Author: Jim Stephenson

Genshin Impact was a game that went from 0 to popular real quick when it was released sometime in 2020. Dubbed as the “Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild” ripoff, this open world ARPG or action roleplaying game has dominated the mobile game industry months after its release and made its way to PC not long after.

But how has the game been since its release? How big of an IMPACT did Genshin Impact have in the gaming industry? How many people play Genshin Impact?

We’ll know more about the statistics in this article.

Key Genshin Impact Statistics

• One week after its release, Genshin Impact revenue was already $50 million on all platforms [1].
• Player spending for 2021 was $1.286 billion [3].
• Player spending as of Aug 2022 already hit the $1 billion mark [3].
• Genshin Impact is one of the top-grossing games for the Apple App Store as of June 2022 with $13.95 million in revenue generated from that platform alone [6].
• Japan ranks #1 in highest average revenue per download at $100 per, with Singapore following in second place with $72.69 [7]. The numbers indicate that this is what the new player would spend on average after downloading the game.
• The player base worldwide is 55% male and 45% female, showing a near equal split for player demographics. But Japan’s player base is dominated by male players at 77% and female players only accounting for 23% [10], [11].
• Genshin Impact average monthly active player count for both Android and iOS platforms is 2.29 million per month [12].
• iOS’s monthly average was 2.76 million and Android’s monthly average was only 1.81 million [12].
• Active player count for August 2022 was 63 million and 8.4 million peak concurrent players [13].

Genshin Impact Facts And Overview

Genshin Impact is an ARPG or action roleplaying game developed by miHoYo, a Tencent-owned company. The game was released back in September 2020 and can be played solo or with friends. Genshin Impact itself is free-to-play, but there are in-game purchases and microtransactions within the system.

The game is not without content though. Genshin Impact takes place in the world of Teyvat where two twins just arrived. These twins have the power to travel across different worlds but when they arrived in Teyvat, the world was in the middle of a huge conflict. Unable to escape, one of the twins was sealed away by an unknown God and the other was kidnapped.

Genshin Impact puts players 500 years after the events when the sealed twin, which is you, is released. The twin encounters a character named Paimon who’ll accompany them to find their lost sibling. Meanwhile, you will be put into the middle of the affairs of Teyvat and you’ll be playing through the story and its content. You’ll be able to control between four different characters, most of whom you’ll acquire through the story or through in-app purchases. You’ll be using these characters and their abilities to create powerful combos to cleave through enemies.

With vibrant colors, anime-like design, and a massive world to explore, it’s not surprising to see why many people play Genshin Impact and why it’s one of the most popular games right now. The game is currently available on PC, Google Play, Apple App Store, PS4, and PS5. There’s no date as to when the game will be released for Nintendo Switch.

Genshin Impact Revenue Statistics

Here are the numbers showing just how much Genshin Impact made on its first year [1]:

• Genshin Impact revenue for its first week was $50 million from all platforms, with United States, China, and Japan being the biggest markets.
• Two weeks after, the game generated $100 million in revenue, making it one of the fastest mobile games to reach the $100 million mark in player spending [2].
• China generated 30.5% of the $120 million revenue for their first year, with Japan following at $98 million, and USA with $74 million [2].
• Five months after the release, Genshin Impact generated $874 million in revenue, with China as the biggest spender and accounting for $253 million of that amount [2].
• The game hit the $1 billion mark in revenue after six months, with China and Japan as the biggest markets and USA following with 18.5% market share [2].
• Genshin Impact player spending for the entire year of 2021 was $1.286 billion [3].
• As of Aug 2022, player spending for 2022 already hit the $1 billion mark [3].
• Genshin Impact is currently the highest-grossing mobile gacha game around the world based on income reports gathered for the period of Q1 2022. Genshin Impact earned $567 million for that time period [4].
• miHoYo’s annual revenue for 2021 was $1.4 billion. Year to date, the company generated $1.05 billion already with four months left to the year [5].
• Genshin Impact is one of the top-grossing games for iPhone in June 2022. For that time period, the game generated $13.95 million in revenue. Pokemon Go remains as the highest grossing mobile game for iPhone with $23.97 million in revenue generated [6].
• Japan has the highest average revenue per download at $100, with Singapore in second place at $72.69 [7].

The Gacha System is what really drives Genshin Impact’s revenue up. In Genshin Impact, you stumble across unique characters that will help you along your journey. Some of them you can unlock as you progress through the story, and others are unlocked through the microtransactions.

Players will need to purchase Genesis Crystals through the store, which they will use to purchases Wishes. Wishes are the equivalent of loot boxes in other games. Each Wish unlocks a random item or unique character.

If you’re lucky enough, you unlock the most sought after characters in the game. The more money you spend for Crystals, the more Wishes you can purchase or make, so to speak. Now the game can be played without spending money on Crystals. Crystals are earned through quests, but you’ll need to grind for it.

The Gacha System is also controversial because countries like China have considered it as gambling [8]. To circumvent this, a lot of games have redesigned the way their loot boxes work in order to comply with these gambling rules [9].

There’s no maximum number for purchasing Crystals and making Wishes, so you can just imagine how many players are actively spending money on the game just to go after a character.

Statistics on Genshin Impact Users

It’s always interesting to see the demographics of people playing online games, and Genshin Impact being one of those popular games right now, we were curious to find out just how diverse their player base is compared to other games.

• Japan’s player base is 77% male, and 23.1% female. Globally, Genshin Impact’s player base is almost a close split. 55% of their players are male and 45% are female [10], [11].
• 27% of their players spend about 3 to 10 minutes per session, while 23% of their players spend anywhere between 1 hour and 10 hours playing the game [10].

The gender split across Genshin Impact through four platforms is almost close to equal, indicating that the game has enough appeal for female gamers to try out.

How Many People Play Genshin Impact?

• Genshin Impact player count for the entire year of 2021 was 2.29 million for both Android and iOS platforms [12].
  • iOS had a higher monthly average for 2021 with 2.76 million active players while Android had a monthly average of 1.81 million active players [12].
• Active player count for August 2022 was 63 million with an all time peak of 8.4 million concurrent players [13].

Note that the player count does not discern between veteran players and new players, which would’ve been an interesting data to see.

How Many Downloads Does Genshin Impact Have?

• For 2021, Genshin Impact generated 53.31 million downloads across all platforms [14].
• Year to date, it’s estimated that Genshin Impact has had 32.88 downloads with four months left till the end of 2022 [14].
• For the iOS platform, the game has been downloaded more than 601,000 times in the United States and 275,000 in Russia during the second quarter of 2022. To date, there have been 2.3 million downloads for just the iOS devices worldwide [15].
• For the same period of observance in the previous paragraph, Android users in Russia have the highest downloads with more than 674,000 with the United States with 478,000 downloads. For the Android platform, the game has been downloaded 5.6 million times worldwide for this time period [16].

Is Genshin Impact Still Popular?

With the stats above, it’s safe to assume that Genshin Impact’s popularity is anything but low. It’s one of the most popular games in the mobile gaming industry and is also one of the most streamed videos on Twitch.

