The Top 50 Mobile Game Makers of 2026

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• Lingokids

The number 50 spot is also a good chance to spotlight a company doing something a bit different, to showcase a developer with bags of potential that could end up being the next big thing.

Ranking at number 2 on our Top 30 Iberia Game Makers list for 2026, Lingokids is a company that should be on your radar. The educational games platform has a host of offerings, including games featuring Disney characters. Earlier this year, the firm said these specific experiences have surpassed 500 million plays. Overall, the app has been downloaded more than 185m times worldwide, reaching an estimated 30m families – a figure that is no doubt higher by now.

To really pique your interest, though, Lingokids secured a $120m funding round in 2025, with ambitions of becoming a category leader in the educational gaming space.

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• Bitcoin Miner
• Idle Mine

Fresh from our list of the Top 50 UK Game Makers list for 2026, Fumb Games enters our prestigious global Top 50 Mobile Game Makers list for the year.

The studio’s success is distinct to all other developers here – it’s focused on building the future of rewarded games and has found success in games including Bitcoin Miner and Idle Mine, which reward players with real Bitcoin. At the time of writing, Fumb Games has paid out over $3.8m to players to date.

As we noted previously, the company doubled its revenue in 2025, following a 10x revenue jump the studio had in 2024. Powered by a $12m UA financing deal with PvX Partners it picked up in September 2025, Fumb Games has shown a rare success story in the crypto arena and shows bags of potential for the future.

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• Match Villains

Good Job Games ranked well inside the top 10 of our Top 30 Türkiye’s Game Makers list for 2026 and now it sits nicely in our Top 50 global rankings, too.

Much like the country’s games hub has become known for, the studio has not been short on raising investment for its big ambitions to build a “legacy entertainment company”. It secured $15m in funding from Menlo Ventures in February 2025, valuing the company at over $100m. By March, that number was updated to $23m with an additional $8m in support from Arcadia Gaming Partners to complete its seed round.

Just a few months later, Good Job Games raised $60m in Series A funding. Its flagship match-3 game, Match Villains, has generated $100m to date. The question for the studio is whether it can regain momentum for the title and expand its IP in future, too.

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• Hero Wars: Alliance
• Ludus: Merge Arena
• Pixel Gun 3D
• Idle Zombie Miner

GDEV has been no stranger to partnerships and strategic acquisitions since establishing in 2023, growing its portfolio on mobile at pace. It started out with subsidiary Nexters Studio, which sought a fresh start and rebrand after the conflict in Ukraine escalated in 2022.

Since then, the parent company has acquired Cyprus-based Light Hour Games, taken a majority stake in Royal Ark and helped lead idle game Zombie Miner to success. GDEV subsidiary Cubic Games is also responsible for Pixel Gun 3D, with 300m+ downloads to its name and a recent sequel in Pixel Gun 2.

On an in-app purchase basis, the most successful game in GDEV’s portfolio is easily Hero Wars: Alliance, a fantasy RPG about building skills and defeating enemy lineups. Perhaps best known for its UA campaigns online, AppMagic data suggests the game has surpassed $1bn in lifetime player spending.

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• Vampir
• SOL: Enchant
• RF Online Next
• The Seven Deadly Sins
• Seven Knights: Re:Birth
• Solo Levelling: Arise

South Korea’s Netmarble keeps its place in our Top 50 list this year. Its best performing titles have long been in decline, from the long-running Marvel Contest of Champions to the once blockbuster game Lineage 2: Revolution.

A new crop of games is emerging at the company, which helped it record 4% revenue growth y-o-y in Q2 to $505.1m. Launches like SOL: Enchant and The Seven Deadly Sins: Origin helped boost sales, with MMORPG SOL showing some long-term potential. The past year has also seen Netmarble launch Vampir, RF Online Next, Seven Knights Re:Birth and Mongil: Star Drive as it searches for new hits.

Netmarble is a big ship, often able to find those hits, but also finding challenges in maintaining long-term games performance. There are signs it’s finding a formula for the future.

ASSOCIATED COMPANIES

Kabam

Jam City

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• Pokémon TCG Pocket
• Pokémon Masters EX
• Fire Emblem Heroes

After establishing itself as a key mobile arm for many off-console Nintendo IPs, DeNA partnered with The Pokémon Company and Creatures Inc to create the instant phenomenon TCG Pocket, which thunderbolted its way to $1 billion in player spending even faster than Pokémon Go.

Back in late 2024, the astonishing achievement officially triggered a profit surge of more than 8,000% for DeNA. Almost two years later, a regular stream of new card packs keeps players on the continuous quest to collect ‘em all. AppMagic data suggests the game is well on its way to the $2bn revenue mark today.

Meanwhile, DeNA’s older Pokémon partnership, Pokémon Masters EX, just celebrated its seventh anniversary with annual revenue at its highest since year four. Helping out with Nintendo’s other mobile games too, DeNA can take some credit for Nintendo’s only billion-dollar mobile game, Fire Emblem Heroes.

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• Fortnite
• Fall Guys

One huge moment in particular that landed Epic Games in the Top 50 Game Makers 2026 was the return of Fortnite to Apple’s App Store globally.

Fortnite was booted from the store in 2020, returning to the EU last year before a full rollout in 2026, following years of legal and regulatory battles. The game’s return generated an estimated 3.4 million downloads in its first week.

Epic’s war with Apple, however, is ongoing, with the company continuing to challenge the iPhone giant over alternative payments and App Store fees. Epic and Google have settled their differences, meanwhile, leading to Fortnite’s re-release on the Play Store, too.

The question now is whether, after years out the loop and ceding UGC ground on mobile to Roblox – as well as declining Fortnite engagement and 1,000 layoffs in 2026 – can Epic recapture players on a platform where it previously made $1.2bn?

ASSOCIATED COMPANIES

Mediatonic

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• Yarn Loop
• Knock Out

Spyke Games is yet another studio from Türkiye on this list, founded by five gaming veterans – four of whom came from Peak, including CEO Rina Onur Sirinoglu.

The company raised $55m in a seed round in 2022 led by Griffin Gaming Partners, showing promise early on with the successful Tile Busters, though revenue for the game has since declined.

