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Japanese holiday period Golden Week has come and gone once again, and as is tradition, many Japanese mobile titles are celebrated in style with events, sales, and bundles to make the most of their players’ time off work.
The holiday period spans April 29th to May 5th each year with four official public holidays in that time, namely Showa Day, Constitution Memorial Day, Greenery Day and Children’s Day.
Naturally, this time off presents ample opportunity for Japanese mobile gamers to get spending, with this Golden Week seeing the 10 most lucrative games earn a combined $81 million in Japan.
Those earnings were up 81% from Golden Week 2024, according to AppMagic estimates, when last year’s top 10 games made just $44.9m.
Across the top 50 mobile games, Golden Week 2025 saw $166.8m generated in Japan.
Top of the pack
This year, Japanese players spent more money on Pokémon Trading Card Game Pocket than any other mobile game, sending the newcomer straight to the top of the Golden Week earnings chart on its very first appearance.
Since The Pokémon Company, Creatures Inc. and DeNA launched Pocket globally on October 30th, 2024, the TCG title has firmly established itself as a heavy hitter in the industry as it fast approaches $1 billion in lifetime player spending. That’s been achieved in just six months, even outpacing Pokémon Go’s launch trajectory.
And with Japanese players accounting for 45% of that revenue to date, Pocket had little trouble triumphing over this year’s Golden Week. Players in Japan spent another $18.7m in Pokémon Pocket during the seven-day period, beating second-place SD Gundam G Generation Eternal by more than $3m.
Pocket also beat 2024’s Golden Week chart topper Fate/Grand Order by over 50%. Aniplex’s gacha game spent the past two years as Japan’s biggest mobile earner during the holiday period, having generated $14.8m over the week in 2023 and $12.1m in 2024. In 2025, it’s fallen to eighth place with $5.3m generated.
Pokémon Pocket also therefore had the most lucrative Golden Week of any mobile game in Japan since 2022, when Mixi’s Monster Strike made $19.6m.
Golden games
Behind card game craze Pokémon Pocket, Bandai Namco’s SD Gundam G Generation Eternal ranked second in Japan this Golden Week with $15.1m in gross player spending. The title likely benefited from being such a recent release, having launched on April 16th this year.
On the other hand, Ponos Corporation’s 2012 tower defence game The Battle Cats ranked third, raking in $7.9m over Golden Week. The Japanese game’s revenue suddenly surged to a decade-long high in late 2024 and has continued to excel in 2025.
Mixi’s Monster Strike and Konami’s Professional Basketball Spirits A rounded at the top five with $6.3m and $6m respectively. Notably, these top five games are all developed by Japanese studios, as are seven of the top 10 overall.
Chinese studios FirstFun, Kuro Games and HoYoverse are the only exceptions, with games ranking sixth, ninth and 10th in Japan this Golden Week.
Last War: Survival ranked sixth with $5.8m, while Wuthering Waves and Honkai: Star Rail ranked ninth and 10th respectively with around $5.1m generated each.
2025 marked something of a comeback for homegrown Golden Week successes, therefore, after over half of the top 10 list comprised overseas titles in 2024.
And of course, RPGs continued to dominate the list this year; whether it’s Golden Week or otherwise, Japanese players’ penchant for role-playing games seems to keep on carrying on.
