Global Mobile Games in Feb.｜Dumb Ways to Die gained popularity through TikTok to surpass 0.1 billion downloads
With the aid of its App Intelligence and other modules, SocialPeta sorted out the top 20 global mobile games by advertising, revenue, and download in February 2023, 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 February:
- Modo Global released a new RPG [Rage Mage], which also goes with parkour mini-games;
- Though competition was intense among female-targeted games, the dress-up game [Magic Princess] achieved 4 million downloads;
- The Dragon Ball mobile game reported dramatic revenue growth of 106% on its 8th anniversary, proof of the long-lasting influence of this Japanese IP;
- Century Games released an apocalyptic simulation game, recording an increase in both downloads and revenue;
- The old game Dumb Ways to Die gained popularity through TikTok surpassing 0.1 billion downloads.
Top 20 by Advertising
[Street Fighter] mobile game, the first mobile game in the series of [Street Fighter] published by A PLUS JAPAN, was finally launched on 28 February. This fighting game franchise was started in 1987 by the Japanese game company Capcom. As an authentic [Street Fighter] mobile game, it features the fighting style of the original Street Fighter. There're many classic fighters in-game, perfect stage scenes, and smooth move controls.
According to SocialPeta's Advertiser Analysis, [Street Fighter] had 3400 deduplicated creatives in February. The details are as follows:
- As for its advertising platforms, puzzle, reading, and action media platforms were among the top 3;
- Main regions of advertising were America, Canada, and Australia;
- 72.35% of its total creatives were video in the past 30 days.
The creatives for the [Street Fighter] mobile game obviously targeted [Street Fighter] fans and fighting game lovers. Its recent creatives mainly fell into the following 3 types:
- Live-action advertising: People who used to love playing [Street Fighter] for the arcades now love playing [Street Fighter] mobile game;
- Concept art and moves of popular characters. Among them, Chun-Li, Ryu, and Ken were more frequently seen;
- Gameplay. Ultimate skills of both sides.
A PLUS JAPAN was established in 2019 with its main businesses including game copyright authorization and global publishing, giving this publisher a big advantage in terms of mobile games adapted from Japanese anime or games. In September 2022, A PLUS JAPAN completed a new funding round that included investment from SIG and SONY.
Modo Global's fantasy RPG [Rage Mage] released a lot of creatives. With nearly 5000 deduplicated creatives in February, the game ranked among the Top 20 games by advertising for both operating systems. More information about its creatives on Android is as follows:
- As for its advertising platforms, board, simulation, and strategy media platforms were among the top 3;
- Most of its creatives were released on Meta platforms, or more precisely, on FB News Feed;
- Most of its creatives were video and image, with video creatives accounting for over 83.6%;
- [Rage Mage]'s creative copies concentrated on gacha, lots of rewards, English voices, playing offline, and other game features.
Top 20 by Revenue
Games with excellent revenue on the App Store in February:
- [ドラゴンボールZ ドッカンバトル], a mobile game based on the Dragon Ball franchise and released by Bandai Namco Entertainment, celebrated its 8th anniversary in February, reporting a revenue growth of 106% MoM;
- Square Enix, one of Japan's major game companies, launched a lesbian RPG [トワツガイ] on 14 February, grossing about $2.10 million in revenue in that month;
- [卡利兹傅說], a Japanese-style MMO developed by Zlongame and published by Game Beans, soon gained much popularity with gamers in China's Hong Kong, Macao, and Taiwan regions, thanks to its high quality and massive media buyings. The game generated revenue of as much as $14.10 million in February.
Games with excellent revenue on Google Play in February:
- [Family Island], a farm simulator game released by Melsoft, launched its event "Love Island" for Valentine's Day and regularly released several updates, reaching a revenue of $11.60 million;
- Century Games' new simulation game [Frozen City] is a light but attractive game set in an ice and snow apocalypse. Thanks to its regular weekly events, the game realized revenue growth of 37.5% MoM in February;
- [Eversoul], a freshly released bishōjo RPG, grossed a revenue of over $5 million in February. The game was published by the South Korean game company Kakao Games on 3 January.
Top 20 by Download
According to the February downloads of global mobile games, games outstanding with downloads on the App Store in February:
- [Dumb Ways to Die], a casual mobile game published in 2013, gained great popularity again through TikTok hashtags, and achieved over 3 million downloads in February, representing over 100 million downloads in total.
- [Chess], an old puzzle game launched in 2019, also rose to popularity again. In order to acquire more users, [Chess] promoted through live streams on YouTube, established harmonious and lively communities for users, and held The 2023 World Chess Championship offering a prize money of USD 2 million. Thanks to all those activities, the game recorded 3 million downloads in February and remained on the chart of top free games on iOS in the US for several days.
- [Parking Jam 3D], a Klotski puzzle mobile game released by Popcore GmbH, was outstanding with its downloads, 62% of which were contributed by its users in the US.
Games outstanding with downloads on Google Play in February:
- ABI, the game publisher in Vietnam, specializes in makeup ASMR simulator games. After its [Makeover & Makeup ASMR] ranked among the top 4 on the chart by download in January, its new makeup game [Makeover salon] appeared on the chart in February with nearly 9 million downloads.
- The puzzle mobile game [Thief Puzzle] won great popularity thanks to its great creativity in gameplay as well as its funny and dramatic stories about thieves. The game recorded about 7.5 million downloads in February.
- [Magic Princess], a princess dress-up mobile game released by YoYo Dress Up Games, achieved over 4 million downloads in February, making it one of the most downloaded female-targeted dress-up games.
