Data & Research

What's going on with Brawl Stars? Supercell's 2018 game is having a major payday

While 2023 was a perfectly good year for Brawl Stars the past two months have seen the game's earnings go stratospheric

What's going on with Brawl Stars? Supercell's 2018 game is having a major payday

There's something going on with Supercell's Brawl Stars and for the game's owner - a company well known for ditching titles that even show a glimmer of underperforming - it's very good news indeed.

Typically Brawl Stars - a hero shooter released in 2018, inspired by the on-trend battle royale genre of the time - has earned around $200,000 to $400,000 in revenue on a good day. This performance has cooled off since $1m+ launch peaks in 2018 through to 2020, and has gone on to have a successful but not ‘Supercell stellar’ showing through 2022 and 2023.

All in all a good performer for the notoriously pernickety Supercell.

However, more recent figures show a surprisingly upturn in fortunes, as highlighted by Gamemakers and data from data.ai. 

Following the settling outlined above which continued all through 2023 a dramatic rise in daily earnings began in November 2023 and continued through December 2023 putting the game back at the peak of its success. The game - which has seen improvements and tweaks along with some additional visible marketing throughout its life - is now pulling in big numbers that are defying logic and placing it high on Supercell’s own rankings. 

Following peak figures of around $500K earnings earlier in 2023 - the game routinely peaks in earnings at the beginning of each month with the release of a Brawlpass purchase - earnings peaked at an eye-popping $2m per day on January 4 2024 according to data from data.ai. 

Promos done right

These are figures that the game has not enjoyed since it’s launch and December peak in 2018 and would appear to come squarely off the back of the company's annual Brawlidays event which saw the game go 'hypercharged' to celebrate it's fifth birthday.

As part of the recent promo a new mythic brawler named Mico made his entrance, joining Lola and Grey in Brawlyhood. Mico, along with five other brawlers - Fang, Edgard, Crow, Dynamike, Leon were also -hypercharged, giving them extra power during the event.

The graphs below from Appmagic data show the kind of turnaround that's taken place with 2023 ending on a high for the game.

 

Interestingly the phenomenon has been an international affair with results from the US, Brazil, home country Finland and more all showing the same spike in interest. At the time of writing the game is still enjoying $1m+ start of the month spikes - almost double its performance one year earlier. Not bad for a five-years-and-a-month old game.

Full marks to Supercell and their promo team. Whatever they're doing, it's working.

Editor - PocketGamer.biz

Daniel Griffiths is a veteran journalist who has worked on some of the biggest entertainment media brands in the world. He's interviewed countless big names, and covered countless new releases in the fields of videogames, music, movies, tech, gadgets, home improvement, self build, interiors and garden design. Yup, he said garden design… He’s the ex-Editor of PSM2, PSM3, GamesMaster and Future Music, ex-Deputy Editor of The Official PlayStation Magazine and ex-Group Editor-in-Chief of Electronic Musician, Guitarist, Guitar World, Rhythm, Computer Music and more. He hates talking about himself.