• Genshin Impact is currently ranked #14 on the iPhone and 5th on iPad for the Top Free RPG Games category in the USA [17].
• In Japan, Genshin Impact is #2 for iPhone and #1 on iPad for the same category [18].
• In Brazil, Genshin Impact is #4 on iPhone and #3 on iPad for the same category [19].

As the stats showed, iOS is the go-to platform for a lot of people playing Genshin Impact on their mobile phones.

On the other side of the mobile gaming industry, we have the following stats for Google Play Store.

• Genshin Impact is the 4th most downloaded game and 3rd highest-grossing game for the Top Free Adventure Games Category in the USA [20].
• Genshin Impact is ranked 3rd for most downloaded game and top-grossing game for the same category [21].
• Genshin Impact is ranked 6th for most downloaded game and 3rd for top-grossing game for the same category [22].
• Genshin Impact won the iPhone Game of the Year and Google Play Store’s Best Game for the year 2020 [23], [24].

The number of players on the Apple iOS is presumably higher than the number of players on the Android platform, but the margin is minimal.

The Wrap Up

With the data for Genshin Impact revenue, active player count, and even just seeing how many people downloaded the game since its inception, we can conclude that Genshin Impact is here to stay for a few number of years and at the rate they’re cranking out content, who knows how many people will be spending more money on the game.

The appeal is there and the story is great. The environment and the graphics are colorful. And of course, the Gacha system is addictive to a lot of players playing this game.

Reference

[1] https://gamerant.com/genshin-impact-revenue-sales-100m/

[2] https://www.statista.com/statistics/1248976/fastest-mobile-games-reach-100-million-player-spending-worldwide/

[3] https://www.statista.com/statistics/1208573/genshin-impact-player-spending-app/

[4] https://www.statista.com/statistics/1308503/gacha-game-mobile-gross/

[5] https://www.statista.com/statistics/1265527/mihoyo-annual-app-revenue/

[6] https://www.statista.com/statistics/697682/leading-iphone-mobile-games-global-revenue/

[7] https://www.statista.com/statistics/1295196/genshin-impact-arpu-country/

[8] https://gamegavel.com/gacha-games-in-china-what-do-they-have-in-common-with-gambling-around-the-world/

[9] https://www.pocketgamer.biz/asia/comment-and-opinion/70642/loot-box-design-20-complying-with-chinas-new-rules/

[10] https://www.blog.udonis.co/mobile-marketing/mobile-games/genshin-impact-advertising

[11] https://www.statista.com/statistics/1189045/japan-genshin-impact-monthly-active-users-share-by-gender/

[12] https://www.statista.com/statistics/1251767/genshin-impact-mau/

[13] https://activeplayer.io/genshin-impact/

[14] https://www.statista.com/statistics/1251724/genshin-impact-number-of-downloads-worldwide/

[15] https://www.statista.com/statistics/1329250/genshin-impact-ios-downloads/

[16] https://www.statista.com/statistics/1329253/genshin-impact-android-downloads/

[17] https://app.sensortower.com/ios/US/cognosphere-pte-ltd/app/genshin-impact–sumeru-debut/1517783697/overview?tab=about

[18] https://app.sensortower.com/ios/JP/cognosphere-pte-ltd/app/yuan-shen/1517783697/overview?tab=about

[19] https://app.sensortower.com/ios/BR/cognosphere-pte-ltd/app/genshin-impact–sumeru/1517783697/overview?tab=about

[20] https://app.sensortower.com/android/US/cognosphere-pte-ltd/app/genshin-impact–sumeru-debut/com.miHoYo.GenshinImpact/overview?tab=about

[21] https://app.sensortower.com/android/RU/cognosphere-pte-ltd/app/genshin-impact/com.miHoYo.GenshinImpact/overview?tab=about

[22] https://app.sensortower.com/android/ID/cognosphere-pte-ltd/app/genshin-impact–sumeru-dibuka/com.miHoYo.GenshinImpact/overview?tab=about

[23] https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2020/12/apple-presents-app-store-best-of-2020-winners/

[24] https://play.google.com/store/apps/topic?id=campaign_editorial_bestof2020_bestgame

Dota 2 is a very popular game with millions of concurrent players monthly despite being a Steam exclusive. What started out as a game mod for Warcraft III is now one of the biggest games in the industry. With a bustling esports scene and professional players earning top dollar for the major in game events, it comes as no surprise as to why this game is the biggest rival to Riot Games’ League of Legends.

In this article, we’ll discuss the boring Dota 2 statistics such as revenue generated, users’ stats, and more.

Key Dota 2 Statistics

• In 2015, Dota 2 generated $238 million in revenue from microtransactions alone [1].
• In 2017, Dota 2 generated $406 million in revenue from microtransactions [1].
• Dota 2 generated $160 million in revenue from Battle Passes alone [2].
• Dota 2’s The International in 2022 will have a $45 million prize money [3].
• In August 2022, more than 6.3 million active players were recorded. The previous month recorded 6.1 million [10].
• The live count of the game hovers anywhere between 300,000 and 500,000 at any given time [10], [11].
• Dota 2’s player count increased by 15.6% last November 2021, which was their biggest increase in five years [13].
• 51% of Dota 2 players are from United States [14].
• Dota 2 is the second most played game on Steam with more than 351 million hours played recorded as of Sept 2022 (year to date) and averaging over 867,000 peak concurrent players [15].
• Dota 2’s The International is one of the biggest e-sporting events in the video game industry. In 2021, peak concurrent viewer count was 2.74 million for the entirety of the event [16].

What Is Dota 2 About?

Dota 2, or Defense of the Ancients, falls under the MOBA or multiplayer online battle arena genre and was created by Valve, the company behind Steam.

The goal of the game is simple. Two teams of five players will use different Heroes with unique abilities and roles to destroy the other team’s Ancient. But to achieve this goal, you need to have teamwork and communication. The game can be played solo, but often times, it’s best played with friends. The average game of Dota 2 takes about 30 minutes or so, less if the enemy team (or your team) is underperforming and is getting steamrolled.

As a player, you pick a Hero from their drafting pool and depending on the game mode, the other team might also pick the same hero as you did. Your goal is to make a powerful character by killing other heroes and minions within your lane or in team fights. You spend resources such as energy and mana points to use skill points against the other team or to help your team mates.

The game has a steep learning curve and it takes a while to get used to the system, even if you’re already familiar with how MOBAs work.

Since its inceptions, new features have been made such as the introduction of games modes like Captain’s Mode. The e-sports scene is comprised of different teams coming from other countries playing against one another with millions of dollars in prizes.

A Little Dota 2 History

The game was developed by Icefrog and was originally part of the Warcraft III custom game mods. The game generated so much hype that Valve decided to acquire Icefrog and the game itself. Valve announced Dota 2 to the world in Gamescom 2011 and was officially released in July 2013.

