Global Mobile Games in September｜ Genshin Impact makes a transition insanely

With the aid of App Intelligence and other SocialPeta modules, we sorted out the top 20 global mobile games by revenue, downloads, and advertising in September 2022. The report was prepared to help people in the mobile app industry better understand changing trends in the global mobile market.

The overall performance of global mobile games in September included several notable trends:

• Genshin Impact carried out extensive collaborations as part of a broader brand transition, while its second-anniversary celebration did not produce significant overall revenue growth.
• With funny pigeon-themed creatives and high-quality advertising, Survivor.io ranked among leading games for both downloads and revenue.
• Stickman creatives were popular, and Stick Hero, a game newly released in August, surpassed 10 million downloads on Google Play.
• Spot-the-difference gameplay became an increasingly visible casual-game trend, with titles in the category releasing thousands of advertising creatives.

First, let's look at the revenue performance of global mobile games in September.

Survivor.io Breaks Through in Casual Game Monetization

The newly popular Survivor.io — known in China as 弹壳特攻队 — continued gaining popularity and helped break the long-standing perception of weak in-app purchase performance among casual games.

Its momentum was supported by a combination of casual and Roguelike gameplay together with a carefully designed top-up system. According to SocialPeta App Intelligence data, Survivor.io grossed more than $30 million in combined App Store and Google Play revenue, while releasing roughly 163 creatives per day.

Genshin Impact Shifts Attention Toward Brand Building

Genshin Impact launched an intensive marketing campaign in September, including online activities ahead of its second anniversary and numerous offline collaborations.

During a particularly busy period, the game announced offline collaborations involving perfume, food and beverage, newspapers, and other consumer products.

Anime-style gacha games often reach one of their strongest annual revenue peaks around anniversary celebrations. In September, however, Genshin Impact recorded revenue growth of more than 20% MoM on the App Store while its Google Play revenue declined by nearly 17% MoM.

The pattern suggested that the globally recognized Genshin Impact IP was placing greater emphasis on long-term brand building rather than relying solely on anniversary-driven sales growth.

With a broad range of collaborations and crossover projects, including anime and manga adaptations, miHoYo was included in the annual list of "Top 10 Practice Cases of Digital Innovation in Culture and Tourism" announced by China's Ministry of Culture and Tourism on October 8.

Ragnarok Online Spin-Off Finds Early Success

RO仙境傳說：愛如初見, a spin-off based on the long-running Ragnarok Online franchise, was released by Gravity Game Vision.

The title became popular soon after release thanks to classic MMO gameplay, its recreation of Rune-Midgarts, and nostalgic references to the original franchise. The game generated more than $16 million in App Store revenue during September.

The game also signed an endorsement partnership with singer Wayne Lim Jun Jie, who performed a song for the title. Celebrity endorsements of this kind were a common advertising strategy in Hong Kong, Macao, and Taiwan.

Established and New MMO Titles Remain Competitive

September's rankings contained several new releases, while established titles continued to maintain stable revenue across the App Store and Google Play.

Korean MMO mobile games remained particularly visible in Google Play revenue performance. 히트2, released on August 22, was described in the original report as the No. 2 highest-grossing game on the App Store.

히트2 supports cross-platform play across three platforms and is a spin-off of Heroes of Incredible Tales (HIT). Its existing franchise recognition helped it attract attention similar to the earlier Korean MMO hit ODIN: Valhalla Rising.

Next, the September download rankings showed how dog-head advertising creatives helped games climb the charts, while a stickman game entered Google Play's top 10.

X-HERO Rises with Dog-Head Mini-Game Creatives

X-HERO, an American-style card game from Bingchuan Network, was one of the titles most heavily associated with dog-head advertising creatives.

The game topped the U.S. App Store free-game chart within four days. Supported by MiniGame updates and innovative advertising creatives, X-HERO recorded a 117.4% month-over-month increase in App Store downloads.

Save the Doge Loses Momentum

While Bingchuan Network's game was gaining popularity, one of the earlier dog-head games, Save the Doge, began to lose momentum.

The game recorded more than 10 million Google Play downloads, down 12.4% month-over-month, and dropped five positions, falling out of the download top 10.

Stick Hero Turns a Popular Creative Pattern into a Game

Stick Hero, a stickman tower-defense mobile game, officially launched globally on August 25.

Its gameplay mainly revolves around comparing numbers and climbing towers. The title represented a successful example of turning a popular advertising-creative pattern into a full mobile game.

One of its most recognizable features was its use of stick-figure recreations inspired by various IP characters, including characters resembling those from Poppy Playtime.

The game received more than 90,000 Google Play reviews in September, held a rating of 4.7 out of 5, and had accumulated more than 10 million downloads.

Advertising rankings changed significantly in September. Many games had launched during the summer holiday period, and their updated operating strategies and advertising creatives reshaped the iOS and Android charts.

Two new titles reached the top positions in mobile game advertising.

1945 and 英雄戰紀 Lead iOS and Android Advertising

The No. 1 title on iOS was casual shooter 1945 - Airplane shooting games, which recorded approximately 2,500 deduplicated creatives during September.

On Android, Bingchuan Network's 英雄戰紀 ranked first with approximately 7,400 deduplicated creatives during the month.

In addition to scaling its creative volume, 英雄戰紀 quickly replaced its dog-head icon with a parking-puzzle icon and began releasing parking-puzzle advertising creatives.

Overmortal Scales Paid User Acquisition

Overmortal, the global version of 一念逍遥, was released on the App Store on September 20 and began large-scale media buying across both the App Store and Google Play during the month.

The game released more than 7,000 deduplicated creatives in September, placing it among the top 10 games by advertising.

Spot-the-Difference Creatives Gain Visibility

Spot-the-difference games also became increasingly active in advertising.

Define - Find the Difference on iOS had started advertising in October 2021 and recorded around 1,300 deduplicated creatives in September 2022.

On Android, Find the Difference had advertised for more than 204 days and accumulated more than 5,600 creatives in total, including over 3,300 deduplicated creatives during September alone.

SLG Advertising Begins to Recover

Advertising activity from strategy games also began recovering in September. Titles including Rise of Kingdoms, Last Fortress, and Kingdom Guard returned to the mobile game advertising rankings.

September 2022 illustrated how revenue, download momentum, and advertising scale could tell very different stories about the same mobile game market.

• Survivor.io combined strong download momentum with meaningful revenue performance.
• Genshin Impact's anniversary period highlighted a growing emphasis on brand collaborations rather than purely revenue-oriented campaigns.
• X-HERO and Stick Hero showed how advertising-native gameplay and creative concepts could translate into strong download growth.
• Large creative volumes, parking-puzzle concepts, and spot-the-difference gameplay shaped September's advertising rankings.
• SLG advertising activity began recovering as several established strategy games returned to the rankings.

That concludes SocialPeta's review of global mobile game revenue and downloads across the App Store and Google Play, together with mobile game advertising insights for September 2022.