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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Squad Busters hits $50m
Supercell has now earned $50m from Squad Busters, according to Appmagic estimates. The Finnish firm’s latest game entered soft launch on April 23, and rolled out globally on May 29.
The lifetime earnings figure does not include Apple and Google’s 30% cut. US players lead the way in terms of spend with around $18.7m to date, around 38% of the total. Next it’s Germany with $4.8m, France ($3.1m), South Korea ($2.9m) and Japan ($1.8m).
Lifetime downloads are at 43.9m, with the US again out in front with 6.6m to date. It is followed by Brazil (4.2m), Mexico (3.2m), Turkey (2.4m) and Indonesia (2.3m).
Appmagic data suggests Supercell has earned $30.7m from iOS players to date, and $19m from Android spenders. On downloads, the split is 33m installs on Android and 10.4m on iOS.
Honor of Kings tops global earnings in August with $142m
Honor of Kings brought in $142m on iOS alone last month to make it August’s highest earning mobile game worldwide, according to Appfigures estimates.
Tencent’s game generated approximately $20m more last month than it managed in July, enabling it to leapfrog Dungeon Fighter Mobile ($123m), which had topped both the iOS and overall mobile earnings rankings for the previous two months.
Monopoly Go ($111m), Royal Match ($100m) – which topped the Google Play earnings rankings – and Roblox ($94m) were non-movers at numbers three, four and five respectively on the combined iOS and Android monthly earnings chart.
Offline Games leads August downloads with 23m installs
Offline Games was the most downloaded title in August with 23m installs, 83% of which were on Google Play, according to Appfigures estimates.
Despite a 6m decline over July’s total downloads, the minigame collection held off competition from frequent chart-topper Subway Surfers, which achieved 22m installs for the fourth consecutive month.
Roblox was a non-mover at number three with approximately 17m installs for the third month running. Global game downloads in August totalled 187m, Appfigures added, which was 12% below July’s figure.
Vivid raises $1.4m funding to launch Real Boxing 3
Pocketgamer.biz reports that the Polish maker of the Real Boxing games, Vivid, has sold 40% of its business to Lithuanian fund Gemini Grupė for PLN 5.23m ($1.37m).
Vivid said it will use the funds for the development of Real Boxing 3 and other new projects.
Earn to Die Rogue hits 10m installs in four months
Four months after its release, Earn to Die Rogue has topped 10m “mostly organic” downloads with “very little” paid user acquisition, according to Not Doppler CEO John Daskalopoulos. The roguelite Earn to Die spin-off has also been nominated for an Australian Game Developer Award in the ‘Excellence in Mobile’ category.
Nazara plans further M&A activity after raising $108m
Indian gaming and esports company Nazara Technologies is planning further strategic acquisitions after raising ₹900 crores ($108m) through a preferential equity issue.
As spotted by PocketGamer.biz, Nazara said it plans to use the capital infusion to bolster its M&A activities, fund business expansion, and enhance its ability to seize new growth opportunities.
Nazara has also acquired an additional 19.35% stake in Absolute Sports, the parent company of Sportskeeda, taking its ownership stake to 91%.
Stillfront repurchases 10.25m of its own shares
Stillfront Group has acquired 10,245,000 of its own shares, completing a buyback programme announced in July.
The Swedish gaming company paid approximately SEK 80m ($7.8m) for the shares, which amount to nearly 2% of its total shares.
Stillfront, which plans to split itself into three business areas next year in a cost-saving exercise, will use the newly acquired shares for earnout payments related to previous acquisitions.
Playtika to acquire Dice Dreams maker SuperPlay for up to $1.95bn
Playtika is to acquire SuperPlay for $700m upfront, but the purchase price could rise by up to $1.25bn should the Dice Dreams and Domino Dreams maker hit certain financial targets over the next three years. That could bring the total value of the deal to $1.95m. SuperPlay has two more games in development.
CEO Robert Antokol said the combined companies with “conquer” the ‘coin looter’ category, which has exploded recently thanks to Coin Master and particularly Monopoly Go. With Dice Dreams now in its portfolio, he told investors: “We believe we’re going to conquer this category. This is our vision”.
Nitro signs $5.6m expansion of Warframe development deal
Nitro Games has signed an approximately $5.6m expansion to its Warframe development deal with Digital Extremes, taking the total order value for its porting work to about $19.5m.
The free-to-play game hit iOS in February, and while a planned Android release has yet to be dated, Nitro expects to complete the project in 2025.