Since then, Valve continues to release new Heroes, new content, bigger prize pools for tournaments, and continuous improvement of their e-sports and professional scene.

Dota 2 Revenue

There’s no recent information on revenue generated for anything after 2017 since Valve stopped disclosing this kind of information. But we do know that this free-t0-play game is making millions.

• In 2015, the game generated $238 million through microtransactions [1].
• Revenue generated by Dota 2 in 2017 was estimated at $406 million [1].
• In 2020, Dota 2 generated $160 million in revenue through the Battle pass alone [2].

Dota 2 Sales and More

• This year’s 2022 Dota 2 The International will have a $45 million prize pool and is set for the 3rd quarter of 2022 [3].
• From 2016 to 2021, the total prize pool is $220.45 million with the following breakdown:
  • 2016 – $37.45 million
  • 2017 – $38.05 million
  • 2018 – $41.40 million
  • 2019 – $46.97
  • 2020 – $9.32 million
  • 2021 – $47.76 million
• Chinese professional players in Dota 2 are the highest paid e-sports athletes in the professional scene. As of February 2021, the entirety of their professional athletes have earned $65.3 million in prize money.
• Dota 2 continues to dominate in terms of tournament prize pools as of 2021 with $47.76 million recorded. They are followed by Counter-Strike: Global Offensive with $21.89 million and PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds: Mobile with $20.57 million [6].
• The highest paid professional player in Dota 2 is NoTail, or Johan Sundetein. Having earned almost $7 million spanning 108 tournaments, that means he averages more than $60,000 per tournament [8].

Dota 2 Player Statistics

A survey was done in 2021 that showed how big and how big the Dota 2 community is within the platform. Note that the findings and demographics listed may not apply to the entirety of the gaming community worldwide as the survey was only conducted in one platform.

Here are the data [9]:

• The largest age group of the Dota 2 community is the 22-25 year old age group, comprising 32.8% of the entire population. They are followed by the 26-30 year old age group with 31.2%.
• The youngest professional player at the time the survey was conducted in 2021 is 16 years old and the oldest is 33 years old.
• In China, 28.5 years old is the average age of their Dota 2 community. This community is comprised of 57% male and 43% female.
  • For both male and female players, the largest age group is the 21-35 bracket. 34% of male players and 28% of female players belong to this age group.
• 91.4% of their respondents have played the game for more than 3 years.
  • 38.6% of players who played for longer than 3 years have played for more than 8 years.
• Dota 2 is the second most toxic game in the world, with 78% of the respondents having been victims of harassment.

How Many People Are Playing Dota 2?

• Over the last 30 days, there have been 6.3 million active players. In July 2022, there were 6.1 million active players recorded [10].
• Peak number of players over the last 30 days is 2.1 million [10].
• The live count of the game hovers at around 300,000 to 500,000 at any given time [10], [11].
• The peak number of concurrent players hit 1.2 million at the height of its popularity in 2016. For the entire 2016, the average concurrent count never hit below 1 million concurrent players[11].
• As of August 2022, there were more than 747,000 concurrent players [12].
• There was a 15.6% increase in player count observed in November 2021, which was their biggest player spike in 5 years [13].
• 51% of Dota 2 players are from the United States, followed by the Russians with 10.53% and Brazil with 5.09%. Brazil and Vietnam close out the top 5 with 4.44% and 3.9% respectively [14].

The numbers are pretty impressive for what other people have considered to be a dead game. The player count, be it live or monthly average, is always within six or seven figures at any given time.

Is Dota 2 Dead?

The question remains: is Dota 2 dead? Well, the numbers don’t lie and we’ll say that this is far from being dead. It’s not even catatonic at this point, and we’ll show you the numbers:

• Dota 2 is the second most played game on Steam, following after Counter-Strike: Global Offensive. We say that it’s the second most played game on Steam because outside of Steam, the title of most played game belongs to League of Legends [15].
  • Year to date (Sept 2022), Dota 2 has more than 351 million hours played and averaging over 867,000 peak concurrent players.
• Dota 2’s The International is one of the biggest e-sporting event in the industry. In 2021, it drew 2.74 million in concurrent viewers all throughout [16].
• Dota 2 is one of the most viewed games on Twitch. As of July 2022, Dota 2 garnered 11.1 million views. Grand Theft Auto V is the most viewed game with 32.2 million views for the same month [17].
• Dota 2 is the second most played game on Twitch for 2021 in terms of hourly average number of players. The game averaged more than 420,000 players per hour for the entire year [18].

Wrap Up

So there you have it. Dota 2, the biggest cash cow from Valve Corporation, is not yet dead and is probably still considered a popular game. With ten players fighting against one another in a small map, the replay value is insanely high.

The number of players logged in and playing at any given time is never below six figures, and that says something about just how popular the game is. Even with games like PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds, League of Legends, Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, and Grand Theft Auto V dominating the player count race, Dota 2 will remain as one of the biggest games for many years to c0me.

Reference

[1] https://www.statista.com/statistics/807617/dota-2-revenue/

[2] https://statinvestor.com/data/26932/dota-2-revenue

[3] https://egamersworld.com/dota2/event/the-international-2022-NkQnDM4Xi

[4] https://www.statista.com/statistics/807889/dota-2-tournament-prize-pool/

[5] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_International_(Dota_2)#:~:text=The%20total%20prize%20pool%20remained,million%20for%20the%20winning%20team.

[6] https://www.statista.com/statistics/501853/leading-esports-games-worldwide-total-prize-pool/

[7] https://win.gg/news/everything-to-know-about-the-dota-2-player-count-in-2021/

[8] https://www.statista.com/chart/10612/the-highest-earning-gamers-in-the-world/

[9] https://www.docdroid.net/ZeJTLar/rdota2-demographics-report-2021-pdf

[10] https://activeplayer.io/dota-2/

[11] https://steamcharts.com/app/570#1y

[12] https://www.statista.com/statistics/807457/dota-2-number-players-steam/

[13] https://esports.gg/news/dota-2/dota-2-sees-the-biggest-player-count-increase-in-5-years/

[14] https://playercounter.com/dota-2/

[15] https://steamcharts.com/top

[16] https://www.statista.com/statistics/518201/dota2-championship-viewers/

[17] https://www.statista.com/statistics/509814/leading-games-twitch-by-number-hours-viewed/

[18] https://www.statista.com/statistics/656319/steam-most-played-games-average-player-per-hour/

What started out as a platform for Valve to automatically update their games is now one of the biggest digital game distribution platforms for both publishers and developers. Steam has acquired millions of games and users throughout the years, along with a long lineup of anime, films, soundtrack, and more.

Today, we’re looking at the numbers to see how big the platform really is. We’ll be looking at interesting Steam stats such as the number of Steam users, games owned, the most played game in the platform, and much more.