But in this hub of puzzle game innovation, Spyke bunkered down and over the past year has launched block shooting puzzle game Knock Out and sort puzzle title Yarn Loop. The latter in particular has continued to grow each month since launch, grossing an estimated $51m from IAPs to date, with estimates now showing Spyke Games at record monthly IAP revenue.

Spyke is one leading example of a flood of Turkish developers on the rise in the mobile games market. Next year’s list could see us naming even more in the Top 50.

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• Little Farm Story
• Pocket Sort
• Color Slide - Hexa Puzzle
• My Perfect Hotel
• Tower War

SayGames has built one of the larger portfolios in the business, with more than 8 billion downloads across its catalogue. The company has released over 200 games on mobile and other platforms, including My Perfect Hotel, My Little Universe and Tower War.

My Perfect Hotel has become one of its biggest successes, with AppMagic estimates putting the game close to $40 million in gross player spending. SayGames has continued to expand the title through collaborations, including with the likes of Barbie.

Yet My Perfect Hotel is so yesterday. It’s still performing well, but Azur has consistently expanded its business over the years and since 2024 now boasts successful titles like Little Farm Story and Pocket Sort. SayGames is no one-trick pony.

Similar to other hypercasual giants, SayGames has successfully found the hybridcasual formula, leading to in-app purchases revenue reaching $8.49 million in May 2026, based on Sensor Tower estimates.

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• Worms Zone.io
• Kingdom Clash
• Fashion Queen
• Rollance
• Slime Castle

Azur Games has established itself as one of the world’s biggest mobile games publishers by downloads, with more than 11 billion installs spanning its portfolio.

Its extensive catalogue includes major mobile hits such as WormsZone.io, which has surpassed 600 million installs, Stack Ball with more than 550m and Bottle Jump 3D with over 250m.

The publisher has also continued to evolve its approach to live games and player retention, building on its expertise across casual, midcore and hypercasual games, while also investing in new tools.

In June 2026, Azur Games opened public access to its proprietary Azur Games Analytics platform and the company was also nominated for best publisher in our own Pocket Gamer Mobile Games Awards 2026, reflecting its strong position among the leading publishers in today’s games market.

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• Mystery Town
• Meowdoku!
• Amaze GO!
• Vita Mahjong

It’s been 10 years since Beijing-based Learnings was founded – but it’s the past two years that have seen astronomical growth. Since its formation, the company has become an expert downloads driver with more than 1 billion users across its portfolio and has quietly risen up the ranks on the global stage. Now it’s adding player spending, too, particularly thanks to merge game Mystery Town.

AppMagic data positioned Learnings in 26th place for annual installs in 2024. In 2025, the company moved up to 11th. Currently, as we head towards the end of 2026, Learnings ranks seventh in the world. The trajectory is bolstered by a portfolio of casual games like Vita Mahjong, Amaze Go and Jigsawscapes.

Recently, the publisher has reached a flurry of feline fans with Meowdoku. It’s surpassed an estimated 35 million downloads to date, indicating another successful team-up between Oakever and Learnings.

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• Jackpot Party Casino Slots
• Quick Hit Casino
• 88 Fortunes
• Gold Fish
• Monopoly Slots Casino

One of the giants of the social casino space, SciPlay has a host of titles in its portfolio like Jackpot Party Casino Slots, Monopoly Slots, Theme Park 3D – Fun Aquapark and plenty more.

Amid rising UA costs, the company set out this year to strengthen its casino portfolio but also to scale casual games, with live ops, segmentation and personalisation at the front of mind. Following heavy investment in data science and analytics, SciPlay has been striving to determine exactly what its players want and when.

The results thus far? The studio’s been seeing substantial success in the D2C realm, with SciPlay’s latest report claiming it made $53 million from the modern earnings avenue between April and June 2026. That equated to 29% of all SciPlay’s earnings during the period, free from the infamous fees placed on traditional in-app purchases.

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• RAID: Shadow Legends
• Warhammer 40,000: Tacticus
• Heroes of History
• F1 Clash
• Bloons TD 6

Swedish digital entertainment giant MTG is a rollup company with a key difference: it seems to have worked.

The company has expanded its gaming arm over the years with the acquisitions of Snowprint Studios, InnoGames, Futureplay, Hutch, Ninja Kiwi, and PlaySimple. It added Raid: Shadow Legends to its roster in 2024 for $620m from Aristocrat Leisure.

One area the firm particularly sells in is direct-to-consumer. In Q2 2026, the company said D2C accounted for 38% of group revenue – and 51% of revenue within its newly rebranded midcore Playamp division. That’s up from 49% in Q1 and 31% the year prior.

PlaySimple, meanwhile, is readying for an IPO in Mumbai that could see it raise around $350m. The Sweden-based parent said it will sell a portion of its stake but retain majority ownership post-listing.

ASSOCIATED COMPANIES

Hutch

InnoGames

Ninja Kiwi

Plarium

PlaySimple

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• Love Island: The Game
• Kiddopia
• Word Search
• Yatzy
• Animal Jam

A good lesson in business and in life: don’t panic. In August 2025, India announced a sudden ban on real-money gaming, wiping billions off its games market. In the crossfire was PokerBaazi, which paused its operations in India. Unfortunately for Nazara, that was after it had made a $117m investment in the game’s studio, Moonshine Tech.

As MD Nitish Mittersain put it, Nazara had taken one of the biggest hits in its history. But the company kept calm and is now hitting a near record share price.

This year it acquired Spanish casual and social games publisher Bluetile, as well as its rewarded engagement arm BestPlay Systems. The publisher’s plans for global expansion look to continue – its setbacks in the past.

ASSOCIATED COMPANIES

Bluetile

Curve

Fusebox Games

Paper Boat Apps

WildWorks

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• All in Hole
• Farm Land
• Aquarium Land
• Agent Hunt
• Attack Hole

After surpassing 2 billion lifetime installs in 2025, publisher Homa has been continuing down the hybridcasual path. Today, downloads are already well on their way to 2.5bn, at least by AppMagic estimates, with a growing impact in India helping drive that number up.

Sky Roller: Rainbow Skating remains Homa’s biggest downloads-based success, but more recent hits like Agent Hunt – Hitman Shooter, Weapon Master, Attack Hole and Frontline Heroes: WW2 Warfare have each had an impact, too.

