The Charticle

Which Marvel games are beating up the US top grossing charts?

Super heroes and villains

Which Marvel games are beating up the US top grossing charts?

Star War aside, there's no more significant licence in the world of F2P mobile games at the present than Marvel.

Thanks to a strong and large array of characters and regular movies to help market and re-engage audience, Marvel is the licence that just keeps on giving.

As Disney isn't tiring of pointing out, it owes both of the IPs, and it's been pretty open in terms of the number of companies it's allowed to use the licences.

Star Wars is being used by EA, Konami, Rovio, Kabam and Warner Bros., while Marvel games have been published by Netmarble, TinyCo, D3P and Kabam.

But which are performing the best?

We recently considered the hierarchy of Star Wars games, so now it's time to turn the Charticle's attention to Marvel.

Just marvelous

Given the US-centric nature of Marvel, for this article, we're just considering the US iPhone grossing chart, and on that basis, there's one clear winner.

Released in December 2014, Kabam's Marvel: Contest of Champions was famously the company's fastest F2P game to deliver $100 million in revenue.

And it's by far the most successful of the Marvel games currently on the App Store.

It launched into a top 50 grossing position, and since February 2015 has been a strong performer in the top 20, with an upwards momentum that now sees the title a solid top 15 game.

Thanks to a strong array of characters and regular movies, Marvel is the licence that just keeps on giving.

And given Kabam's recent troubles, it remains the company's top performer too.

Clustered together

The next three Marvel games don't reach the heights of Contest of Champions.

As you can see, we've changed the graphs' scale from a top 25 to a top 200.

Nevertheless, each game should be seen as a solid financial success.

In second place comes US developer TinyCo's Marvel: Avengers Academy.

Released in February 2016, it came in for a certain amount of criticism thanks to its heavily time-gated gameplay, but it launched into the top 100 grossing chart, and like Contest of Champions has been on an upwards trajectory.

After slipping into the #150-200 range, its April 2016 update, which added the Guardians of the Galaxy characters in a special limited time event, gave the game a strong boost into the top 50.

It's dropped somewhat since then, but still remains a solid top 100 title.

Korean skills

Less high profile in terms of media coverage, nevertheless Korean publisher Netmarble's Marvel Future Fight, which was launched in May 2015, has performed very well too.

It launched into the top 50 grossing chart, before settling into a long stint within the top 100 during the remainder of 2015.

In 2016, the game slowly started slipping down, finding itself in the top 150, but the recent update coinciding with the Captain America: Civil War movie has provided a strong upwards boost, taking Marvel Future Fight back into the top 50.

Old favourite

The oldest game we're considering is D3P's Marvel: Puzzle Quest.

A themed version of the popular match-3 puzzler, the game, which was released in October 2013, has followed a traditional grossing trajectory.

Post-launch, it built slowly and solidly, becoming a top 50 grossing game in late 2014. Since then, it's been in slow decline; currently it's a top 150 grossing title.

Failure to launch

The biggest surprise, however, is that the newest game and one directly developed by Disney has been the weakest performer of the five games we're considering.

At PocketGamer.biz, Marvel: Avengers Alliance 2 is a game we've discussed at length in terms of the competition and its lack of features such as auto-play.

How significant these elements are in its performance is unclear; the fact it's a sequel to a four-year-old Facebook game is another obvious factor.

But whatever the reasons, Avengers Alliance 2 hasn't yet found its audience.

Its highest position on the US iPhone top grossing chart is 200 - note another change of graph scale - and more recently it's been slipping down.

Currently it's outside the top 300.

Player numbers

In conclusion, another way of looking at the games is via SurveyMonkey's estimated MAUs.

All the games have a very stable audience. 

Marvel: Contest of Champions is well in the lead with around 1.5 million MAUs, while Marvel: Avengers Academy shades Marvel Future Fight 700,000 to 600,000.

Marvel: Puzzle Quest is down at around 180,000, while Marvel: Avengers Alliance 2 hasn't been around long enough for SurveyMonkey to generate a result.

Contributing Editor

A Pocket Gamer co-founder, Jon is Contributing Editor at PG.biz which means he acts like a slightly confused uncle who's forgotten where he's left his glasses. As well as letters and cameras, he likes imaginary numbers and legumes.