Key Steam Statistics

• In 2020, Steam averaged 120 million monthly active users with 62.6 million daily active users [1].
• 1% of Steam games earned more than $25 million through the platform alone [2].
• In 2020, an average of 2.6 million new game purchases was recorded [3], which means there were 2.6 million new sign ups on the platform.
• Only 100 games account for 50% of Steam’s revenue, responsible for half of the $4.3 billion earned in 2017 [5].
• Games that cost $10 or so averaged at 1,000 copies sold and games priced at the premium of $21 and up sold more than 5,000 copies on average [7].
• Only 25% of the entire Steam library of games generated more than $50,000 in revenue [8].
• 1% of the games uploaded on Steam are considered moneymakers for earning more than $25 million in revenue [8].
• In 2021, Steam recorded 132 million monthly active users on average and 69 million daily active users on average [10],[11].

Steam Platform Overview

Steam is a digital video game distribution platform which houses thousands of games from hundreds of publishers and developers all around the world.

To paint a picture of what the platform is, imagine a virtual library containing all the games you bought and paid for. The games are housed into a singular account and are yours forever.

If you’re buying a new hard drive or a new high-end gaming PC, don’t fret because you just need to install Steam into the new device, login, and download.

Steam Sales Statistics and Revenue Data

• In 2020, Steam had more than 120 million active Steam users in a month and averaging 62.6 million users daily. This spike is Steam user count resulted in a 21.4% increase in game sales and 50.7% increase in total number of hours played on Steam [1],[3].
• 1% of games on Steam earn more than $25 million just through the platform. In contrast, almost 50% of games have never earned more than $10,000 [2].
• A monthly average of 2.6 million new game purchases on Steam was recorded in 2020. This meant that 2.6 million users signed up for the platform every month in 2020 [3].
• Epic Games is Steam’s greatest rival. The platform contains about 160 million games with about 31.3 million daily active users recorded in 2020. Their biggest game in their library is Fortnite [4].
• There are only 100 games that make up 50% of Steam’s revenue, generating half of the $4.3 billion revenue for 2017. The platform’s biggest earner is PUBG or PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds, earning $600 million from the 28 million Steam users who own the game [5].
• In 2018, 21% of survey respondents between video game developers have reported that 100% of their income is generated through Steam. In contrast, 24% of their respondents account for Epic Games as their main source of revenue [6].

What’s the average number of Steam games sold? Let’s take a look at these figures [7]:

• An average Steam game earned 47% less in 2019.
• The average game sold around 1,500 copies in 2019, about 70% less from their sales in 2018.
• Games that cost $10 would average 1,000 copies sold, while games priced between $11 and $15 would average about 2,000 copies sold. Games with higher price tags, at about $21 or so, are more than likely to average 5,000 copies sold. Games priced between $16 and $20 generate about 2,500 copies sold.

How much money are Steam games earning through the platform? Let’s take a look at the data for 2020 [8].

• Almost half of the Steam games have not earned $5,000 in revenue.
• Only 25% of the titles on Steam have generated more than $50,000 in revenue.
• The AA or AAA games comprise 10% of the games’ population on Steam and have made more than $430,000 in revenue.
• 1% of games on Steam are considered the moneymakers and have earned more than $25 million in revenue.

The Steam Sales are one of the most sought after seasonal sales that a lot of steam users are looking forward to. These seasonal sales are as grand as they sound, with games within Steam almost being discounted to 90% (even for the new titles).

Let’s take a look at what the Autumn Sale 2020 brought in terms of sales and revenue. This 2020 Autumn Sale was the platform’s best performing seasonal sale yet [9]:

• Almost one million users purchased for the first time during the Autumn Steam Sales of 2020, showing a 33% increase compared to the previous year’s sale.
• 24 million concurrent users were logged on to the platform for the sale, which was a 7 million increase from the previous year’s sale.

Steam Player Statistics

• In 2021, Steam reported an average of 132 million monthly active users and showed a 12 million increase from the previous year’s 120 million users [10].
• In 2021, Steam’s daily average user count is reported at 69 million, which is more than a 20 million increase compared to the DAU reported in 2018 [11].
• In 2021, 69% of Steam users in the USA are male [12].
• In 2021, 37% of Steam users in the USA are aged between 20 and 29 years old [13].
• In 2021, 19% of users in the USA have a Master’s Degree or its equivalent [14].
• China already has more than 30 million Steam users, making it one of the largest gaming markets globally [15].
• About 48 million players prefer a controller over mice and keyboards on Steam [16].

Steam Game Statistics

• As of July 2022, more than 7000 new titles have been released on to the platform [17].
• As of September 2022, Counter-Strike: Global Offensive is one of the most played games in the Steam platform in terms of concurrent players. For this month of observation, the game has about 653,423 concurrent players [18].
  • Dota 2 has 514,177 concurrent users for the month of September 2022.
  • Apex Legends has 231,258 concurrent users for the same month.
  • Other games such as PUBG and Lost Ark close the top 5 most played games with 182,516 and 137,603 users respectively.
• In 2021, Counter-Strike: Global Offensive is the most played game in terms of hourly average played with 604.95 hours and followed by Dota 2 with 420.31 hours [19].
• In 2021, Counter-Strike: Global Offensive has the highest number of concurrent players at 1.19 million, followed by New World with 913,300 players [20].
• As of 2022, there are more than 50,000 games on Steam globally [21].
• Call of Duty: Modern Warfare has the largest file size on Steam with 200GB, followed by Quantum Break with 175+ GB [22].

Wrapping Up

Now we have seen these impressive Steam stats, it doesn’t come as a surprise to understand why this is the biggest gaming platform to date. More than half, if not all, of the major game developers and publishers are releasing their games on Steam. Who knows how many people are actually spending money on a daily basis, but with the numbers above, it’s clear that any single game listed on Steam are good enough for gamers.

Reference

[1] https://www.gamesindustry.biz/valves-generates-record-breaking-usd4-3bn-from-sales-revenue-in-2017

[2] https://www.intoindiegames.com/how-much-money-do-steam-games-make/

[3] https://www.dualshockers.com/steam-had-over-120-million-monthly-active-players-in-2020/

[4] https://store.epicgames.com/en-US/news/epic-games-store-2020-year-in-review

[5] https://www.gamesindustry.biz/valves-generates-record-breaking-usd4-3bn-from-sales-revenue-in-2017

[6] https://www.statista.com/statistics/1236112/game-developers-revenue-video-game-stores/

[7] https://www.pcgamesn.com/steam-revenue

[8] https://www.ind13.com/how-much-money-do-steam-games-make/

[9] https://gamerant.com/steam-valve-autumn-sale-2020-biggest-revenue/

[10] https://www.statista.com/statistics/733277/number-stream-dau-mau/

[11] https://www.statista.com/statistics/1242175/number-stream-dau/

[12] https://www.statista.com/forecasts/1242343/steam-us-user-share-by-gender

[13] https://www.statista.com/forecasts/1242344/steam-us-user-share-by-age

[14] https://www.statista.com/forecasts/1242345/steam-us-user-share-by-education

[15] https://variety.com/2018/gaming/news/steams-china-userbase-over-30-million-1202984255/

[16] https://steamcommunity.com/groups/steamworks/announcements/detail/3061855517864424915

[17] https://www.statista.com/statistics/552623/number-games-released-steam/

[18] https://www.statista.com/statistics/1179973/steam-games-peak-concurrent-players/

[19] https://www.statista.com/statistics/656319/steam-most-played-games-average-player-per-hour/

[20] https://www.statista.com/statistics/656278/steam-most-played-games-peak-concurrent-player/

[21] https://www.pcgamesn.com/steam/total-games

[22] https://www.thelostgamer.com/biggest-pc-games-ranked-by-file-size/

Gamers from all over the world recognize League of Legends. It’s probably one of the biggest video games in the industry right now, and has been for more than a decade.

