The top grossing mobile games of 2024

It’s been another tough year for the mobile games market, but it’s returning to growth.

We’ve already analysed at length how the world’s top grossing mobile games have changed overtime. We’ve also just published an article about 2024’s top new releases, which included one of this year’s best-performing titles overall.

Here we analyse the top revenue generators and the key trends and stories from 2024’s top grossing rankings.

The estimates are taken from mobile intelligence platform AppMagic and include data for the App Store and Google Play. All estimates are from January 1st to December 17th, 2024.

Top grossing mobile games for 2024

The number one grossing game of the year was, of course, Tencent’s Honor of Kings at $2.6bn. It’s been the world’s highest revenue generating game on the App Store and Google Play since 2017, except in the pandemic years of 2020 and 2021, when it was usurped by another Tencent game: PUBG Mobile.

At number two was Scopely’s Monopoly Go, which accumulated $2.2bn. The title has been an enormous success for the publisher, winning it the Game of the Year and Best Publisher accolades at the Pocket Gamer Mobile Games Awards 2024.

Meanwhile, Dream Games’ Royal Match ranked third with $2bn in player spending, Tencent’s PUBG Mobile sat at fourth with close to $1.7bn, and Roblox rounded out the top five with $1.6bn.

By the end of the year, the top 10 grossing mobile games will each have hit the $1 billion mark for 2024, up from the previous high of nine in 2021.

Overall, the mobile games market generated $81.8 billion from worldwide player spending across the App Store and Google Play between January 1st and December 17th, 2024, a rise of 4.9% Y/Y from 2023.

The big stories

Dungeon & Fighter and Last War are the breakout hits of the year

As we highlighted in our analysis of 2024’s top new games, the launch of Nexon’s Dungeon & Fighter Mobile, published by Tencent, was the biggest new release of the year. Nexon needed a hit – revenue was down ahead of D&F Mobile’s release, and while it’s a $22bn+ franchise, even Dungeon & Fighter Online was facing difficulties following an update the negatively impacted its economy.

On China’s App Store alone, Dungeon & Fighter Mobile generated $1.1 billion in 2024, a figure that could be slightly higher by the New Year. Taking into account revenue from third-party Android stores, that number will be far higher.

It’s an example of the power of the Dungeon & Fighter IP, which doesn’t get much recognition in the West, and of how top IPs of its ilk can almost be certified hits in Asia (like Lineage has been in South Korea for NCSoft and Netmarble).

It’s also worth noting that D&F Mobile ranked as the ninth top grossing game in the world this year, despite only releasing on May 21st, 2024.

Meanwhile, FirstFun has had a mega hit with Last War: Survival. The 4X strategy game, which blends hypercasual gameplay that uses gate mechanics – as seen in many a mobile game ad – started scaling in November/December 2023, and has quickly found itself accumulating $1.5 billion this year.

While developed by a Chinese developer, unlike D&F Mobile, the title has found global success outside of the country, ranking as the sixth top grossing game of the year.

Century Games’ Whiteout Survival, another 4X strategy title, also deserves a special mention. While it found its footing in 2023, revenue has continued to increase in 2024 to a high of $158.5m in November 2024.

Royal Match overthrew Candy Crush Saga as the match-3 king

Candy Crush Saga revenue hasn’t dwindled. In fact, according to AppMagic estimates, it was remarkably on par with 2023 player spending at $1.5bn.

But Dream Games’s first game, Royal Match, has ascended as the new king of match-3 this year, rising to the third top grossing game in the world with an estimated $2bn from player spending. Only Playrix’s Gardenscapes has previously challenged Candy Crush’s throne in 2020 – and only just.

Royal Match has proven itself the peak of match-3 game polish. Dream Games is hoping to do the same again with Royal Kingdom, launched in November and looking to repeat at least some of that success after generating $21.2 million in soft launch.

We’ll see in 2025 whether Dream Games finds another hit, or if it starts seeing diminishing returns from sequels and spinoffs of its flagship hit as King has.

Brawl Stars rises back to the top – and stays there

If you’re in the mobile games industry and haven’t heard about Brawl Stars’ rise over the past year, welcome back, I hope you’re doing okay.

After years of various changes – even removing  loot boxes – to resuscitate Brawl Stars’ declining revenue, Supercell hit the jackpot in the latter months of 2023.

Following the addition of new features like Starr Drops and Hypercharges, Brawl Stars sparked back to life. It’s now the famous Finnish studio’s flagship title ahead of Clash of Clans, and ranked as the 11th top grossing mobile game in 2024.

It’s a lesson in how live ops and consistently testing out new ideas can not only keep a game running for the long-term, but even on occasion breathe completely new life into it.

For comparison, Brawl Stars generated an estimated $147.5 million in gross revenue between January 1st and December 17th, 2023. Meanwhile, during the same period in 2024, player spending rose by 524% to $921.3m.

Its success has propelled Supercell back into the top 10 top grossing mobile game publishers in the world by App Store and Google Play revenue in 2024. The fear of dropping out is what has led to key cultural and structural changes at the company over the past year.

HoYoverse finds a lucrative decline

There are a lot of caveats to this, but HoYoverse’s flagship games Genshin Impact and Honkai: Star Rail have fallen out the top 10 in 2024, to a still very lucrative 12th for Honkai and 14th for Genshin.

Combined the titles made $1.5bn from the App Store and Google Play so far this year. That doesn’t take into account revenue from third-party Android stores, its web shop, and other platforms.

But it is notable that in November, the two titles had their worst months ever for revenue on the App Store and Google Play, capping a gradual decline for the two titles.

Genshin Impact’s rumoured budget per year was once said to be $200m per year, so a noticeable drop in player spending is noteworthy.

But with a lack of data on revenue generated off Apple and Google’s stores, it’s difficult to know how problematic the dropoff is for HoYoverse. Any publisher would be happy with the levels of player spending from these titles, but few other games are as expensive to maintain.

Asia dominated new game releases, but top grossers split across the globe

We analysed the top new mobile game releases of 2024 already, highlighting that 13 out of 15 of the top grossing new titles are by publishers based in Asia.

Worth noting too that the other two titles have strong connections to China, Sea of Conquest developer FunPlus has studios in the country, while Squad Busters maker Supercell is owned by Tencent.

But when it comes to 2024’s overall top grossers, it’s a much more even story. Of the top 10 revenue generators, five publishers are based in Asia, including the world’s top grossing game Honor of Kings.

In the top 25, meanwhile, 12 publishers are based in Asia. However, it’s worth once again noting the influence of Eastern companies. As previously mentioned, Supercell, which has two games in the top 25, is owned by Tencent. Meanwhile, Activision’s Call of Duty: Mobile was developed in collaboration with Tencent’s TiMi Studio.

To get really specific, Niantic’s Pokémon Go is, of course, based off of an IP made in Japan.