There’s a deluge of data and research to wade through in the mobile games business. Every Wednesday, data digest breaks it all down into snackable chunks.
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Is the force with Star Wars: Hunters?
A look at Appmagic and Appfigures data tells us that Zynga’s big-name arena shooter has perhaps struggled to get traction in its first two weeks of launch.
At the time of writing it is 41st in the US iPhone charts, and Appmagic estimates that the game has been downloaded around 1.4m times since it was launched globally on June 4. It has made Zynga under $700k in its first 14 days of global launch, says Appmagic, whose estimates do not include Apple or Google’s 30% cut.
Appfigures, meanwhile, estimates that downloads for the same period are much lower – around 670k, with estimated net revenue of $413k.
Subway Surfers and Honor of Kings top Appfigures’ May charts
After a month away from the top spot, Appfigures reports that Subway Surfers was once more the most-downloaded game across both iOS and Android in May. The blockbuster managed this feat with 22m installs for the month, coming in just ahead of April’s top download, Pizza Ready.
On Google Play, Pizza Ready was the most-downloaded title, coming in ahead of Subway Surfers – though both games boasted 19m installs. Over on iOS, Brawl Stars was the most downloaded title; Subway Surfers came in fourth behind Block Blast and Roblox, while Pizza Ready had to settle for eighth place.
Overall, Appfigures reports that there was a 14% increase in downloads for the top ten games across App Store and Google Play month-on-month.
On the revenue side, the top spot goes to Honor of Kings, which brought in $131m. This put it ahead of second placed Monopoly Go by $15m. Third spot went to Royal Match, which brought in $96m. Supercell’s Brawl Stars made $61m in May, a new high for the multiplayer title.
Honor of Kings was the biggest earner on the App Store, with Monopoly Go clocking in second with $96m in revenue. Third place went to another China-only release, Peacekeeper Elite, which made $90m during May. Royal Match was number one on Google Play, raking in $28m, while second and third places went to Coin Master and Candy Crush Saga, respectively.
AppFigures says that the top ten games made $791m in net revenue during May, a 2% increase on April.
Is Squad Busters boosting other Supercell games? Not yet
Supercell suggested in an interview last week that it is positioning Squad Busters as a kind of entry point into the wider Supercell portfolio, given that it stars characters from across the Finnish firm’s previous games.
So after over 30m downloads in its first few days, are Supercell’s other games seeing an uptick in installs at all? No, not judging by Appmagic estimates:
Appmagic download estimates show no noticeable boost in daily downloads since Squad Busters launched, but a gentle decline instead as players flock to the newer game. Perhaps, over time, Squad Busters players will feel the urge to check out other Supercell titles, but it’s very early days.
EA boss Wilson was paid $25.6m for FY24
EA CEO Andrew Wilson walked away with a cool $25.6m for his work in FY24.
That’s according to the company’s Proxy Statement ahead of its annual meeting, in which the firm disclosed that on top of his base salary of $1.3m, Wilson was given $20.4m in stock, $3.4m as part of an incentive plan and another $504k in “other compensation”. Overall, the EA top brass were paid $60m for their work.
China’s games market revenue up 6.2% in 2023
Niko Partners reports that the Chinese games market made $47.5bn in 2023. That’s an increase of 6.2% year-on-year, following a decline of 2.5% in 2022, with the company also predicting a 4.9% increase in revenue for 2024.
Niko also forecasts that the Chinese games market will hit $55bn. In 2023, 68.2% of spending in the sector was done so on mobile.
Netflix’s GTA remasters hit 30m downloads
In case you missed it earlier this week, Appmagic data suggests that the three GTA games on Netflix have now passed a combined 30m downloads.
San Andreas is estimated to have 20.5m downloads to date, with Vice City on 6.5m installs and GTA 3 at 3.3m. iOS is by far the dominant platform, registering two to three times more downloads than on Google Play for each game.