Even if you didn’t play or download League of Legends because you were busy with another MOBA (Multiplayer Online Battle Arena) game, you probably have seen the game for their amazing cinematics and most recent animated series, Arcane.

Today, we delve into League of Legends and go through the numbers to understand why this is Riot Games’ most popular game of all time.

And no, we won’t be talking about win-loss ratios or KDAs or the most played champions. We’ll be looking at the demographics for the League of Legends player base, their revenue stream over the last few years, Twitch viewers, and much more.

Key League of Legends Statistics

• League of Legends is one of the highest grossing F2P game. In 2020, the game earned $1.75 billion in revenue [1].
• League of Legends earned $2.1 billion at the peak of its popularity in 2017 [2].
• The average player spending for League of Legends is $119 [3].
• There are 180 million monthly active users recorded for League of Legends [5].
• League of Legends has been downloaded at least 180 million times (estimated) based on several data [5], [6], [7].
• As of August 2022, the 30-day average for active players is more than 150 million [6].
• As of 2021, there are about 715,000 concurrent players recorded [7].
• 87% of the League of Legends population is male, and 12% are female [9].
• Korea currently has the highest number of players with more than 10 million players logged in daily and a total population of 20 million players [11], [12].
• South Korea is the highest earning country for League of Legends in the esports arena, having won more than $30 million from all events to date [15].

League of Legends Overview

But first, what exactly is League of Legends?

League of Legends belongs to the Multiplayer Online Battle Arena (MOBA) genre and was first released in 2009 by Riot Games.

The game puts 2 teams of 5 players each against one another in combat. The goal is to destroy the enemy’s Nexus, which is housed on the opposite side of the map. The map is divided into three major lanes: top lane, bottom lane, and the middle lane (or mid). Each lane has three sets of towers that players will have to push through right alongside minions that automatically spawn in intervals.

These two teams of five players will have to choose among different champions, each with unique abilities, and to dominate their corresponding lane. League of Legends players will fight one on one in certain lanes, or in groups, to achieve victory. The goal of the game is simple: destroy the enemy’s base and their Nexus. Or make them surrender.

The average game length for League of Legends is about 20 to 30 minutes, with the option for early surrender at 15 minutes in. However, early surrender needs to be completely unanimous and that all 5 players will have to vote YES.

League of Legends is a free-to-play or F2P game with no paywall, but how exactly is it generating revenue?

The answer is simple. Cosmetics. Players can purchase cosmetic products called SKINS, which changes the appearances (and sometimes the entire visual effects) of champions. League of Legends players can also purchase Summoner Icons (or avatar), Battle Passes (when available), Chromas (skin recolor palettes), Ward Skins, and IP/Exp Boosts.

Technically speaking, you can enjoy League of Legends without having to spend a single cent. Champion rosters rotate once a week so you can always play different champions every week. Players can purchase a League of Legends champion through IP earned from games, or through RP. RP, or Riot Points, is the game’s in-game currency which you can purchase for real money. Riot Points are then used to purchase the aforementioned cosmetics above.

Today, League of Legends is one of the biggest MOBA games of all time and its popularity continues to rise.

League of Legends Revenue Statistics

• League of Legends is one of the highest grossing F2P game globally, earning $1.75 billion in 2020. Honour of Kings is the highest grossing title with $2.45 billion earned for that same year [1].
• At its peak, League of Legends earned $2.1 billion in revenue for 2017 and $1.8 billion in 2016 [2].
• League of Legends’ average player spending is $119 [3].
• League of Legends: Wild Rift, the mobile version of the game, has earned $21.14 million for this year, spanning January 2022 up to May 2022. That number will be higher as the year closes. In 2021, the mobile game earned $57.93 million [4].

How Many Players Does League of Legends Have?

• League of Legends recorded 180 million monthly active users (MAU).
  • This not only covers League of Legends, but also League of Legends: Wild Rift, Legends of Runeterra, Fight for the Golden Spatula, and Teamfight tactics [5].
• As of August 2022, the 30-day average for monthly active players is 151,102,355 players [6].
  • Within the same time period, there were 130,510,366 Twitch viewers for League of Legends.
• In 2021, League of Legends recorded 715,000 concurrent players [7].
• While it’s not the actual player count, or official count, League of Legends has about close to 180 million registered users [6].
  • This data may be inaccurate to some extent because this does not cover just all the current active players. The data also include the users who signed up, downloaded, and uninstalled the game at some point.

With the numbers alone, it’s no wonder why League of Legends is one of the most popular games of all time. Their numbers beat out Steam, the video game platform. Steam’s monthly active users is reported to be somewhere at about 120 million and 62.6 million players using the Steam platform daily [8].

On a personal note, I was one of the few lucky ones back then who was paid to test out games like League of Legends.

League of Legends Demographics

The following data have been gathered from a large scale poll dated 2020 [9], [10]:

• 87% of the entire League of Legends player count is predominantly male and 12% of the League of Legends player count is female.
• 75% of the player base are younger than the age of 25.
• 67% of women who play League of Legends enjoy the Jungler role or Fill role, while 80% of men prefer the Mid role.
• 98% of men have been flamed and cussed in game, and 79% of female players experience harassment at some point.
• In China, the ratio of men to women League of Legends players is slightly closer. 73% of their players are male and 27% are women. The largest age group that comprises 36% of the player base is the 21-35 age group.
• Korea has the highest number of people who play League of Legends. It’s estimated that more than 10 million people play League of Legends every day [11], [12].
  • Out of their population, 3.8 million players are ranked players. This makes Korea as having the highest number of ranked players amongst other servers. In contrast, the total population of the Korea server (covering ranked and unranked players) is around 20 million players [13].
• Europe West follows in 2nd place with 1.5 million ranked players and Brazil with 1.3 million ranked players [11], [12].

How Many Downloads Does League of Legends Have?

Riot Games has not officially released an actual download count, so the data provided here are based on several factors, including number of League of Legends monthly active players, registered users, and so on.

• League of Legends: Wild Rift is one of the most downloaded MOBA games for mobile. In July 2022, the game generated 994,921 downloads [14].
• League of Legends: Wild Rift (Chinese Edition) generated 730,334 downloads for that time period [14].
• Mobile Legends: Bang Bang is the most downloaded game for that time period with more than 4.7 million downloads [14].
• Based on the current number for League of Legends players, as well as data from the number of registered users, the estimated download count for League of Legends is at least 180 million times [5], [6], [7].

