Global Mobile Games in August｜Temple Run and Subway Surfers are still popular after 10 years since their releases

With the aid of its App Intelligence and other modules, SocialPeta sorted out the top 20 global mobile games by revenue, download, and advertising in August 2022, hoping to be of assistance to more people in the mobile app industry who try to understand the changing trends of global mobile market.

The overall performance of global mobile games in August:

• FGO recorded a 150% surge in revenue to top the revenue chart thanks to its 7th-anniversary celebration.
• [Uma Musume Pretty Derby]'s South Korean version experienced a slump in revenue, which was all the operator's fault?
• Talking Tom and Temple Run were on the download chart, indicating that old parkour games were gaining popularity again.
• Midcore and hardcore mobile games beat puzzle casual games in advertising to greatly change the advertising charts.

Top 20 by Revenue

First, the revenue of global mobile games in August. Some mobile games reported a great revenue growth resulting from their updates of big events.

Though it has been 7 years since its release, [Fate/Grand Order] can still generate a very high revenue. In August, the game had events and updates including the 7th-anniversary celebration for its Japanese version, a rerun of the popular character Ryōgi Shiki, a collaboration with "Tsukihime", and the introduction of summer swimwear. Boosted by such high-frequency, high-quality, and high-popularity card pool updates, [FGO] recorded a soaring revenue. The game raked in nearly $70 million in revenue from the App Store and Google Play, up 150% Month-on-Month (MoM) on the App Store and up 63.4% MoM on Google Play, which was the highest revenue in the year. Gamers were also surprised that the game's Japanese version generated a revenue of over 10 billion yen in one month.

Unlike the old yet popular [FGO], [Uma Musume Pretty Derby] didn't make a good performance. First, the revenue of its Japanese version went down on both the App Store and Google Play, down 25% MoM on the App Store and 13.4% MoM on Google Play. Due to the stupidity of its operator Kakao Games, the game's South Korean version (released in June) saw a rapid collapse in its reputation, its rating dropped to 1.4 on Google Play, and its revenue declined by 33.2% MoM on Google Play in August.

In addition to the above 2 games, a few more games stood out in revenue:

Tencent's shooter games were still on the rise. In August, [Call of Duty®: Mobile] released a brand-new version "New Vision City", introducing the gameplay of "Ghost in the Shell: SAC_2045". The game grossed nearly $15 million in revenue from the App Store in August, up 38.3% MoM.

[PUBG Mobile] announced its collaboration with Blackpink, the most successful Kpop girl group in South Korea in August, including an online concert by virtual humans in game and an updated voice packet of Blackpink in game. Thanks to the metaverse concert and the participation of the idols, the game generated over $40 million in revenue from the App Store and Google Play combined.

Top 20 by Download

Let's move to the overall downloads of global mobile games in August: TikTok boosted the popularity of old games, and dog head games was newly ranked on the App Store and Google Play.

[Subway Surfers] received about 19 million downloads on Google Play in August, up 2.7% MoM. Most of its downloads were from India (accounting for 24.3%), Brazil, and Pakistan. With its novel and fun gameplay of racing and driven by the influence of TikTok's web celebrity lexakt_, [Subway Surfers] triggered a wave of racing in Brazil. For instance, there was an amazingly huge number of Brazilian gamers ranked on the global racing rankings of [Subway Surfers].

The old parkour game [Temple Run] was popular again on social media thanks to the funny live-action parkour videos. The game got over 10.3 million downloads on Google Play, up 30.4% MoM. According to sources, recently Warner Bros considered producing a film adapted from [Temple Run]. [Talking Tom Gold Run], another game of the Talking Tom series, took a spot on the chart with about 2 million downloads on the App Store in August, up 26.7% MoM.

[Antistress] is a casual mobile game released by JindoBlu in November 2016. With its simple gameplay and diversified new items, the game attracted gamers' attention again through TikTok receiving  8.4 million downloads on Google Play in August. [Save the Doge], a casual game of Wonder Game, was new on the charts of Google Play and the App Store. Thanks to its eye-catching dog heads, massive ads, and gameplay of drawing lines, the game was a big surprise in August and rapidly popular in advertising. It had been downloaded a total of 12.5 million times.

Top 20 by Advertising

Let's take a look at the advertising charts which were changed quite a lot.

There were totally 27 new advertisers on the charts because many new mobile games started advertising massively in August. Dog heads gained much popularity. There were 3 new mobile games with dog head icons on the top 20 advertising chart in August, including:

• [英雄戰紀], a game of Bingchuan Network, had a total of 4400 creatives released on the App Store and Google Play combined, mainly in China's Hong Kong, Macao, and Taiwan regions.
•  [X-HERO], a game of Bingchuan Network, had 1300 creatives released on iOS mainly in Switzerland, the UK, and the United States.
• [Epic Heroes], a game of Dinosaur Games, had the most creatives, with 6600 creatives released on Android mainly in Brazil, Indonesia, and the United States.

SpringGame's MMO mobile game [엑자일: 어벤징 파이어] started advertising on August 9 and had released over 3400 creatives on the App Store and Google Play combined. Eskyfun's metaverse MMO mobile game [時之約] started advertising on July 27 and had released over 6000 creatives on the App Store and Google Play combined, mainly in China's Hong Kong, Macao, and Taiwan regions, and Singapore and Malaysia.

There were fewer creatives for puzzle casual mobile games. Compared to July, [Word Trip] and [Daily Themed Crossword] fell out of the charts. Popular game advertiser [Coloring Book!] had about 2900 creatives on the App Store and Google Play, down 55.4% MoM, and down 17 spots on the charts.