Hot Five: Wuthering Waves makes $317m in first year, Scopely closes $3.5bn Niantic deal, and Epic Games Store hits 40m mobile installs

To help get you primed and ready for another week in mobile gaming, we’ve curated the biggest stories you need to know from the last seven days.

1) Wuthering Waves celebrates first anniversary with $317.3m on mobile and Los Angeles celebration

Kuro Games' Wuthering Waves generated $317.3 million during its first year on mobile, according to AppMagic estimates.

The anniversary month, May, saw mobile player spending reach its third-highest in the game’s lifetime at $31.5m. Players also gathered to celebrate the first anniversary for an in-person event at The Majestic, Los Angeles.

2) Roblox game Grow a Garden beats Steam with record concurrent user high of 8.9m

Roblox-based gardening and pet simulator Grow a Garden has reached a record 8.9m concurrent users, the most concurrent users in a single Roblox experience ever.

This high was also more than double Steam’s individual game record, at approximately 3.2m with BUPG: Battlegrounds back in 2018. More recent hits like Black Myth: Wukong and Palworld have peaked at 2.4m and 2.1m respectively.

3) Pokémon Go under new ownership as Scopely closes $3.5bn Niantic deal

Scopely has closed its $3.5 billion acquisition of Niantic’s licenced games business, bringing AR games Pokémon Go, Monster Hunter Now and Pikmin Bloom under its control alongside their dev teams.

The deal was officially closed on May 29th, 2025, 11 weeks after the acquisition plan was publicly announced.

4) Tim Sweeney: "Revenue is shifting away from useless gatekeepers and middlemen"

Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney appeared on stage during the State of Unreal presentation at Unreal Fest 2025 to highlight legislative changes on mobile and celebrate the industry "opening up".

"It means that now revenue is shifting away from useless gatekeepers and middlemen to developers who actually build this stuff, like us," he said.

5) Epic Games Store hits 40m mobile installs and eyes 70 by the end of the year

Also on stage at Unreal Fest 2025, Epic Games Store general manager Steve Allison confirmed that the company’s mobile store has reached 40m installs and has ambitions to grow to 70m this year - despite Epic previously stating aims of 100m.

Allison noted the importance of mobile in delivering a "world-class" experience to the Epic Games Store’s users and discussed two "major" additions planned for the remainder of 2025.