Then there’s All in Hole, Homa’s clear winner when it comes to in-app purchases. This hybridcasual monster has made more than $200 million in player spending since 2024, almost half of which has been earned in 2026. Still growing, the game had its best month ever this May, and that’s without accounting for ad revenue. It’s another example of hypercasual giants charting a new, even more successful path forward.

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• NYT Games

We’ve long heard about season passes being integrated to great effect in games – but what about a true subscription service?

There’s an unlikely champion of subscriptions in games: The New York Times. The media company is no stranger to the concept, offering full access to its site via a paywall.

But what’s really special about the NYT Games app is that it has successfully translated this to games via daily puzzles, becoming a major part of its digital business. More than 11 billion puzzles were solved on the platform in 2025, which highlights the scale of its audience and the daily habit that has been built around its games. Titles available include Wordle, Connections, The Mini, Spelling Bee and more.

AppMagic estimates that the NYT Games mobile app generated around $69m in gross player spending in 2025, with more than $24m generated in the first four months of 2026.

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• Chess

Chess is one of the world’s oldest, most recognisable board games that has stood the test of time. So you might think having a company behind a chess game on this list is an odd choice, particularly given the sea of chess games available.

But Chess.com has found a way to effectively corner the market on the classic chess experience, while adding social layers, playing guides and a full blown subscription service with three different tiers (Gold, Platinum, Diamond). So the world’s most popular chess game keeps on growing in both revenue and downloads.

According to its Q2 2026 report, Chess.com has over 267 million members and 10.2 million average daily active users – up 25.7% year-over-year and 5.3% quarter-on-quarter. For any publisher running live ops and looking to grow their business, Chess.com is a masterclass worth studying.

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• 37 Interactive Entertainment

Also in our list of the Top 30 China Game Makers list we published this year, 37 Interactive Entertainment, also known by its publishing name 37Games, is a globally recognised specialist in the 4X strategy realm.

Its long-running flagship game is Puzzles & Survival, combining match-3 mechanics – and other hypercasual gameplay – with the strategy genre to create a multi-billion dollar-generating game. But that’s not where its story ends. The studio has been able to extend its formula into new hits for 2026, including Z Route: Redemption – featuring those gate mechanics like First Fun’s blockbuster Last War: Survival – and Last Asylum: Plague, charging players with building and managing a sanctuary in a world ravaged by a mysterious plague.

The developer certainly has a formula for globally successful zombie games on mobile.

ASSOCIATED COMPANIES

Last Asylum: Plague

Puzzles & Survival

Z Route: Redemption

Puzzles & Chaos: Frozen Castle

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• Screwdom
• Mahjong Crush
• Car Race
• Spider Fighting

One of the regions in the world with the most buzz surrounding it right now is Southeast Asia, and Vietnam has become a particularly exciting hub. One of its most successful exports right now is iKame, based in the country’s capital, Hanoi.

The publisher works on both mobile games and in the apps space. Over the last few years, iKame has had a string of titles cross the 100 million downloads milestone, including Moto Rider, Coloring ASMR and Supermarket Simulator Store. Racing game Car Race, meanwhile, has captured an estimated 346m installs on its own.

The company’s most successful game by IAP revenue, though, is screw puzzle game Screwdom, developed by Zego Studio. It’s generated an estimated $200m to date, according to AppMagic, with more than 45m downloads. The title has helped put iKame, and Vietnam, on the map, marking iKame as a flag bearer for the country’s vibrant and growing games sector.

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• SD Gundam G Generation ETERNAL
• Dragon Ball Z: Dokkan Battle
• One Piece Bounty Rush
• Gakuen Idolmaster
• Digimon Up

Bandai Namco always gets credit on these lists for live ops expertise, particularly thanks to DBZ Dokkan Battle’s repeat success. But in recent years it’s been adding new games to the roster, too, built on stellar IP.

The publisher generated $2.1bn in net sales and $436.1m in operating profit during Q1 of this fiscal year, up 9% and 33% respectively on a y-o-y basis.

The success was attributed to IPs like Gundam, Dragon Ball and One Piece. This growth goes broader than mobile, but many of those IPs do have recent entries – the most lucrative among them being SD Gundam G Generation Eternal, halfway to a billion dollars in player spending after a year and a half.

Dragon Ball Gekishin Squadra followed last autumn and Digimon Up launched on mobile this July, hitting an estimated $10m in its first month.

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• Archero 2
• Dicero
• Survivor,io
• Capybara Go
• Archero

The mobile games industry has Habby to thank for kicking off the hybridcasual craze with the launch of the innovative Archero in 2019. But back then the title’s business model wasn’t replicated en masse. A one-off, perhaps. Then came the Vampire Survivors-like Survivor.io, an even greater success story.

It took a while longer – and Apple’s App Tracking Transparency policy pressure – but the industry eventually caught on, with the hypercasual giants honing the combination of casual gameplay, simple progression and IAP and IAA monetisation.

In recent years, Habby has been back with top titles like Archero 2 and Capybara Go. Meanwhile last year it released Dicero, a fast-paced casual roguelite, showing the company’s ability to delight with gameplay, not just create industry-defining business models. It’s also turned to investing, too, giving $2m to Istanbul studio Mavis Games.

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• Love & Deepspace
• Infinity Nikki
• Shining Nikki

Infold Games, the international brand of Chinese developer Papergames, was long best known for its Nikki franchise, including games like Shining Nikki, Love Nikki and the more recent open-world take, Infinity Nikki.

Its biggest success yet, though, has been the otome game Love and Deepspace, which has captured a legion of loyal fans around the world and grossed over $1 billion. The title dominates its category, thanks to a roster of popular characters, deep narrative, unique gameplay and high-end visuals.

But Love and Deepspace sparked controversy with new character Valko, which saw his release ultimately cancelled. We reported revenue dropped 68% in July, while hundreds of thousands of players also signed a petition for Valko’s return. Hopefully for Infold, the ship can be turned around over the long-term.

ASSOCIATED COMPANIES

Papergames

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• Eggy Party
• Where Winds Meet
• Fantasy Westward Journey
• Identity V
• Knives Out

After years of being a top two-grossing mobile games company, last year NetEase ranked 10th in the world for player spending across the App Store and Google Play.

