Japanese franchise Yokai Watch celebrated its 10th anniversary in July, and this milestone has driven the success of the franchise’s mobile title Yokai Watch Punipuni.

The franchise was born with the release of the original 3DS game Yokai Watch in 2013, which was soon followed by a mobile adaptation, Yokai Watch 1 Smartphone.

Yokai Watch Punipuni was released in 2016, and saw strong growth from July 1 to July 16 2023, with revenue increasing threefold compared to the same period in 2022, bringing its total recorded revenue to over $600 million.

The game proved even more successful in terms of downloads, increasing 800% in Japanese store rankings from July 1 to July 16 compared to the same period of 2022.

Compared to June 30, the day before the anniversary event, the game stood at number 29 in terms of revenue and number 14 in terms of downloads, but July 1 saw the game jump to number 12 and 2, respectively. Since then, the game has remained within the top 10 in both charts almost consistently.

Analysing success

According to Sensor Tower data, the growth puts Yokai Watch Punipuni in fourth place in the Japanese market in terms of revenue growth from July 1 to July 16. In terms of download growth the game placed second, with only MLB 9 Innings Rivals, released in July, pulling ahead.

As part of the event, developer Level-5 ran an event where players could get rewards for inviting their friends to play. Additionally, the company aimed at retargeting players who had not played since June 24.

In addition, the developer ran a campaign on X (formerly Twitter) where players were rewarded with Y points - a form of in-game currency - based on the number of reposts recorded, achieving more than 200 thousand. This campaign helped the game’s revenue jump to $4.5 million from July 1 to July 7.

Earlier this month, Sensor Tower reported that arena and adventure games are set to exceed $4.7 billion in revenue this year.