Supercell’s stylised action game Brawl Stars has passed $2bn in lifetime revenue, placing it in the extremely rare double-unicorn club.

According to the latest Data.ai figures, Brawl Stars joins only 52 other mobile apps and games to have reached the milestone, and is Supercell’s fourth title to reach the mark. The title also stands as the highest revenue generating game in the action/brawl genre, as well as being the top in terms of downloads.

Over the last 12 months, Brawl Stars has topped the download charts in Brazil, with Türkiye and the United States as runners up. This leads up to a total of 37m million downloads in the last 12 months, and a lifetime total of 376m. In the last 12 months, the United States has been the top source of revenue at over $40m while South Korea was the runner-up at $16.7m.

Data.ai singles out aspects such as Brawl Stars utilising collaborations, such as with popular Japanese messenger app Line where players could unlock sticker packs (emojis used in the app that other games have also offered). As with fellow Finnish studio Rovio, Supercell have also leveraged these collaborations into real-world merchandise, as well as partnering with major sports entities such as French football club Paris Saint-Germain in 2019.

Super-duper-Cell

Supercell has drawn both criticism and intrigue from observers and other developers for what some view as a harsh culling of underperforming titles. Games such as Everdale - which was picked up by Merge Mansion creator Metacore - and Flood Rush have offered technically innovative, exciting new titles, but have been axed due to their perceived underperformance. It could be argued that this is a needlessly ruthless approach, but if Brawl Stars' double-unicorn status is any indication, it’s a perfectionist strategy that has paid off massively.