According to Appmagic data, Honor of Kings is once more the top grossing game worldwide on iOS and Android – and by some distance.
Tencent’s monster MOBA earned an estimated $1.48bn in 2023, over $300m more than closest rival PUBG Mobile,which is also published by Tencent.
Genshin Impact and Candy Crush Saga swapped places this year, with King’s puzzler leapfrogging Mihoyo’s hit action-RPG, though both were down year-on-year revenue-wise. And arguably the biggest story of 2023 was the trio of new entries in the top ten: Royal Match, Honkai: Star Rail and Monopoly Go.
Full analysis and commentary of the top twenty and beyond follows below. Remember, Appmagic’s figures are estimated using IAP data, and do not include ad revenue or Apple and Google’s 30% cut.
Want more data and commentary? Elsewhere on the site you can find:
- The top grossing mobile game publishers of 2023
- The top mobile game downloads of 2023
- The top mobile game publishers of 2023, by downloads
Honor of Kings has ruled Appmagic’s top earners chart in five out of the last seven years, with fellow Tencent blockbuster PUBG Mobile top in 2020 and 2021, at the height of the battle royale craze.
Tencent’s MOBA is still comfortably ahead of PUBG, but is down year-on-year revenue-wise after a record high of almost $1.8bn in 2022. It raked in almost as much in 2021, when it earned Tencent $1.7bn. It’s truly extraordinary that a game can drop over $300m in year-on-year IAP earnings and still be so far ahead of its closest contender.
PUBG Mobile’s 2023 total of $1.1bn is a big decline on 2022’s $1.5bn earned, and some way off the game’s peak in 2021, when it generated close to $2bn. And yet it’s still an absolute monster of a game: after two years of notable decline it’s still close to $200m ahead of Candy Crush Saga in third.
King’s flagship puzzler started 2023 consistently racking up around $90m per month, but by the end of the year Candy Crush Saga was pulling in closer to $70m monthly. And as we’ve reported several times before, new contender Royal Match has leapfrogged Candy a couple of times in the monthly top grossing charts. Still, 2023 was Candy’s second-biggest year ever in terms of IAP, and there’s ad revenue to consider on top, which is not included in this data.
Genshin Impact had a bit of a wobble in 2023, right around the time Mihoyo’s new title Honkai: Star Rail launched. As we’ve reported before, it appears Mihoyo promoted its new launch to existing Genshin players almost too well. It resulted in an IAP earnings dip that lasted all summer, as Honkai: Star Rail took flight. Happily, it seemed to have recovered by November.
Roblox keeps on Robloxing. After a banner year for IAP earnings in 2021 when it broke $1bn, the UGC-powered platform has now posted earnings of around $870m and placed fifth two years running. Having topped the downloads chart in 2023, it’s on Roblox to help more players part with their cash in 2024 and keep growing – though of course it would be wise for the platform to push payments off-platform to dodge the 30% platform tax, which may be reflected in the stasis here.
Dream Games’ Royal Match ended up sixth, its debut in the annual top ten earners list. Up 14 places on 2022, this one really took flight in the first half of the year and then maintained a rate of roughly $80m in monthly earnings from July onwards. If that continues and Candy Crush doesn’t grow throughout 2024, we could be seeing a new match 3 king crowned this time next year.
Coin Master is down year-on-year again after peaking in 2021, when Moon Active earned around $950m from its flagship game. 2022’s total of $790m and 2023’s earnings of nearly $729m show that the game is declining – just like almost every other title, frankly.
As noted above, Honkai: Star Rail’s debut year has been spectacular, so much so that it dented its predecessor Genshin Impact’s earnings over the summer. Uneven monthly earnings at the end of 2023 make it a difficult to see where this one will settle, but Mihoyo has an established template from Genshin to follow, and plentiful resources with which to execute its plan. There’s also the looming prospect of Zenless Zone Zero, meaning a third Mihoyo title in the top ten earners is a very real possibility for 2024.
