PUBG’s 5th Anniversary Drove Its Revenue Growth & Street Fighter Mobile Game Topped The Global Downloads Chart

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 March 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 March:

• [Street Fighter Duel], a game in the Street Fighter series, enjoyed explosive popularity on X Corp (formerly named Twitter), topping the downloads chart in the US with 7.20 million downloads in March;
• After [Dead by Daylight Mobile]’s global release, the game reached 1.90 million downloads on the App Store;
• [Mighty Doom] is a spin-off for mobile in the “Doom” series with its gameplay resembling Habby’s [Archero]. The game had 5.80 million downloads on the App Store;
• Lilith Games’ new SLG [Call of Dragons] released a total of 4700 creatives in March;
• [NIKKE] had a collaboration with Chainsaw Man, grossing $13 million in revenue on Google Play.

Top 20 by Advertising

1. Updates of mini-game media buying

Mini-game media buying was still popular. [Mighty Party] changed its icon twice in March, a rapid shift in game mode from dog heads to linking the same color. According to SocialPeta’s Advertiser Analysis, [Mighty Party] had 10K deduplicated creatives in March. Its advertising on Android is as follows:

• As for its advertising platforms, casual media ranked No.1, accounting for as high as 66.45%, followed by education media;
• The game advertised in as many as 64 countries/regions, among which Canada, South Korea, and the US contributed the most ad creatives in March;
• 99.17% of its total creatives were video in the last 30 days;
• Many puzzle ad creatives were released and were very effective in advertising.

2. Latest sequels to famous IPs

[Ragnarok Origin Global], an MMO sequel to [Ragnarok Online], was released for Google Play on 23 February, 2023 and later for the App Store on 5 April. According to SocialPeta’s Advertiser Analysis, [Ragnarok Origin Global] started advertising on 4 March and had about 7600 deduplicated creatives in March. Its advertising on Android is as follows:

• As for its advertising platforms, board, reading, and puzzle media were among the top 3;
• Most of its creatives were video and image, with video creatives accounting for over 84.45%;
• As for the languages of its creatives, English, Thai, and Indonesian were among the top 3;
• [Ragnarok Origin Global]’s advertising copies centered around [Ragnarok Online], and frequently used keywords including the MMO gameplay terms such as collect, social, and login rewards.

3. New games inspired by videos on TikTok

Among all hyper-casual mobile games, the big hit ones have always been the games featuring simulated reality, which were mostly inspired by relaxing short videos on TikTok, such as videos hashtagged with popping pimples, haircut, and tooth extraction. The hyper-casual game company Rollic noticed the hashtag “carpet-cleaning” on TikTok, and released its new game [Pressure Washing Run] in Q1 2023 by combining classic parkour with carpet cleaning.

[Pressure Washing Run] is not a complicated game to play. In game, players search for items to get more water and higher spraying speeds to clean dirty furniture. The “carpet cleaning” stage updated on 16 February was key to the game’s explosive popularity.

First of all, the viral video hashtagged “carpet-cleaning” had about 4 billion views on TikTok alone.

Secondly, Rollic developed an appropriate advertising strategy. According to SocialPeta’s Advertiser Analysis, [Pressure Washing Run] had about 5000 deduplicated creatives in March, representing a growth of over 600% MoM.

Besides, [Pressure Washing Run] made a good move by starting its creatives with a 3-second live-action clip. Those popular carpet-cleaning videos were aimed at people who were interested in casual games, trying to win popularity by reaching more potential users.

Also read: SocialPeta Releases Whitepaper On Global Mobile Marketing

ONESOFT and Matchingham Games also had several games that stood out with their advertising.

Matchingham Games’ games on the chart:

• [Braindom] had a total of 8800 creatives on Android and iOS in March;
• [Braindom 2] had 4700 creatives on Android in March;
• [Braindom Draw Puzzle] had 3800 creatives on Android in March.

ONESOFT’s games on the chart:

• [1945 – Airplane shooting games] had a total of 7300 creatives on Android and iOS in March;
• [Galaxiga] had 1700 creatives on iOS in March.

Top 20 by Revenue

Games with excellent revenue on the App Store in March:

• Following its 2nd-anniversary celebration in February which helped it get to the top of the App Store game chart in Japan, [Uma Musume Pretty Derby] launched a few events in March, including Part 3 and 4 of “2nd Anniversary キャンペーン” and the story event “Leap into a New World”, leading to a revenue growth of 303.6% MoM.
• [PUBG MOBILE] celebrated its 5th anniversary by offering a new in-built tool for creating custom maps, Subway Escape, and many other new game modes. The game grossed as much as $21.80 million in revenue in March, an increase of 32.1% MoM.

Games with excellent revenue on Google Play in March:

• The classic game [Summoners War] began its Assassin’s Creed collaboration in March, resulting in a revenue growth of 111.6% MoM.
• [NIKKE] is an ACG game launched globally by Tencent. It had a collaboration with “Chainsaw Man” during the period from 22 February to 14 March and added a new popular character “Makima Off-Coat Skin” on 2 March. The game grossed $13 million in revenue in March.
• [데블M] is a dark fantasy adventure MMO game launched by 37Games. Thanks to its plenty of free benefits and constant advertising, the game realized a revenue of $8.5 million in March, an increase of 14.9% MoM.

Top 20 by Download

Games outstanding with downloads on the App Store in March:

• [Street Fighter Duel], an RPG game in the Street Fighter series, was published by Crunchyrol Games and had 7.2 million downloads in March, with 83.1% of its downloads contributed by US players.
• [Mighty Doom], a spin-off for mobile in the Doom series, was launched on 22 March. Because of the newly-added Roguelike mode, its gameplay resembles Habby’s [Archero]. Thanks to its popular Roguelike mode and classic IP, [Mighty DOOM] achieved 5.8 million downloads in March, most of which were from the US, Mexico, and the UK.
• Immediately after its release on 29 March, the ACG RPG [Avatars Saga] topped the App Store free game chart in the US. The game accumulated 4 million downloads worldwide in March.
• After its global release, the asymmetric survival game [Dead by Daylight Mobile] reached 1.90 million downloads in March, most of which were contributed by the US, Brazil, and Mexico;

Games outstanding with downloads on Google Play in March:

• The simulation mobile game [DIY Paper Doll] was launched by CrazyLabs in November 2022. In the game, players create their custom paper dolls through a makeup and dress-up simulation system. The game features an art style of young kids in Europe and America. Its ad creatives increased by 52% MoM in March and global downloads by 314.3% MoM to reach 8.7 million downloads.
• [Fashion Famous], a dress-up mobile game published in January 2023, garnered great popularity thanks to its cute art style, distinctive dress-up themes, and characteristic dress-up ways. The game achieved 6.60 million downloads globally in March, and 20% of which were from the US.
• IGG’s [Doomsday: Last Survivors] is a zombie survival SLG based on the wasteland background, multiplayer online competition, and real-time strategy elements. After several phases of testing and its release in many regions, [Doomsday] was released in Japan, South Korea, Taiwan (China), and other regions in March 2023. The game’s downloads increased by 390% MoM globally, thanks to its high quality and its release in new regions.