It has become an indisputable fact that now mobile games is a major power in the video game industry, with its total revenue reaching $50 billion in the first six months of 2020. Such data is backed by mobile app market intelligence firm Sensor Tower, who has just published their best-selling mobile games chart and while you might be familiar with most of the titles on it, like Pokemon GO, PUBG Mobile, Fortnite, the recently released Brawl Stars, or the extremely infamous gacha game Fate/Grand Order, et cetera, there are also some unknown mobile game names that might raise your eyebrows. What are those games and how did they get that high in the best-selling mobile games chart? Let’s find out more below.
7. Garena Free Fire
With popularity and success, comes copycats. It’s safe to say that Garena Free Fire is one of many mobile battle royale game that tries to cash in on PUBG‘s worldwide wave — and they did it with smashing success, acquiring 27 million downloads with $28 million revenue in Google Play Store and 2 million downloads with $13 million revenue in Apple App Store last month. No wonder it becomes best-selling mobile games. “Garena” itself is not actually a part of the game’s name, but the name of the publisher that’s based on Southeast Asia region, Garena.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MW8QlzbGcXk
6. Coin Master
Honestly, this is the most mind-numbing — but not that surprising — title that ends up as one of the best-selling mobile games this month. Coin Master is literally just a digital slot machine simulator. You roll a slot machine to randomly get coins and a chance to “attack” another village or “defend” yours, repeat ad infinitum. The worst part is, according to Sensor Tower, the game has generated eight million downloads with $34 million in revenue on Google Play Store in June alone. How horrifying.
5. Fantasy Westward Journey
Unlike the previous title, Fantasy Westward Journey seems to be a legit MMORPG on mobile. I don’t know much about it since the developer, NetEase Games, doesn’t provide any English localization but it has quite a robust character modification and lets you run around in a mythical ancient land of China judging from the beta footage above. Apparently, this is a pretty popular mobile game in China since NetEase has made a sequel on PC, spinoffs both on mobile and PC, and also a tie-in cartoon series (which you can easily watch with English subtitle on YouTube).
Fantasy Westward Journey is noticeably more popular in Apple App Store, with 100.000 downloads and $29 million revenue; compared to around 5.000 downloads and $500.000 revenue in Play Store.
4. Three Kingdoms: Strategy Edition
Considering this title is using the Chinese classic Romance of the Three Kingdoms story as its theme, you might think this is another Chinese-made game. But no, this is a mobile game adaptation of Three Kingdoms strategy game series made by Japanese-based developer, Koei Tecmo (although to be fair this mobile adaptation is made by a Chinese company called Lingxi Games, Inc.). With 200.000 downloads Three Kingdoms: Strategy Edition generated $43 million in revenue just last month alone.
3. Monster Strike
While this is one name that’s not well-known outside its home country, Monster Strike is one of the best-selling mobile games of all time in Japan. It was launched back in 2013 and by 2019 it’s been said that the game has generated $8.12 billion revenue and has been adapted into an anime series along with two different theatrical anime film adaptations. The third movie was going to launch in June 2020 but still delayed to an undetermined time. Monster Strike managed to get $37 million sales with 70.000 downloads based on Sensor Tower’s data for last month.
2. Lineage M
You might not realize it but this extremely popular South Korean MMORPG series continues to live through mobile platforms with Lineage M. First released in 2017, this best-selling mobile game end up raking in more than $1.2 billion in the next year. In the previous month, it manages to grab another $700.000 sales through Google Play Store.
1. Honor of Kings
While League of Legends and Dota 2 dominates the PC MOBA scene, on mobile, there is another unfamiliar name: it’s called Honor of Kings (or Arena of Valor for the global release). With 119 million active users in China alone and a total of 200 million players worldwide, it’s no wonder even back in 2017 Nintendo announced they made a deal with Tencent to port one of the best-selling mobile games ever to Nintendo Switch. For June 2020 Arena of Valor version has made $400.000 revenue with 200.000 downloads in Google Play and $300.000 revenue and 50.000 downloads; while Honor of Kings made $128 million revenue along with two million downloads.
Considering there could be 113 thousand mobile games released each month, it’s no wonder that many titles end up as best-selling mobile games that you might have never heard before. Any interest in trying any of them, or have you ever played one yourself? Tell us about it in the comments below!