League of Legends Esports Stats

League of Legends has one of the biggest esports events in the video game industry right now. The production value of these World Championships is legendary (see what I did there?).

So who are the biggest earners in League of Legends’ side of esports?

• South Korea dominates the rankings in terms of earning, having won more than $30 million from all esports events to date [15].
  • China comes in second place with $601,972 and Taiwan with $266,399.
• Five of the highest earning players in League of Legends are from Korea. Lee “Faker” Sang Yeok is the highest paid player with $1.3 million to his name [15].

The prize pool for the League of Legends World Championships between 2012 up to 2021 are as follows [16]:

• 2012 – $1.97 million
• 2013 – $2.05 million
• 2014 – $2.13 million
• 2015 – $2.13 million
• 2016 – $5.97 million
• 2017 – $4.95 million
• 2018 – $6.45 million
• 2019 – $2.23 million
• 2020 – $2.34 million
• 2021 – $2.18 million

As you can see from the data above, 2018 was the year with the biggest prize pool. In total, the lifetime prize pool amounts to $89,644,012 spanning 2653 tournaments.

While this may not come close to what Fortnite and Dota 2 have for their prize pools, League of Legends does a good job at competing against these giants.

In 2021, more than 4 million people watched the World Championship. The average viewer count for the event was $1,298,728 and the total viewing time was 174,826,794 hours. The World Championship event, covering the preliminaries all the way to the Finals, was broadcasted on YouTube, Twitch, Douyu, Bilibili, and more [17].

How Popular is League of Legends?

With all the number crunching done above, we don’t need more proof that Riot Games’ League of Legends is popular. But we’ll go further by looking at Twitch streaming data for League of Legends as basis for its popularity.

• League of Legends is one of the most popular games on Twitch as of August 2022 in terms of number of streamers. To date, there are 226,485 streamers for League of Legends on Twitch. Fornite has the most number of streamers with 687,750 [18].
• League of Legends is ranked as the most popular game on Twitch based on average number of weekly viewers. As of May 2022, League of Legends has 216 thousand average concurrent weekly viewers [19].
• League of Legends is one of the most streamed games on Twitch in terms of hours. As of August 2022, League of Legends has about 2.2 million hours streamed on Twitch. Valorant, another Riot Games’ product, leads the ranking with 4.09 million hours streamed [20].

Wrap Up!

The popularity of League of Legends has nowhere to go but up. With their recent animated series, Arcane, becoming a big hit and garnering numerous awards [9], it wouldn’t be surprising to say that there will be more people who’ll give League of Legends a chance. It may or may not even become one of their favorite games, but they’ll just need to test the waters.

Is League of Legends dying? Far from it. The player count, both daily and monthly, are still within the six to seven figure range. Riot Games continues to pump out great content in terms of cosmetics, lore, and several adaptations.

Reference

[1] https://www.statista.com/statistics/935930/ftp-games-revenue/

[2] https://www.statista.com/statistics/806975/lol-revenue/

[3] https://win.gg/news/league-of-legends-generated-dollar-1-dot-75-billion-revenue-in-2020/

[4] https://www.statista.com/statistics/1269311/league-of-legends-wild-rift-player-spending-app/

[5] https://www.gamesindustry.biz/league-of-legends-hit-8-million-peak-concurrent-players-a-day

[6] https://activeplayer.io/league-of-legends/

[7] https://techacake.com/league-of-legends-player-count/

[8] https://backlinko.com/steam-users

[9] https://www.reddit.com/r/leagueoflegends/comments/f04k12/league_of_legends_survey_results/

[10] https://imgur.com/a/X6iR4WE

[11] https://win.gg/news/league-of-legends-is-by-far-most-played-game-at-korean-pc-bangs/

[12] https://www.novint.com/how-many-people-play-league-of-legends-in-korea/

[13] https://ph.op.gg/

[14] https://www.statista.com/statistics/1269466/most-downloaded-moba-apps-worldwide/

[15] https://www.esportsearnings.com/games/164-league-of-legends

[16] https://www.statista.com/statistics/749024/league-of-legends-championships-prize-pool/

[17] https://liquipedia.net/leagueoflegends/World_Championship/2021

[18] https://www.statista.com/statistics/1110391/twitch-game-streamer-number/

[19] https://www.statista.com/statistics/1110295/twitch-streamers-average-weekly-viewers/

[20] https://www.statista.com/statistics/1108427/leading-games-twitch-hours-streamed/

[21] https://www.esports.com/en/arcane-sweeps-the-annie-awards-and-wins-9-different-awards-335234

World of Warcraft is a game that needs no introduction. In fact, it’s still one of the biggest games in the video game industry right now. Even after going through several key issues that plagued them over the last couple of years, both the game and the company are still going strong.

And the stats say it all. We’re not talking about your critical strike chance or how much damage your physical attacks can do, or how much spell power you need to take down Mythic Jailer. We’re going beyond that.

Today, we’re looking at some World of Warcraft stats, from its revenue to its player demographics and more.

Key World of Warcraft Statistics

• World of Warcraft averages at about 1 million daily active users, hovering somewhere between 700,000 to 800k at any given month [3].
• Peak player count at the height of the game’s popularity was 10 million active players a month in 2017 [3].
• Since the game was released, more than 116 million players have been recorded to have played the game at some point [8].
• United States accounts for the biggest player share at 22.5% of the entire WoW player population [9].
• World of Warcraft playerbase is predominantly male, accounting for more than 50% of the population [11].
• World of Warcraft players spend an average of 22.7 hours a week playing [9].
• The most recent expansion, Shadowlands, is the game’s fastest selling expansion, selling more copies than any of the previous expansions. Shadowlands sold 3.7 million units on its first day [14].
• It’s estimated that World of Warcraft generated close to $200 million a month on subscriptions alone at the peak [17].

World of Warcraft Overview

World of Warcraft was first launched back in 2004 for PC. 18 years later, the game has gone through several expansions, legal issues, and a more recent company turmoil [1], [2].

But what exactly is World of Warcraft, or WoW?

World of Warcraft is an MMORPG, or massive multiplayer online roleplaying game, set in the world of Azeroth. Blizzard, the company behind World of Warcraft, developed the story in a way that players didn’t need to go through the Warcraft series in order to be familiar with the universe.

Since its release, World of Warcraft has gone through eight expansions, with a ninth coming by the end of 2022. Each expansion brings with it further story development, new mechanics and in-game content.

WoW Player Stats

Let’s take a look at some numbers on how many players play World of Warcraft [3].

• It’s estimated that World of Warcraft averages at above 1 million daily active users.
• Peak WoW player count was back in 2017 where the game averaged close to 10 million active players a month.
• At any given time, there are about 400,000 to 600,000 people playing the game.
• There are about 120.8 million total players or subscribers for World of Warcraft. It’s unclear as to whether or not this Warcraft player count also includes active subscriptions.

How Many People Play World of Warcraft?