Scopely made a big deal of Monopoly Go hitting $1bn last year, so you may be wondering why it’s at around $645m here – in short, that $1bn figure was gross revenue, and as stated above Appmagic data does not include the 30% platform cut. So that figure feels about right if you factor in potential earnings on third party stores and the natural variance in estimates.
However you look at it, Monopoly Go is a game-changer for Scopely. It is already towering over the publisher’s other titles – Appmagic data suggests that Star Trek Fleet Command and Marvel Strike Force are its closest contenders with a relatively modest $78m earned last year.
Gardenscapes’ leap of eight places up the rankings with around $605m earned shows the Playrix puzzler adding significantly to its 2022 total of ~$433m – not an easy feat for a well-established game like this. With Homescapes in 13th and Township and Fishdom also in the top 20 earners, it’s quietly been yet another stellar year for Playrix.
2023’s top grossing mobile games: 11-20
11. Pokémon Go (Niantic): $566.3m
12. Monster Strike (Xflag): $503.8m
13. Homescapes (Playrix): $446.3m
14. Fate/Grand Order (Aniplex): $387.3m
15. Romance of the Three Kingdoms (Lingxi Games): $379.6m
16. Clash of Clans (Supercell): $359m
17. Township (Playrix): $358.5m
18. Justice Mobile (NetEase): $358.2m
19. Uma Musume Pretty Derby (Cygames): $349.4m
20. Fishdom (Playrix): $344m
Niantic’s Pokémon Go has dropped out of the top ten earners for the first time since launch in 2016, and posted its lowest annual IAP earnings total since 2017. Still, Monster Hunter Now’s off to a good start, having earned Niantic over $85m since it launched in September – if it had been on the market longer and earned IAP at the same rate it would have broken into the top 20.
Of the three Playrix titles in this bracket, Homescapes and Fishdom are both down a little year-on-year, but Township is booming – it’s up on 2022’s total by over $35m and has been growing every year since 2018.
Monster Strike is as steady as ever, while Fate/Grand Order posts its fifth straight year of IAP revenue decline, having been up among the very top earners back in 2018.
China-only hit Romance of the Three Kingdoms has taken quite a tumble – it’s down to nearly $380m from 2022’s total of $606m. It’s been a rough year for Supercell’s Clash of Clans, too. Appmagic says IAP revenue has dropped by over $110m year-on-year, from $471m in 2022 to $359m in 2023 – alarming stuff.
NetEase’s new China-only MMO Justice Mobile only arrived in June but still squeezed into the top 20 with ~$358m earned in just six months. And in 19th, like so many others, Cygames’s Uma Musume Pretty Derby has dropped year-on-year significantly, posting close to $350m in 2023 compared to almost $492m in 2022.
Outside the top 20 and beyond
Tencent’s Goddess of Victory: Nikke arrived in late 2022, so with a full year on the market it has leapt up the rankings 62 places to 23rd spot with $319m earned in 2023. Activision’s Call of Duty Mobile had a steady year, down only a little from 2022’s $323m to post $315m in 2023.
Elsewhere, another game that took a huge year-on-year drop is Lilith’s Rise of Kingdoms, down from ~$442m in 2022 to $292m last year.
NetEase’s Eggy Party is still technically in soft launch but still earned its publisher ~$282m in 2023: this is one to watch when it launches worldwide this year.
Industry favourite Whiteout Survival debuts on the annual top grossing chart at 34 with $260m earned in 2023 for developer Century Games. It was a tough year for FunPlus’ State of Survival, though, which dropped 22 places and posted IAP revenue of ~$239m compared to around $437m in 2022.
Lineage W, Empires & Puzzles, Raid: Shadow Legends, Free Fire and Lords Mobile also suffered notable drops in the rankings, with Supercell’s Clash Royale dropping a huge 20 spots. Its revenue was down from around $220m in 2022 to ~$166m in 2023.
Games notably rising through the revenue rankings in 2023 include eFootball 2024, Survivor.io, June’s Journey, Family Island, Last Fortress: Underground,EA Sports FC and Triple Match 3D.