NetEase still has a highly successful portfolio of course, particularly at home. It officially generated some $3.7bn in net revenue during Q1 2026. On the global stage, at least, NetEase feels like a developer in search of more hits on mobile. Where Winds Meet has bagged over $250m to date on iOS and Google Play. But new titles like Destiny: Rising have not added to a successful live portfolio that includes older games like Eggy Party, Fantasy Westward Journey, Identity V, Knives out and Racing Master.

However, just over the horizon is new open-world RPG Ananta, which has already surpassed 17 million in pre-registrations across more than 110 countries and regions. Can it strike gold again?

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• Disney Solitaire
• Dice Dreams
• Bingo Blitz
• Solitaire Grand Harvest
• Slotomania

Are you a ‘cup half full or half empty’ person? That may influence how you look at Playtika’s business.

Its SuperPlay acquisition cost up to $1.95bn. High, but the studio is a proven creator of quality mobile titles, with Dice Dreams, Domino Dreams and the licensed Disney Solitaire, innovating in the card game genre to substantial success.

The rub appears to be that much of Playtika’s investments are now being pumped into SuperPlay for UA and to pay off that purchase price. Playtika is currently undergoing a portfolio-wide strategic review, with Tencent reportedly in talks to buy SuperPlay in a deal worth up to $1.5bn.

Playtika still has games like Bingo Blitz, Solitaire Grand Harvest and Slotomania in its locker. Next year’s list will reveal if the publisher could hold on to arguably its crown jewel.

ASSOCIATED COMPANIES

SuperPlay

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• Umamusume: Pretty Derby
• Shadowverse: Worlds Beyond
• Hololive Dreams

With transmedia IP Umamusume: Pretty Derby trotting to billions of dollars in player spending.

The title first bolted out of the gate in Japan in 2021 and raced from milestone to milestone. Fast-forward to 2025 and it made its global debut, a gamble when even Cygames wasn’t certain how a game inspired by Japanese horse racing culture would be received overseas.

In the end, the bet paid off. The global version ranked among the 15 highest-grossing new mobile releases of 2025, joined by another new CyberAgent game, Shadowverse: Worlds Beyond. Umamusume: Pretty Derby has gone on to surpass $100 million in its first year internationally, and this February, the IP even managed a theatrical movie release in North America.

Even more recently, Hololive Dreams has danced onto the scene with $57.2 million in its first month.

ASSOCIATED COMPANIES

Cygames

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• Tiles Survive
• Foundation: Galactic Frontier
• State of Survival
• Guns of Glory
• Frost & Flame

Though FunPlus can still rely on its successful games of old like State of Survival, Guns of Glory and Frost & Flame: King of Avalon, it has gone through some changes during the past couple of years.

For starters, it’s been working even more closely with IPs. Not just for key in-game partnerships, FunPlus has published Foundation: Galactic Frontier and DC: Dark Legion – the former performing well. Then it has also launched its own IP, Tiles Survive, a different take on its 4X strategy specialism that has quickly become one of its top grossing games.

Outside of this, FunPlus is also stepping out of mobile to publish PawPrint Studio’s F2P creature-catching open-world RPG Aniimo, coming to PC and console. The title made a big splash at Gamescom, perhaps marking a new era of FunPlus blending the old with the new.

ASSOCIATED COMPANIES

Kingsglory

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• MapleStory: Idle RPG
• Dungeon & Fighter Mobile
• Mabinogi Mobile

Nexon rocketed back into the Top 50 Mobile Game Makers list in 2024 following the launch of Dungeon & Fighter Mobile in China. Prior to the release, the franchise was said to have pulled in more than $22bn in total, making it one of the world’s most successful IPs.

It’s banked nearly $1.7bn on the App Store alone – no doubt much more across Android stores. That title has since faded from those lofty highs, but Nexon has found a new game to bank on: MapleStory: Idle RPG.

Based on another of Nexon’s hot IPs, the title has found a global audience (though its biggest player base by far is in South Korea) and is currently its top grosser. Meanwhile, the publishing giant has also found success with MMORPG Mabinogi Mobile, giving Nexon’s mobile division another string to its bow.

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• Clash of Critters
• Rise of Kingdoms
• Palmon: Survival
• AFK Journey
• Warpath

Chinese developer Lilith Games was once one of the world’s most successful mobile studios, with billion-dollar blockbusters like AFK Arena and Rise of Kingdoms tearing up the global charts. It would be unfair to say Lilith is not still a successful company – it is – but, like many, it’s found a challenge in finding new games to take the baton from its declining giants of yesteryear.

But that could all be changing as the talented studio looks to be finding its groove again. Monster-catching survival and crafting game Palmon Survival (clearly a take on Palworld) has found some success after its release last year. But the real star to keep your eyes on is Clash of Critters, which our sister-site Pocket Gamer described as “just so lovably random” and “pure, unadulterated fun”. It’s quickly become Lilith’s top-grossing game and could be the next big hit the company’s been searching for.

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• Arknights: Endfield
• Arknights
• Ex Astris

With one of 2026’s biggest releases in its catalogue, this year’s Top 50 wouldn’t be complete without Gryphline. Long-awaited and highly anticipated, Arknights: Endfield finally arrived in January with 35 million pre-registrations across platforms, demonstrating its huge potential from the get-go.

This was the IP’s first expansion beyond mobile too, complete with cross-progression between iOS, Android, PC and PS5.

Six months in, it had already gone past an estimated $125m in revenue, and that’s only Google Play and App Store player spending. It also picked up two accolades at the Mobile Games Awards. Launching successful new games is tough – but Gryphline is showing how it’s done.

Additionally, the original Arknights has made around $140m in its own right this year, while premium game Ex Astris has continued to pick up thousands of new downloads.

ASSOCIATED COMPANIES

Hypergryph

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• Free Fire
• Palworld Online

You’ve surely heard of Garena and its hit shooter Free Fire by this point. But are you aware of Garena’s true scale? In its Q2 2026 financials, the company reported 666.3 million quarterly active users (not as telling as DAUs or MAUs, mind). Bookings rose 15.5% year-over-year to $763.5m, while quarterly paying users were up 10.2% Y/Y to 68.1m. Free Fire is a beast.