• In 2015, World of Warcraft had 5.5 million global subscribers, but it’s projected to decrease to 4.46 million by 2023 [4].
• The peak popularity of the game put the subscriber count at 12 million during the second half of 2010 [4].
• In 2021, World of Warcraft live player count according to subscriptions was 4.74 million, a slight decrease from the 4.88 million recorded in 2020 [4].
• As of December 2019, the most popular classes in terms of player distribution for the US realm and EU realm are as follows. This Warcraft player count is based on the % of the population for the entire realm [5]:
  • Hunter – 11.3% (US) and 10.5% (EU)
  • Paladin – 9.7% (US) and 9.5% (EU)
  • Druid – 9.7% (US) and 9.9% (EU)
  • Warrior – 9.5% (US) and 9.9% (EU)
  • Mage – 8.8% (US) and 9.9% (EU)

As of December 2019, the following races are the most popular in terms of player distribution for the US realm and EU realm are as follows [6]:

• Human – 14.4% (US) and 15% (EU)
• Night Elf – 11.6% for US and EU
• Draenei – 5.7% (US) and 5.3% (EU)
• Worgen – 4.9% (US) and 4.3% (EU)
• Gnome – 4.1% (US) and 3.6% (EU)

It’s estimated that 3% of all WoW players get addicted to playing the game [7]. Caveat here is that there’s a clear difference between “addiction” and “being highly engaged”.

Majority of WoW players are highly engaged, which puts them far out of harm’s reach, at least on a mental state. In order for addiction to be diagnosed, a player needs to meet certain criteria within a specific period of time.

At some point since its release, there were about 116 million players playing World of Warcraft [8].

World of Warcraft, much like any MMORPG, isn’t a game with a completed ending. You played the game and could stop whenever you wanted to while maintaining progress.

You’d be surprised at how well Blizzard has developed their catch-up system for World of Warcraft players that you could literally quit for five years and come back into the game like you just quit yesterday.

So the 116 million players that were recorded since the game’s inception might still be questionable at best, but it proves still that the game continues to draw the interests of new and old World of Warcraft players.

Here are some other interesting player statistics:

• Average monthly player count over the last 30 days is 8.3 million [8].
• Peak player count over the last 30 days is 752,855 [8].
• An average World of Warcraft player spends about 22.7 hours a week playing the game [9].

World of Warcraft Player Demographics

• United States maintains itself as the country with the biggest World of Warcraft player base, accounting for 22.54% of the entire player population in terms of daily participation [9].
• Russia comes in second place with 9.58% and Germany with 8.81% [9].
• France and United Kingdom close the top 5 with 5.55% and 4.94% respectively [9].
• World of Warcraft players are predominantly male, accounting for 58.53% of the player base. Female players account for 36.31% [11].
• The average age for a WoW player is 31.9 years old. The survey participants were aged between 18 years old and 90 years old [11].
• Players belonging to the age group of 50 to 57 years old spent more time playing WoW than any other age group as well as having the most number of max-level Alliance toons [11].

World of Warcraft Revenue Statistics

For this section, we continue to look at more numbers. This time, we’ll look into World of Warcraft’s revenue data and see how well it’s done over the last few years.

And we apologize that we’re not going to show you in-game data on physical attacks, critical strike chance, % to block physical attacks, and more. If you were also expecting to learn about how to make money in World of Warcraft, then you’ll be disappointed twice.

• Activision Blizzard’s annual revenue for 2021 was $8.8 billion dollars, spanning all revenue from their titles for that particular year [12].
• During Q2 2022, Blizzard reported more than 27 million active users a month for all of their titles [13].
• Shadowlands, the most recent WoW expansion, was the fastest selling expansion of all time, having sold more copies in one day than any of the other expansions [14]. The game sold 3.7 million units on its first day [14].
  • Battle for Azeroth, the expansion before Shadowlands, came in second place with 3.4 million copies sold, and Legion, Wrath of the Lich King, and Warlords of Draenor tied in third place with 3.3 million copies [14].
• Warcraft (2016) remains as the highest-grossing film adaptation of a video game of all time with a box office revenue of $439 million [15].
  • Pokemon: Detective Pikachu and Rampage follow in second and third place with $431 million and $428 million.
• It’s estimated that Blizzard makes about $87 million in subscription sales for World of Warcraft annually, based on their monthly subscription costs and average monthly active users [17].
• At the peak of its popularity, World of Warcraft generated $180 million a month on subscriptions and close to $2.15 billion per year [17].
• Blizzard generated $1.1 million from their first virtual pet, the Pandaren Monk, on behalf of Make-a-Wish foundation back in 2010 [17].
  • They continued their tradition of donating their pet sales for the following year with $800,000 to the Make-a-Wish foundation and another $1.1 million for Japan after the Tohoku tsunami/earthquake.
• When the game first released, World of Warcraft became the fastest-selling PC game for that time period with more than 240,000 copies sold in a span of 24 hours [18].
  • Burning Crusade, the first expansion, sold 2.4 million within 24 hours.
  • Wrath of the Lich King, the second expansion, sold 2.8 million copies.

If you’ve noticed, most of their revenue stats are based on estimation. That’s because Blizzard is secretive about their profit and revenue, so there are no official figures from them.

The estimated figures are based on subscriber count along with the subscription cost, but even then, it’s difficult to determine if the estimated figures are close to the real numbers. It’s worth noting that the computations you find online for their revenue are based on those who pay the monthly subscription. Blizzard has a three-month and six-month plan for their subscriptions, so these may not be included in the computation.

Is World of Warcraft Still Popular?

There are several factors to consider in terms of popularity, but for this segment, we’ll go over Twitch data.

Twitch is the most popular streaming platform for video games. The platform covers games from all platforms and spanning different genres. It makes sense to use viewership data from Twitch to gauge popularity because it reflects the other side of the gaming populace.

Note that the people who do watch Twitch streams may or may not have the game that’s being streamed. If a World of Warcraft player doesn’t have an active subscription, they can just keep themselves updated with the game by watching different streams.

• As of August 2022, World of Warcraft is one of the most popular games on Twitch in terms of all time views with 11.95 billion views. League of Legends maintains the top spot with 52.8 billion views [19].
  • Other Blizzard games such as Hearthstone and Overwatch are amongst the most popular games in terms of all time views.
• World of Warcraft accounts for 1.3% of share of number of hours watched on Twitch. League of Legends remains the most popular in terms of share of number of hours with 9.3% [20].
• As of April 2022, World of Warcraft averaged 35,100 viewers, roughly a 50% decrease from March 2022’s 75,500 average viewers [21].

The Wrap Up!

There are several factors that determine World of Warcraft’s daily player count. Sometimes, it’s the content currently released, and sometimes, it’s the current circumstances. For instance, World of Warcraft peaked in popularity by the time the Covid-19 pandemic hit and the global lockdowns ensued.

On top of that, there were the legal issues that Blizzard faced over the past year or so, forcing the count of daily players for all their games at an all-time low. But for World of Warcraft, the popularity of the game depends on how the other players find the current content.

