Hyper Casuals Make a Comeback

Ariel Ariel
3/4/22

This is a single insight from This Week in Apps #103 - The Downloads Don't Stop. Check out the full article for more insights.


I've analyzed the most downloaded games in February (early, again!) this week, and hey, it's Wordle up top! Kind of.

Subway Surfers was the most downloaded game in the world in February, adding 20M new users to its base, according to our estimates. Roblox, which was the second most downloaded game in January, finished February in fifth place with 12M estimated downloads.

Two hyper-casual titles, Merge Master and Twerk Race–I don't make these names, just cover them–took second and third place in our overall chart with strong downloads on Google Play. We estimate they added 19M and 15M new downloads, respectively.

Garena Free Fire, which was banned in India in February, and sibling Free Fire Max, both made the top list in February. They added 11M and 10M estimated downloads, respectively. While lower than January, this isn't as bad as I expected.

Together, we estimate that the top 10 most downloaded games in the world made their way into 132M new devices in February. Only a touch lower than January's total, but then again, February is a short month, so this is good news.

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All figures included in this report are estimated. Unless specified otherwise, estimated revenue is always net, meaning it's the amount the developer earned after Apple and Google took their fee.


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