But Garena is looking to the future with a pipeline of new mobile projects. First, the company is set to develop and publish mobile title Palworld Online in partnership with PocketPair, based on the wildly successful Pokémon-inspired PC game which has sold more than 20.5 million copies.

Garena will also publish TiMi and Capcom’s Monster Hunter Outlanders in Southeast Asia, adding another major established IP to its portfolio.

One thing’s for sure: you’ve not heard the last of Garena after Free Fire.

ASSOCIATED COMPANIES

Sea Ltd

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• eFootball
• Professional Baseball Spirits A
• Suikoden STAR LEAP
• Yu-Gi-Oh! Master Duel

Another story that feels like one of the industry’s best kept secrets, Konami has steadily been growing its mobile football game eFootball (formerly called Pro Evolution Soccer) for years now. The title has been particularly buoyed over the summer by the World Cup, which sent the title’s revenue stratospheric.

In July alone, eFootball generated nearly $100 million across the App Store and Google Play, per AppMagic estimates. The title continues to bask in the afterglow.

Konami isn’t just about eFootball, though. It has another highly successful sports game in Professional Baseball Spirits A, accumulating billions of dollars in lifetime revenue. August 2026 also saw the launch of Suikoden Star Leap, another tick in the box for Konami, showing it still has what it takes to launch new games on mobile.

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• Subway Surfers
• Subway Surfers City
• Arrows – Puzzle Escape
• Forge Master
• 8 Ball Pool

When the industry faces challenges, from the outside at least, Miniclip appears never to panic. It quietly (loud $1.2bn purchase of Easybrain aside) gets on with it. Its flagship 8 Ball Pool still performs well, even if it’s down from its former highs.

Over the past year, Miniclip’s studios have launched some big new games. Subway Surfers City, the long-awaited follow-up to the still successful Subway Surfers, released this year. Meanwhile, Lessmore, which Miniclip acquired in 2024, launched idle RPG Forge Master at the end of 2025.

Once again, Miniclip has proven astute in the M&A business, as the title has scaled quickly over the past year to become one of the publisher’s top revenue-generating games based on IAP sales.

ASSOCIATED COMPANIES

Sybo Games

Lessmore

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• Hole It 3D
• Stack Smash
• Project Makeover
• Wordscapes
• Point Out: Color Escape Puzzle

Tripledot was already an under-the-radar success before embarking on major acquisitions at seemingly bargain prices. The purchase of AppLovin’s entire games business – including studios such as Belka Games, Lion Studios, Magic Tavern, PeopleFun – has fully transformed Tripledot into a world top publisher.

All that for $400m and selling a 20% stake of the business to AppLovin. It was a staggering deal, with Tripledot achieving significant scale and an expansion into the IAP business.

In August this year, it was at it again, picking up casual title publisher Supersonic from Unity for $40m, as the ad and tech company looked to also focus on other areas of its business. Supersonic isn’t just some acquisition past its prime – it looks to be achieving record IAP revenue in 2026 thanks to titles like Hold It 3D.

ASSOCIATED COMPANIES

Belka Games

Lion Studios

Magic Tavern

PeopleFun

Supersonic

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• Neverness to Everness
• Jade Dynasty-Global

Chinese media conglomerate Perfect World has had a tough time of it in recent years. Back in 2024, the company reportedly laid off as many as 1,000 staff, resulting in the departures of the company’s CEO and co-CEO. Titles One Punch Man: World and an in-development Perfect New World had allegedly ceased production.

So why is Perfect World on this list? Well, the developer did what any studio in a tough spot would do: it developed a highly ambitious Genshin Impact rival in Neverness to Everness, described as a supernatural open-world RPG.

NTE has had a solid launch so far with an estimated $75m in revenue. Perfect World will hope the title can grow overtime to take the company back to its former highs (and pay back high marketing costs), but it’s a return to form for a developer that faced disaster just a couple of years ago.

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• Genshin Impact
• Honkai: Star Rail
• Zenless Zone Zero
• Petit Planet
• Honkai: Nexus Anima

As the international publishing brand of miHoYo, today HoYoverse is best known for its two open-world pillars Genshin Impact and Honkai: Star Rail, nearing $10bn combined just on mobile. Indeed, even six years on from Genshin Impact’s launch, HoYoverse remains firmly among the biggest names in gacha. Zenless Zone Zero has bolstered the portfolio, making over $600m since 2024.

This past year, the IPs have shown up in places like Duolingo and Fortnite, and the Chinese developer isn’t resting on its laurels either as it searches for a new hit.

Galactic life sim Petit Planet plans to deviate from the RPG style fans may be accustomed to, launching sometime during this trip around the sun. Then there’s Honkai: Nexus Anima, which had its Evolution Test in July, as well as an upcoming dark fantasy game built in Unreal Engine 5. HoYoverse, as ever, is not short of ambition.

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• Last War: Survival

First Fun seemed to come from nowhere to launch 4X strategy game Last War: Survival to global success in 2023. Combining more hypercasual-like gameplay with deep 4X strategy mechanics propelled the latter genre to new heights – from which First Fun took the riches.

Revenue across the App Store and Google Play has been on the decline though, dropping to nearly a third of its peak, according to AppMagic estimates. It’s still one of the world’s top games, however.

Yet that’s unlikely to be the full story. Last War has its very own web shop, and with the direct-to-consumer movement in full swing, the world’s top publishers are shifting as much as 30% to 40% of sales off-store where it can’t be tracked. It’s still a huge success – and a top 10 grossing game worldwide so far in 2026 – but the UA tap looks to have been gradually turned off.

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• Candy Crush Saga
• Minecraft
• Candy Crush Soda Saga
• Diablo Immortal
• Call of Duty: Mobile

Few games survive a decade, but Candy Crush Saga is still crushing it with $1bn generated yearly and $20bn+ in lifetime revenue.

Despite its mega success, King is no longer the ruler of the match-3 space and, like many, faces the challenge of finding a new blockbuster. Its last big launch was Candy Crush Solitaire.

Under the Microsoft umbrella, Mojang’s Minecraft has steadily surged in revenue over the past couple of years, while Call of Duty: Mobile continues to perform.

