This article is part of an ongoing series of data-driven articles from PocketGamer.biz and App Annie, highlighting trends in the global mobile games sector using App Annie’s Game IQ analytics.
Game IQ enables mobile game developers to dig into the data and discover not only which games are performing best but what characteristics they have.
In this week’s column, we’re looking at the most downloaded mobile games in the Core classification, which includes highly competitive subgenres such as MOBA, FPS and action RPG.
Starting a riot
Riding high in the top position is Tencent and Riot Games’ League of Legends: Wild Rift, which is the official mobile version of the decade-long PC MOBA phenomenon.
It was initially launched on 28th October 2020 as a regional open beta in key APAC markets - Japan, South Korea and Southeast Asia.
“From December 2020, this was further expanded to Europe, Middle East and Russia, making it the most downloaded game in Germany, Spain and Italy during the month,” comments Amir Ghodrati, Director of Market Insights, App Annie.
League of Legends: Wild Rift was the most downloaded game in Germany, Spain and Italy in December.
“As of 22nd January 2021, League of Legends: Wild Rift was able to hit #1 Overall Downloads ranking on both iOS App Store and Google Play in at least 30 markets.”
However, many of the games in this global ranking list are much less well known than Wild Rift.
Indeed, many of their titles are highly generic, demonstrating the importance of keywords in terms of optimised marketing and appeal. Modern Strike: Multiplayer FPS is an excellent example of this approach, as is the name of its developer Enjoy GameStudio Fun.
Pakistan-based developer Finz is another making creative use of maximal naming strategy with the likes of Virtual Gym Fighting: Real BodyBuilder Fight and Tag Team Karate Fighting Games: Kung Fu Master.
Yet there are high-quality titles from globally-known developers too, most notably miHoYo’s Genshin Impact at #4.
“After a successful launch in September 2020, Genshin Impact maintained its momentum in Q4 2020 as it continued to generate new from gamers around the world downloads,” Ghodrati notes.
Originally released in South Korea in early 2020, Netmarble’s dark action RPG A3: Still Alive is also continuing to hold a top 10 ranking thanks to the global release later in 2020.
Game IQ is a vertically tailored analytics product, developed by App Annie, that provides insight into dimensions such as class, genre, subgenre and tags. Games can now be analyzed by broad category class (tuning), genre, subgenre, and tags (modifiers) such as IP, art style, settings, monetization mechanic, and more.
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