24%.
Finally, the ‘sort puzzle’ category has seen a massive 12-times increase in revenue for the first half of 2024, with downloads up 2.4 times.
Merge Mansion hits $500m in revenue
Developer Metacore has revealed that Merge Mansion has not only surpassed $500m in lifetime revenue, it has also been downloaded over 55m times. The game was originally released in 2020.
Mobile generates 76.4% of NetEase’s games revenue
Chinese giant NetEase has reported that its games business saw a 12% increase in revenue year-on-year. The sector was responsible for 96.1% of the firm’s ‘games and related value-added services’ business, raking in RMB19.3bn ($2.71bn) for the period, up from the RMB18.2bn ($2.55bn) that the company reported last year. Mobile was responsible for 76.4% – or RMB14.7bn ($2bn) – of NetEase’s games revenue.
Games saw a slight decline in gross profit thanks to titles such as Identity V and Justice performing very strongly last year.
Gardenscapes celebrates eighth birthday, hits $3.8bn lifetime revenue
Playrix is celebrating Gardenscapes’ eighth birthday currently, so we checked Appmagic to see where it;s at in terms of lifetime revenue and downloads. It estimates that the game has earned Playrix $3.8bn in revenue from over 651m dowmloads since its 2016 launch.
US mobile games market up 7.6% in July
GameDev Reports rounded up the latest Circana data, which estimates that the US mobile games market rose by 7.6% for the month of July. The top-grossing titles of the month were Monopoly Go, Roblox, Royal Match, Candy Crush Saga and Pokémon Go.
Simulation titles such as Township, Roblox and Minecraft saw a 38% increase in revenue for the period, while shooters like Garena: Free Fire, PUBG Mobile, Goddess of Victory: Nikke saw their revenue rise by over 50%. Call of Duty: Mobile revenue shot up 32% for the month, too.
Did Monopoly Go help Dice Dreams hit $400m revenue?
Sensor Tower reckons that Monopoly Go has helped Dice Dreams hit over $400m in revenue. The company says that the latter title had made just $125m in its first three years on the market, but made a massive $275m since Scopely’s blockbuster was released.
“In the three years previous to Monopoly Go’s release, Dice Dreams grossed $125n: a significant success by most standards,” said Sensor Tower’s gaming insights analyst Sam Aune. “However, since Monopoly Go’s release, Dice Dreams has become supercharged, earning the remaining $275m to hit this $400m milestone in a year and a few months.”
“It seems SuperPlay has managed to differentiate Dice Dreams sufficiently to ensure its growth while still riding the wave of the increased number of players who have been introduced to Coin Looter gameplay.”
MENA games revenue up 11% for H1 2024
Research from Apptica shows that the MENA games market brought in $661m in revenue for the first half of 2024. That’s an 11% increase, while downloads rose 6% to 2.1bn.
Casual titles are the most downloaded across iOS and Android, with the latter seeing almost ten times as many installs. Not only is Google Play the biggest driver of installs, it is also the top-grossing platform. Core titles did very well on Android, though casual games saw higher revenue on iOS.
PUBG: Mobile was the most downloaded game on both Android and iOS, and also the highest grossing title on both platforms.
Krafton’s battle royale also boasts the highest daily active user figure on Android, though Roblox takes the top spot on iOS. The platform was the second best performing game on Google Play, too.