Following a major restructure at Microsoft under new CEO Asha Sharma, Mojang and King were highlighted as being the company’s largest games by monthly active players. Perhaps mobile will become a key part of the tech giant’s strategy as it chases its North Star of engaging one billion players daily.

ASSOCIATED COMPANIES

Activision

Blizzard

King

Mojang

SOFTOGRAPHY

• Township
• Gardenscapes
• Homescapes
• Fishdom

There are few repeat hit makers in the biz as successful as Playrix, whose mobile games continue to prove highly popular. You may know Playrix mostly for match-3 titles Gardenscapes and Homescapes, but did you know that neither of those are currently the company’s top grossing game?

That crown, for August at least, goes to farming and city-building game Township. It’s already generated billions of dollars and is one of Playrix’s longest running mobile titles. And yet, almost every year, Township has grown steadily and is currently enjoying what looks to be its best yet in 2026.

One of the toughest challenges – as we’ll say a few times on this list – is launching successful new games. But who needs that if you can grow titles consistently over a decade or more?

SOFTOGRAPHY

• Coin Master
• Travel Town
• Jelly Busters
• Coin Master – Board Adventure
• Hole Stars

Over the past year, something seems to have changed at Moon Active. It’s long been highly successful, with flagship Coin Master and top titles like Travel Town – one of the world’s biggest merge games.

But the studio has launched a flurry of games as it looks to compete across various popular genres. Chief among those is Coin Master – Board Adventure. Scopely took inspiration from Coin Master when building Monopoly Go!, and now Moon Active is returning the favour.

Then there’s Hole Stars and Jelly Busters, both titles quickly scaling to millions of dollars in revenue per month from IAPs. And it looks like there’s plenty of room to grow them further, too.

Time will tell just how successful these new games will be, but it shows a studio that isn’t shy in taking the fight to its rivals, and you wouldn’t back against it getting a few punches in.

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• Roblox

Roblox remains a leading platform for user-generated content. Brookhaven RP is its most visited experience ever, surpassing 87.3bn visits, while Grow a Garden and Steal a Brainrot both remain among Roblox’s top games despite a drop in users. And that fall is understandable: concurrent player numbers peaked at over 22m and 25m, respectively.

The platform itself continues to operate at a huge scale. In Q2 2025, Roblox recorded 123m average daily active users and 29bn hours engaged, with revenue reaching almost $1.5bn.

However, despite its highs, Roblox faces key challenges. It’s been banned in countries like Türkiye and Egypt as global scrutiny has continued over child safety, which has become a significant area of investment for the company, and one it continues to tackle.

Amid the storm, the search for the next viral hit goes on.

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• Magic Sort!
• Block Out!
• Car Match

Grand Games storms into our top 10 Mobile Game Makers this year as one of the leading lights emanating from Türkiye’s bustling gaming hub. As we noted in our list of the Top 30 Türkiye Game Makers, over two years ago, the team at Grand Games were raising $3 million in a pre-seed round for their new studio. By the start of 2025, the developer secured a $30m Series A round to accelerate growth, enable new hires and help Grand Games scale into global markets like the US. Then in 2026, the studio raised a further $70m in its Series B round, rocketing total investment in the company beyond $100m. Grand Games’ valuation has reportedly risen almost sixfold since last year’s round.

The studio’s revenue has risen rapidly over the past two years. AppMagic estimates that IAP revenue across the App Store and Google Play has already surpassed $250m at the time of writing – a figure that, importantly, doesn’t include ad revenue.

Its rise has been led by a string of success stories in the puzzle genre, including Magic Sort, Car Match – Traffic Puzzle and Block Out – Color Sort Puzzle. While Magic Sort looks to have been its most successful title to date, Block Out also appears to now be on par on a monthly IAP basis.

Grand Games sums up what this list is all about. It’s a studio that is creating new hits, can handle successful live ops and is defying wider industry trends with ever-bigger funding rounds, which have been reinvested in yet more growth for the company.

It’s rare a studio flies straight into the top 10, but Grand Games deserves its spot.

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• Brawl Stars
• Clash of Clans
• Hay Day
• Clash Royale
• Merge Mansion

What to make of Supercell in 2026? After all, in 2025, the studio claimed a near-record year, following the record-setting 2024.

The studio finally has a new game addition to its portfolio: Metacore’s Merge Mansion. The acquisition adds a revenue-generating title to its stable, but one for which Metacore has openly admitted to the difficulties of challenging the industry’s new merge giants. The studio ultimately laid off 159 staff at its Helsinki HQ and closed its Germany and Sweden branches.

Supercell has become particularly effective at driving a resurgence in revenue across its aging portfolio in recent years, following a major restructure of the company culture. Brawl Stars and Clash Royale have had major popularity surges. The former made headlines for its astonishing rise in 2024, seeing another, albeit smaller, rise again in 2026. Clash Royale also closed last year with an impressive run. Meanwhile, Hay Day is having its best year for over a decade. Can it do the same for Merge Mansion, a title it already had close ties with?

It’s new games – Supercell’s old forte – where the developer has struggled most. Mo.co is still working to establish itself following a relaunch earlier this year.

That longevity has become a key success factor in Supercell’s approach. The company says around 300m people play its games each month and CEO Ilkka Paananen has argued that avoiding over-monetisation is part of what allows games such as (the very lucrative) Clash of Clans and Hay Day to remain active for more than a decade.

Elsewhere, Supercell has continued investing in AI through its AI Labs, while Paananen was also recognised with a BAFTA Games Fellowship earlier this year. Supercell continues to be one of the world’s top developers – but how long can it rely on the shark fins of live ops without a new hit game?

ASSOCIATED COMPANIES

Metacore

Trailmix

SOFTOGRAPHY

• Block Blast!

Hong Kong-based Hungry Studio burst onto the scene in 2022 with Block Blast, a puzzle title all about high scores, strategy, combos and clearing rows and columns. This is a game that came out of nowhere and made a lasting impression, hurrying to the top 10 most-downloaded mobile games of 2023, its first full year.

That enthusiasm continued to grow in 2024, landing Block Blast in second place, and in 2025 it finally won the gold. This year, AppMagic rankings currently place it back in second, but that’s no small feat for a four-year-old game with over 1 billion downloads already.

