Data digest: the $1bn game club, May’s top titles, India stats, funding news, more

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 minus the fluff.

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There are now 11 games in the $1bn club

A record-high 11 games generated over $1bn of global IAP gross revenue in 2024, including four which reached the milestone for the first time in a calendar year.

Last War, Whiteout Survival, Dungeon & Fighter, and Brawl Stars were the latest titles to join the billion dollar club, according to Sensor Tower estimates.

The research firm previously reported that Monopoly Go was the highest earning game worldwide in 2024, ahead of Honor of Kings and Royal Match, followed by Roblox and Last War.

The number of games to surpass IAP revenue of $100m in 2024 declined for the third year in a row, from a peak of 171 in 2021 to 144. Likewise, the number of titles to earn over $10m fell for the third successive year, down from a record high of 897 in 2021 to 858 in 2024.

Block Blast’s dominance continues in May’s download chart

Block Blast was the most downloaded game on both the App Store and Google Play last month, according to the latest worldwide rankings from Appfigures.

Based on its estimates, Hungry Studios’ game achieved combined app store downloads of 19m in May (+1m month-over-month).

The next three titles on the combined chart were non-movers from April too. Roblox racked up 16m downloads (flat MoM), ahead of Subway Surfers with 15m (-1m MoM) and Ludio King with 11m (+1m MoM).

Pizza Ready was downloaded 10m times in May (+1m MoM), which was enough to knock Free Fire down one place to number six. Together, the top 10 games hit 111m downloads (+1m MoM) in May.

Monopoly Go drops out of top grossing top 5

Monopoly Go has failed to make the top five on Appfigures’ worldwide monthly earnings chart for the first time since it entered its rankings back in the summer of 2023.

Earnings for Scopely’s game actually rose 7.6% month-over-month to $99m, but it was leapfrogged by PUBG Mobile, which cracked May’s top five after generating net revenue (after fees) of $105m (+15.4% MoM).

The top four was unchanged from April. China-only game Honour of Kings led the way with $154m (+6.9% MoM) of net revenue from the App Store alone.

It was followed by Whiteout Survival with $145m (+10.7% MoM), Last War with $113m (+0.9% MoM) and Royal Match with $107m (+10.3% MoM). Net revenue for the 10 highest-earning games in May came in at $963m (+7.4% MoM).

UK government reveals $41m games growth package

The UK government has announced £30m ($40.8m) in new funding to support “the next generation of start-up” games studios and developers.

The ‘Games Growth Package’ is an expansion of the UK Games Fund, a non-profit organisation established in 2015 to support the early-stage games development community.

The funding is part of a wider £380m ($517.9m) investment package aimed to stimulate growth in the UK’s creative industries.

Summoner’s War: Sky Arena closes in on 300m downloads

Hit fantasy RPG Summoners War: Sky Arena has racked up over 290m downloads, according to Com2us.

The stat was released to coincide with the 11th anniversary of the game’s mobile release (it also came to PC last year). The figure is up from over 220m downloads reported a year ago.

The title surpassed $1bn in revenue in 2017 before reaching $3bn for its 10th anniversary in 2024.

Habby invests $2m in Mavis Games

Slidey: Block Puzzle creator Mavis Games has secured $2m in funding from Archero and Survivor.io publisher Habby.

Mavis plans to use the funding to develop casual games “combining long-term player engagement, design innovation, and global scale”. The Istanbul, Turkey-based studio is also looking to grow its small team by making six appointments across various disciplines.

Fable Town tops $5m in lifetime revenue

Fable Town has generated over $5m in lifetime revenue, according to MGVC Publishing.

My.Games’ mobile publishing branch says the game has enjoyed 13% month-over-month revenue growth since its global release in September 2024. It has also racked up almost 2m installs, and ranks second by installs in the merge-3 genre as of May 2025, based on Sensor Tower data.

The title, which is developed by Reef Games Studio, has surpassed 440k monthly active users and 95k daily active users too.

India is top game download market

India was the largest games market globally in FY 2024-25 with 8.45bn downloads, according to Sensor Tower’s latest market insights report.

While the number of downloads in India during the 12 months ended on March 31, 2025 actually declined by 8.7%, the total was still more than double the amount of the second largest Asian market, Indonesia (3.34bn).

However, in terms of IAP revenue, India lies in eighth place in Asia. In fiscal 2024-25, IAP revenue grew 8.5% YoY to $400m.

While Google Play dominates downloads and IAP revenue, the App Store has a notable share of higher-value spenders.

When it comes to demographics, 77% of Indian players are aged 18-34, and 86% of all gamers are male.

Simulation games were India’s top genre by downloads (22%) in FY 2024-25, followed by arcade (19%), puzzle (16%) and tabletop (9%).

Ludo King, which has been the country’s most popular game every year since 2017, has now surpassed 1.25bn lifetime downloads.

India’s top genres by IAP revenue in FY 2024-25 were shooter (50%), casino (10%), strategy (9%) and puzzle (9%).

Battle royales Garena Free Fire and Battlegrounds Mobile India led the IAP revenue chart, ahead of Coin Master, Candy Crush and eFootball. Free Fire also topped the year-over-year revenue growth chart, followed by Pokémon Go and eFootball.

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