According to Appmagic data Roblox was the most-downloaded mobile game of 2023, with over 217m downloads across iOS and Android.
Subway Surfers was second with nearly 215m, down significantly on its 2022 total of almost 270m. Ludo King sneaked into third with around 164m installs, the title’s fourth consecutive year in the top ten.
The most notable year-on-year decline was Scopely’s Stumble Guys. After a spectacular 2022 in which it claimed over 205m installs, it racked up around half that amount – 104m downloads – in 2023.
Full analysis and commentary follows below of the top twenty and beyond; remember, these figures are estimates from Appmagic so the numbers should be considered guidance only. The image below shows estimated downloads and each game’s year-on-year change in the rankings.
Want more data and commentary? Elsewhere on the site you can find:
- The top mobile game publishers of 2023, by downloads
- The top grossing mobile games of 2023
- The top grossing mobile game publishers of 2023
The numbers just keep going up and up for Roblox. 2023 was its best-ever year in terms of downloads after posting between 173m and 175m annual installs in 2021 and 2022 respectively. Add in the many millions it must have attracted on other platforms and Roblox is a modern-day monster of a platform – and yet one that still somehow feels a little under-appreciated in the wider games business. Maybe we should launch robloxgamer.biz next, huh.
Subway Surfers’ year-on-year drop from nearly 270m in 2022 to around 215m in 2023 is nothing to really be concerned about – it had a wild 2022 after multiple TikTok-fuelled viral moments and monster success in China. 2023’s astonishing 215m downloads is closer to a ‘normal’ year for what remains one of the most popular games on the planet.
As we’ve been diligently noting every month in our monthly download listings, Ludo King’s consistency is what has placed it third in Appmagic’s annual rankings. It first entered the annual top ten download list in 2020, and has edged up and up in the rankings every year since, thought this is not its highest ever downloads total – that was in COVID-era 2020, when it broke 176m. Players in India are driving this one, though it’s big in Indonesia, too.
Like Ludo King, Candy Crush Saga is another very consistent performer. Just look at its annual totals from recent history: Appmagic says it generated 156m downloads in 2020, 153m in 2021 and 160m in 2022. So 2023’s total of 156m will raise few eyebrows, though the real story with King’s flagship title is what’s happening on the revenue side (more data on that soon).
Completing 2023’s top five downloads globally is Hungry Studio’s Block Blast, another low-key but consistent performer throughout 2023. Having gathered some pace with 2-2.5m monthly downloads at the back end of 2022, it exploded in January 2023 with 9.7m installs, and kept rolling from there. After a lull over the summer it shot up again through October, November and December. It’s mostly an Android phenomenon, and is most popular in India. But it is also performing very well in the US, Brazil and Indonesia.
Like Block Blast, Royal Match exploded onto the scene in 2023. Dream Games’ debut title was doing pretty well throughout 2021 and 2022, sometimes racking up over 4m monthly downloads, but 2023 was the year the downloads really started flowing. It peaked in August with nearly 17m installs that month, but has lost a little momentum since then; if it had kept up the momentum it had from the spring and summer, it would have been much higher than sixth.
Three long-term performers occupy spots seven to nine. 8 Ball Pool in seventh and My Talking Tom 2 in ninth have the same kind of staying power as Candy Crush Saga – Miniclip’s classic gathered a similar number of downloads annually last year as it did in 2020 – around 130m – and My Talking Tom 2’s 2023 total was similar to what it generated in the last two years.
Sandwiched in between those two in eighth for 2023 was Garena’s Free Fire, which has taken a a tumble since its incredible run between 2019 and 2021. After hitting 270m annual downloads in 2019 and 260m in 2020, 2021 saw it drop below 200m annual installs and it gathered 119m in 2022, when Free Fire Max launched. 2023’s total is up year-on-year by a good few million, but we can imagine Garena looking on in envy at some of the stuff Fortnite is doing right now to break out of battle royale and become a broader digital playground.
Race Master 3D completes the top ten, following up a breakthrough 2022 in which it claimed over 130m downloads. It claimed around 12m fewer installs last year, and it is also a reminder of how much the download charts have changed post-ATT. Hypercasual labels like SayGames used to dominate the upper ends of these download charts, but are nowhere near as prominent today.
The top mobile game downloads of 2023: 11-20
11. Bridge Race (Supersonic): 113.2m
12. Going Balls (Supersonic): 110.7m
13. EA Sports FC (EA): 107.7m
14. Monopoly Go (Scopely): 107.5m
15. Stumble Guys (Scopely): 103.7m
16. Hill Climb Racing (Fingersoft): 100.2m
17. My Talking Tom Friends (Outfit7): 99.7m
18. Free Fire Max (Garena): 98m
19. PUBG Mobile (Tencent): 97.5m
20. Magic Tiles 3 (Amanotes): 96.2m
Supersonic is still flying the flag for hypercasual in 11th and 12th, though it would probably refer to Bridge Race and Going Balls as hybridcasual games these days.
Some feared that ditching the FIFA name might cause trouble for EA’s premier football franchise, but it hasn’t at all: EA Sports FC has been doing great ever since it had a huge download spike around the 2022 World Cup, and has been performing well on the revenue side as well.
Scopely duo Monopoly Go and Stumble Guys are next, with the former game brand new to the chart, breaking 100m installs in its debut year. After a spectacular 2022, Stumble Guys was always going to struggle to beat the 205m installs it got in its debut year, but its drop to around 104m downloads this year is pretty huge, and might be a touch disappointing for the Scopely crew. Perhaps, as the Fall Guys team has found, it is hard to maintain momentum with these party platformers…?
Some usual suspects round out the top twenty, with Hill Climb Racing up eight spots year-on-year, Free Fire Max down 10 and PUBG Mobile attracting 100m-ish installs for the second year running.
Outside the top 20 and beyond
Mobile Soccer’s Football League 2024 rocketed into 21st spot from nowhere in 2023, ending the year on just over 93m. CDT Puzzle Studio’s Tic Tac Toe was tearing up the downloads chart over the summer, but couldn’t maintain that pace and ended up a respectable 23rd spot with 93m downloads.
And while the hypercasual category’s presence in this list has been dramatically reduced in recent years, there are still some titles continuing to pull in big numbers. Zego Studio’s Car Race 3D, Skgames’ Traffic Rider and Homa’s Attack Hole all reached around 90m downloads in 2023, and Say Games’ hit My Perfect Hotel ended the year on about 87m downloads, the 29th most popular game of the year. Though again, the latter may be more of a hybridcasual title.
Gardenscapes, Words of Wonders: Crossword, Temple Run 2, Tomb of the Mask, Eggy Party and Mob Control all saw significant year-on-year rises through the rankings in 2023. The games making notable drops down the list year-on-year include Fishdom, Among Us, Soccer Super Star, Talking Tom Gold Run and 1945 Air Force.