Earlier this year, Hungry Studios declared that its flagship reached 70m daily active users and 300m monthly active users worldwide, making it one of the most played mobile games on the market.

One of the foundations for the success of the mobile games industry is its broad reach, but not many games achieve such a global scale consistently over years as Block Blast has.

Fast-forward to September, and the IP has expanded further with Block Blast+, a new arrival to Apple Arcade, now without the ad breaks. There’s Block Blast Effect too – a new title transforming the brand with its emphasis on rhythm. Styled as an audio-visual experience, this iteration keeps the satisfaction of clearing rows and triggering chain reactions, has multiple game modes on offer and sees players clearing away blocks in perfect sync.

Beyond Block Blast, Hungry Studios’ next-biggest hit is Sudoku Blast, another puzzler with more than 40,000 sudokus within. There’s also Solitaire Master, Match Out and classic mahjong solitaire game Double Tile, all painting a clear picture of Hungry Studio’s puzzle prowess. They might not have reached the same level of success of Block Blast, but each has millions of downloads in its own right, and surely that ad revenue is welcome at any studio hungry for success.

SOFTOGRAPHY

• Castle Busters
• Marble Sort
• Mob Control
• Sand Loop

Voodoo’s story is a fascinating one. The company rode the hypercasual boom to become one of the world’s top games publishers. It attracted investment from Goldman Sachs and Tencent over the years, such has long been the firm’s promise.

But as the hypercasual business was abruptly castrated after Apple’s privacy changes, Voodoo kept its cool. It got to work, like other publishers, in dragging the hybridcasual business model into existence.

Voodoo has been rocking it for years now, and in 2026, it’s taking another step up. Excellent games like Castle Busters (seriously, you should play it) and Marble Sort have driven up IAP revenue substantially to what’s easily a record year for the publisher.

To put that into some perspective, AppMagic estimates show gross player spending across Voodoo’s portfolio has risen by approximately 137% year-over-year during the first eight months of 2026 to around $223m. In May 2026, sales hit $36.5m – a rise of 211% year-over-year, again according to AppMagic. Those figures don’t include ad revenue, either, which has long been Voodoo’s bread and butter. So far this year, Voodoo stands as a top 40 grossing mobile games publisher in the world and sits third on that list by total downloads.

It’s still getting juice out of the classics for downloads and revenue with titles like Paper.io 2, Mob Control and Hole.io, to name a few.

Any challenge Voodoo has faced over the years, it’s overcome. The publisher has exciting new games, a wide and successful portfolio, can still achieve significant scale and has even expanded its business over the years into non-gaming apps with social platforms like BeReal and Wizz – the latter of which has also been growing.

Right now, Voodoo just can’t be stopped.

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• Toon Blast
• Color Block Jam
• Match Factory
• Empires & Puzzles
• Top Eleven

It’s been over four years since Take-Two completed its famous $12.7 billion acquisition of Zynga, still one of the games industry’s biggest M&A deals to this day. And, with the joint power of Zynga, Peak Games, Rollic, Small Giant Games, Social Point and more under it, Take-Two’s place in the upper echelons of this year’s Top 50 is undeniable.

With a vast global reach and such a diverse portfolio of games, Zynga champions Toon Blast, Empires & Puzzle, Two Dots, Dragon City, Top Eleven, CSR Racing and many, many more hits. Across such a catalogue, the company has amassed more than 6 billion downloads and, as per AppMagic data, has picked up more than 200 million more in 2026.

NBA 2K HQ, Peak Games’ Match Factory and Rollic’s Color Block Jam are the primary download drivers right now, the latter coming to fruitful fruition after Rollic ideated more than 1,000 games per month – resulting in its flagship game. Rollic isn’t sitting on its success, the Turkish publisher is scaling yet another potential hit in Car Sort: Color Puzzle.

Peak is having success with Toon Blast, too, reaching new heights in 2026. Back in 2024, CEO Omer Inonu told us that its revenue revival – after a period of decline – was perhaps owed to a key change: increasing the number of tests conducted in any given time to improve the gameplay experience. One of Türkiye’s biggest success stories (that has helped seed other studios on this very list) has shown it still has the chops to compete with its local puzzle rivals and upstarts. In fact, Peak Games alone is responsible for roughly 20% of all Türkiye’s mobile games revenue, at least according to AppMagic’s Türkiye’s Mobile Gaming Landscape 2026 report.

All reporting to Zynga, the publisher, which once struggled to thrive in mobile following a challenging shift away from browser gaming, continues to be one of the world’s most successful mobile gaming powerhouses.

ASSOCIATED COMPANIES

Zynga

Nordeus

Social Point

Peak

Rollic

Small Giant Games

SOFTOGRAPHY

• Royal Match
• Royal Kingdom

Dream Games is one of the premiere studios to come out of Türkiye’s vibrant games hub – which continues to pump out successful new studios, particularly in the puzzle space.

Formed by a team of ex-Peak developers, Dream made its name with what is now the world’s most successful match-3 game, Royal Match. It’s a staggering achievement in a red ocean that features what was long the giant of all match-3 titles: King’s Candy Crush Saga.

From the App Store and Google Play, AppMagic estimates show that between January and August 2026, Royal Match generated nearly $150m in gross revenue each month on average. Dream looks unlikely to lose its match-3 crown anytime soon.

Dream’s follow-up came in the shape of Royal Kingdom, another match-3 that expands the franchise with new characters and features some new gameplay elements. Famously, it was backed by a – likely very expensive – all-star celebrity marketing campaign that included LeBron James, Shakira, Jimmy Fallon and others. The title has since peaked (at a level that has made it a top 20 grossing mobile game so far this year) but is approaching $1bn in lifetime gross revenue, according to AppMagic data.

Dream Games clearly has big plans ahead. Last year, Dream secured a strategic investment from private equity firm CVC – which has also acquired Jagex with Haveli, and has invested in Chess.com. The aim is to expand the Royal franchise and develop new mobile titles for a global audience.

Given the company’s track record – and the vibrancy and success of Türkiye’s games hub overall – Dream could yet launch another hit game. Third time’s the charm, after all.

