Chinese games made over $600 million in the US market for the first half of 2018 alone, according to App Annie.

As translated by Technode, the haul represents a 52 per cent increase year-on-year from 2017. Downloads also increased across the US iOS App Store and Google Play by 54 per cent, which is close to 200 million downloads.

Regarding genre, action stood out as the most popular concerning downloads, with Tencent’s PUBG Mobile coming out on top followed by NetEase’s Terminator 2: Judgement Day ranked third.

Strategy gamers, however, still took the lion’s share when it came to revenue. FunPlus’s Guns of Glory and King of Avalon: Dragon Warfare took the top and third spots while IGG’s Lords Mobile took second.

Looking abroad

The report follows somewhat contrasting fortunes for China’s domestic games market. Due to China’s State Administration of Radio and Television not approving any new games since March 2018 industry growth has slowed.

According to Beijing-based research firm CNG and China’s official gaming association GPC, the games market had grown five per cent year-on-year to $15 billion. While an impressive figure it’s reportedly the first time the market grew by a single-digit since 2009.

Mobile games are said to have felt the pinch the hardest with year-on-year growth slowing down from 50 per cent to 13 per cent, despite mobile gamers making up 458 million of the total 527 million of people that make up China’s gamer base.