Consumer spending in action mobile games in the US increased by 104 per cent for the first half of 2021. 

As reported by Sensor Tower, overall consumer spending on the action genre increased by 103.8 per cent year-over-year to $435.7 million. The fighting subgenre of action games was the highest-earning, bringing in $183.3 million, a 27.7 per cent increase year-over-year.

Genshin Impact by MiHoYo topped the group, earning close to $104 million. It was followed by Marvel Contest of Champions from Kabam and Dragon Ball Legends by Bandai Namco in second and third respectively. 

The second fastest-growing genre by revenue was hypercasual, which increased by 60.4 per cent year-over-year, with estimated earnings of $59 million. Tabletop games witnessed the third-highest growth rate of revenue at 41.7 per cent, earning close to $389 million.

The largest genre by spending for the first half of 2021 was puzzle at $2.6 billion, an increase of 16.6 per cent. It was trailed by casino and strategy, which earned $2.5 billion and $2.2 billion respectively.

Action stations

Every genre suffered from declining downloads during the first half of 2021 compared to 2020, as a result of the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the mobile games industry and people around the world coming out of lockdown. Strategy games fell by the lowest amount year-over-year at 4.4 per cent, whereas the shooter genre saw the largest decline at 37.8 per cent.

Hypercasual games were downloaded the most with 830.2 million downloads in the first half of 2021, followed by puzzle and then arcade games.

Worldwide consumer spending on mobile games for June 2021 reached $7.3 billion, with the top 10 games all exceeding $100 million.

Overall, total consumer spending on mobile games for the first half of 2021 reached $44.7 billion, a rise of 18 per cent.