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• Honor of Kings
• Valorant
• Delta Force
• PUBG Mobile

Back at the start of 2024, Tencent CEO Pony Ma was critical of the company’s games business. Reuters reported his statements that it was facing significant challenges and the firm’s flagship business had “found ourselves at a loss, as our competitors continue to produce new products, leaving us feeling having achieved nothing”. It came as rivals MiHoYo and NetEase had launched successful titles like Genshin Impact and Eggy Party.

Fast-forward to 2026, Tencent – which has still long been the world’s top grossing mobile games publisher thanks to titles like PUBG Mobile and its flagship, Honor of Kings – has found the hits it’s been craving.

Valorant Mobile has been a success in China, with over $430m from App Store spending alone in just over a year since its release. Tencent claimed that following its launch, the title had more daily active users and gross receipts in its first month than any other Chinese mobile launch of 2025. Often in China, games can have a big opening salvo at launch and fade away in the following months. In August 2026, Valorant Mobile had its best month yet.

Tencent has also had success with Delta Force, launched in September 2024. Another shooter, that game has since crossed $1billion. Tencent has a hand in four of the top five grossing shooters in the world in 2026 so far, including CoD: Mobile, and seven of the top 10 revenue generators thanks to CrossFire: Legends, Arena Breakout and Nizhan Future.

Not every game it releases is a surefire success. But Tencent remains one of the most influential games companies in the world – and is finding the hits that its CEO had craved.

SOFTOGRAPHY

• Whiteout Survival
• Kingshot
• Tasty Travels

Last year, we gave Century Games the number one spot on our Top 50 Mobile Game Makers list. The studio continues to knock it out the park. In fact, so far in 2026, Century Games ranks as the number two publisher by IAP revenue in the world across the App Store and Google Play, per AppMagic estimates.

The Chinese developer has found much of its success in the 4X strategy space. Launched in 2022, Whiteout Survival has generated billions of dollars as the company’s biggest runaway success story. It later followed that up with Kingshot, which 19 months after its release has hit approximately $1.7bn. As we noted in last year’s list, Kingshot was one of 2025’s breakout mobile games, combining the 4X strategy formula with other genres and styles, including some Archero-esque gameplay mechanics.

But the story doesn’t stop there. Century is continuing its run of hits, now scaling merge-2 game Tasty Travels. At the time of writing, it’s picked up more than $360m in revenue and scored its best month yet in August 2026. So far this year, it’s the number two grossing merge title – not bad for a highly competitive genre that includes the likes of Microfun’s Gossip Harbor and Moon Active’s Travel Town, among others.

And just to hammer the point home of how successful Tasty Travels has been, it’s also a top 10 grossing puzzle game for 2026 so far – and it continues to grow.

One of the toughest things in mobile isn’t just releasing a hit game; it’s following that up again and again. But Century’s teams keep finding new, global success stories, making it one of the hottest studios in the world right now.

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• Gossip Harbor
• Seaside Escape
• Flambé: Merge & Cook

This year’s very close second is Chinese developer Microfun. Its flagship title, the merge-2 game Gossip Harbor, was released over four years ago in 2022. Since then, the game has generated more than $2 billion from IAPs across the App Store and Google Play. The scale of the game’s growth has been sensational – it’s surpassed the old incumbents like Merge Mansion and brought the entire category to new heights.

According to Appmagic estimates, the title accumulated $160 million from player spending in August 2026. The figure earned Gossip Harbor’s place as the world’s second top grossing game on the App Store and Google Play that month, behind Tencent’s smash hit Honor of Kings.

Curiously, of Gossip Harbor’s $2.4bn lifetime revenue, just $29m comes from China, Microfun’s home market. It shows a rarity in the mobile world – a truly global hit. Something some of China’s top developers and publishers in particular are increasingly excelling at.

Microfun has also looked to replicate its merge success with Seaside Escape and Flambé and, which have accrued an estimated $622m and $175m, respectively. The developer is now a firm top five revenue-generating mobile games company globally.

What really tips it over the edge is how Microfun keeps squeezing out more growth, just when you think it’s reached its peak. Something that even their very top rivals have struggled to do.

Microfun is one of the top publishers spearheading the global expansion of China’s mobile games industry. Its growth story is also an inspiration to studios looking to scale in competitive genres and a ‘mature’ industry.

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• Monopoly Go!
• Pixel Flow
• Pokémon Go
• Pikmin Bloom

Choosing the number one Mobile Game Maker in our Top 50 lists is never an easy task.

Factors to make the Top 50 include revenue, quality new game releases, innovation, business expansion, growth, live ops success and other factors. So when considering all these aspects, who should top the list for 2026?

There are a few contenders, but this year, we’re awarding top spot to Scopely. The publisher took the position in 2024, before Century grabbed its place in 2025.

But in the intervening two years, Scopely has been busy. Backed by Savvy Games Group, it splashed $3.5 billion on the acquisition of Niantic’s games business in 2025, which it has now rebranded as Scopely Explore. The team’s portfolio, of course, includes Pokémon Go, which stood as the world’s top grossing mobile game in early September, benefiting from a recent resurgence around its 10th anniversary and a series of Go Fest campaigns. Meanwhile, the on-the-rise Pikmin Bloom has already well outperformed last year’s sales.

This year, Scopely brought a top puzzle game into its portfolio in Pixel Flow, acquiring a majority stake in Istanbul developer Loom Games in a deal that values the business in excess of $1 billion.

One of the big stories right now in the games industry is the rise of Türkiye’s vibrant games hub, which has defied industry trends to become a hotbed of investment activity and hit new releases – and Loom Games is one of its biggest new stars. The studio shone at the Pocket Gamer Mobile Games Awards, picking up Best Developer, Game of the Year and Best Game Innovation, while CEO Kübra Gündoğan was awarded with the Rising Star accolade. Scopely took Best Publisher, Best Forever Franchise and Company Culture Champion to boot.

Meanwhile, Monopoly Go! remains one of the world’s most successful games, hitting $6bn in record time. Scopely has it all: new hit games, successful M&A, innovation and puts itself right at the centre of industry trends.

ASSOCIATED COMPANIES

Savvy Games Group

Loom Games

Scopely Explore