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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Learnings tops Q3 ad revenue charts
Learnings made around $135m in ad revenue in Q3 2026 across 19 markets, according to Sensor Tower. That’s 62% more than second-placed Voodoo on $83.1m, and an 8% rise quarter-on-quarter, the fastest growth in the top ten. Vita Mahjong brought in $60.8m, around 45% of Learnings’ total, but its ad revenue remained flat. Easybrain was third with $70.3m.
Voodoo led on downloads with 117m, while Learnings’ downloads fell 9% to 99.8m. Downloads across the 19 markets fell 2.1% quarter-on-quarter and 7.3% year-on-year to 6.38bn.
China clears Savvy’s $6bn Moonton deal
China’s State Administration for Market Regulation has approved Savvy Games Group’s acquisition of Mobile Legends: Bang Bang developer Moonton from ByteDance, according to a list of approved mergers spotted by pocketgamer.biz.
The deal, which Bloomberg said was near completion in March and is valued at over $6bn, was cleared unconditionally, with the review completed on October 29. ByteDance bought Moonton for around $4bn in 2021.
Deca buys Island Hoppers for $4.5m
Embracer’s Deca Group has bought farming adventure game Island Hoppers from GDEV-owned Nexters for around $4.5m upfront, plus an earn-out of up to around $0.5m, according to an Embracer announcement.
Deca expects to make its money back in around two and a half to three and a half years. The deal closed in August but couldn’t be announced until now due to “previous commercial restrictions”.
Deca subsidiary A Thinking Ape will take over publishing and development, and plans to keep investing in UA, live ops and content. Island Hoppers launched in October 2023 on iOS, Android and browser.
“Great games can have much longer lives than the market often expects,” said Deca CEO Ken Go.
Honor of Kings dominates a decade of top grossing charts
Honor of Kings is the top grossing mobile game of 2026 so far, with $1.14bn in IAP revenue up to November 5, according to AppMagic’s decade review.
It’s the sixth year Tencent’s MOBA has taken the top spot since 2016, after 2017, 2018, 2019, 2022 and 2023.
Monster Strike, number one in 2016 with $807m, now ranks 37th with $137m this year. PUBG Mobile led in 2020 ($1.4bn) and 2021 ($1.6bn) and sits 23rd with $209m. 2024’s leader Monopoly Go is third with $867m, down from $1.5bn two years ago, while Last War: Survival topped 2025 with $1.4bn.
Free Fire Max is the most downloaded game of 2026 so far with 225m downloads.
Krafton mobile revenue rises 3.2% to $375.6m
Krafton’s mobile revenue grew 3.2% year-on-year to $375.6m (₩504.3bn) in Q3, according to its latest results, making up just over half of the company’s total revenue.
Overall revenue rose 11.6% to $725.9m (₩971.4bn), despite PC revenue falling 32.5% to $178m and console dropping 15.9% to $6.4m. Operating profit fell 35.5% to $168.1m, which Krafton put down to costs from Gamescom and other activities.
Revenue from the PUBG IP was up 11%. Across the first nine months of the year, Krafton’s revenue grew 51% to $2.6bn and operating profit rose 14% to $819.4m, both records for the period.
Digimon Alysion passes 200,000 pre-registrations
Bandai’s Digimon Alysion has passed 200,000 pre-registrations two weeks after they opened on October 27, according to the publisher. The card battler, based on the Digimon Card Game, is available to pre-register in 49 countries and regions, including Japan and North America. It’s due to launch soon.
