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One of the mobile games industry’s stereotypes is that the top grossing charts rarely change, if at all.
A look at AppMagic shows that Tencent’s Honor of Kings continues to rank number one, while PUBG, Roblox, King’s Candy Crush Saga and Moon Active’s Coin Master are all still stalwarts in the world’s top grossing rankings.
But are things actually changing? Earlier this year we ran a newsletter on mobile gaming’s secret and not so-secret new blockbusters. There have been a number of breakout hits that have achieved hundreds of millions to billions of dollars over the past couple of years, despite a highly challenging time in the market.
Fresh success
According to AppMagic estimates, based on player spending across the App Store and Google Play only, there are four titles in this year’s top 10 grossing rankings that were released since the start of 2023. Those games include Scopely’s multi-billion hit Monopoly Go – which despite seeing revenue decline 58% in October from its March 2024 highs is still one of the world’s most lucrative titles, such is the scale of its success.
Then we have FirstFun’s Last War ranking in sixth, Century Games’ 4X strategy title Whiteout Survival in eighth and Nexon and Tencent’s Dungeon & Fighter Mobile for China hitting the number nine spot. That’s why we ranked these companies so highly in the Top 50 Mobile Game Makers list for 2024.
Expanding the rankings further, Supercell’s 2018 release Brawl Stars ranks 11th after a stellar year, while HoYoverse’s Honkai: Star Rail takes 12th, and Joy Nice Games’ Legend of Mushroom sits at 17th.
Perhaps with these new successes and new games in 2025, the top grossing charts will start to look unrecognisable to past years.
There are other breakthroughs as well, such as Konami’s eFootball, which is having by far its best year ever in 2024, hitting more than $358 million in gross revenue, while Paper Games’ Love and Deepspace has been a rare, consistent new success in China.
A new wave
Now we’ve got the new kids on the block. Pokémon Trading Card Game Pocket has stormed out the gates, surpassing $100 million in just 17 days. Check out Jakub Remiar’s excellent analysis here delving into the title’s winning formula.
Just yesterday, the next potential blockbuster arrived: Dream Games’ Royal Kingdom, the long-anticipated follow-up to the world’s new king of match-3 games, Royal Match. Can lightning strike twice? It’s already made $21.2 million in soft launch, so the early signs are promising.
I’m curious to see how a spin-off to a hit mobile game works in 2024 and 2025. King has seen diminishing returns to each new Candy Crush release since the original (even if each successor has been pretty lucrative). Playrix has struggled to follow-up Gardenscapes and Homescapes again with the same IP.
Meanwhile, Peak Games shifted gears from Toy Blast and Toon Blast to find a new hit title in Match Factory. But if Dream Games can see even a fraction of Royal Match’s $3.9 billion revenue with Royal Kingdom without cannibalising the golden goose, I’m sure the team will do just fine.
Perhaps with these new successes and new games in 2025, the top grossing charts will start to look unrecognisable to past years.