When Shadowlands released, there was a massive decline in player counts because of content draught. Majority of players felt that the game was not allowing players to fully enjoy the current content, and so they left.

And so the game with one of the highest MMO populations was stuck in a state of purgatory. New players weren’t enjoying the game while the older players felt like the content was boring. It wasn’t until Blizzard decided to restructure the entirety of the WoW dev team when they started getting their players back.

During that sensitive time period, a lot of players and even their content creators thought that World of Warcraft was about to die. After all, their biggest players, Twitch streamers, and YouTubers left for Final Fantasy XIV and New World.

But here we are and the numbers prove it. World of Warcraft can’t be taken down easily. It’s a giant in the video game industry, and numerous games have come and gone hoping to take it down.

World of Warcraft still stands, and with a new expansion coming within the next few months, there’s no doubt that WoW will get its players back.

Reference

[1] https://www.engadget.com/activision-blizzard-lawsuit-discrimination-abuse-video-163056567.html

[2] https://time.com/6086010/activision-blizzard-california-lawsuit-sexual-harassment/

[3] https://mmo-population.com/r/wow

[4] https://www.statista.com/statistics/276601/number-of-world-of-warcraft-subscribers-by-quarter/

[5] https://www.statista.com/statistics/276318/distribution-of-world-of-warcraft-characters-by-class/

[6] https://www.statista.com/statistics/276315/distribution-of-world-of-warcraft-characters-by-race/

[7] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0747563214007444

[8] https://activeplayer.io/world-of-warcraft/

[9] https://www.statista.com/statistics/273829/average-game-hours-per-day-of-video-gamers-in-selected-countries/

[10] https://playercounter.com/world-of-warcraft/

[11] https://www.sas.com/content/dam/SAS/support/en/sas-global-forum-proceedings/2020/5009-2020.pdf

[12] https://www.statista.com/statistics/269660/activision-blizzards-net-annual-revenue/

[13] https://www.statista.com/statistics/1234255/blizzard-quarterly-mau/

[14] https://www.statista.com/statistics/370010/world-of-warcraft-expansion-pack-sales/

[15] https://www.statista.com/statistics/1223051/highest-grossing-video-game-movies/

[16] https://www.profitwell.com/recur/all/world-of-warcraft-fortnite-pricing#:~:text=With%20their%20wise%20choice%20of,upwards%20of%20%2482%20million%20yearly.

[17] https://www.gamerevolution.com/features/13510-world-of-warcraft-leads-industry-with-nearly-10-billion-in-revenue#/slide/1

[18] https://www.vgchartz.com/article/277974/world-of-warcraft-battle-for-azeroth-sets-record-with-over-34-million-units-sold-day-one/

[19] https://www.statista.com/statistics/1133004/twitch-all-time-viewers-games/

[20] https://www.statista.com/statistics/1110359/hours-watched-twitch-game/

[21] https://www.statista.com/statistics/1109289/world-of-warcraft-number-viewers/

In this day and age, people can no longer function without their smartphones, and the numbers prove it.

We’ve come to rely on our phones for the most basic tasks and for the most mundane chores. We’ve also used our phones to entertain ourselves in waiting rooms, in flights, or even right in our houses.

With people using mobile apps left and right, just how big is the mobile app industry? How divided is the mobile app market? What are the mobile app usage statistics looking like?

This article will answer those questions and more.

Key Mobile App Statistics

• There are more than 6.3 billion smartphone users and 1.14 billion tablet users around the world [1], [2].
• We spend 88% of our time on mobile apps when we’re on our mobile phones [4].
• Consumer spending on mobile apps for Q1 2022 hit $33 billion, a significant decrease compared to Q4 2021’s $70 billion [13].
• Consumer spending is projected to reach $115.4 billion for Apple App Store and $55.5 billion for Google Play Store by the end of 2024 [7].
• Average consumer spending for Q1 2022 is $5.03, a significant decrease from $10.64 in Q4 2021 [12].
• Consumer spending for Google Play Store reached $38.6 billion in 2020 [5].
• Google Play Store generated $48 billion in revenues for all of their mobile apps [20].
• Users averaged 18.78 minutes playing mobile games in 2020, and 20.4 minutes on average on all app categories [22].
• Android users from Asia clocked the highest number of hours using social media apps in 2021. Users spent a total of 449 billion hours for that time period [24].
• Mobile app downloads for 2021 totaled to 230 billion for all platforms [25].

Mobile Apps Industry Overview

• There are more than 6.3 billion smartphone users around the world, and it’s no wonder why the mobile app industry is just as big as it is now [1].
• There are 1.14 billion tablet users around the world, showing a 36% growth over the span of six years [2].
• The average person in the USA uses their phone 262 times in a day, or once every 5.5 minutes [3].
• 88% of our time spent using the phones are spent on mobile apps [4].

From a business perspective, there’s no real surprise here on why a lot of companies are developing their own apps. People use phones at home, in restaurants, at work, and pretty much everywhere as long as there’s a signal.

For app developers, the numbers tell them two things.

• There are enough mobile users out there to justify creating a mobile app for something.
• There are enough mobile app users out there who need to use a specific kind of app.

App Revenue Statistics

• Global spending for mobile apps hit $111 billion in 2020, which was up 30% from the previous year. This spending included in-app purchases, premium app access, and subscriptions spanning both Google Play and Apple App Stores [5].
• In 2016, mobile app revenues reached $365 billion and is projected to increase more than double the amount to $935.2 billion by the end of 2023 [6].
• It’s projected that consumer app spending will hit $115.4 billion for Apple App Store and $55.5 billion for Google Play by the year 2024 [7].
• Coin Master is the #1 mobile game in the Google Play Store, generating revenue of up to $113.89 back in 2020. Their developer, Moon Active, is also one of the top mobile gaming app developers for the same year [8].
• In 2019, Google Play Store had 3.3 million apps and Apple App Store had 2.2 million apps [9].
• Average consumer spending for mobile apps per phone is $4.64 by the end of Q3 2020 [10].
• App stores in China had about 3.67 million apps in 2020. That number has probably increased [11].
• During the Q1 of 2022, average consumer spend was $5.03, which is significantly down from the $10.64 average spending in Q4 2021 [12].
• Total value consumer spend on mobile apps for Q1 of 2022 was $33 billion, which is a significant decrease from the $70 billion earned in Q4 of 2021 [13].
• Global revenue from mobile apps increased to $318 billion in 2020, which is a $60 billion increase from 2019. Mobile games was the strongest segment for that year, generating more than $200 billion in revenue, followed by social media apps with $31 billion [14].
• Google Play Store generated $37 billion in revenue from mobile gaming apps, while Apple App store generated $52.3 billion in revenue [15].

iOS Revenue Statistics

• Global consumer spending for Apple App store was $72.3 billion in 2020, which was a significant increase from $55.3 billion in 2019 [5].
• Apple App Store had 87% more consumer spending than Google Play Store, but both platforms were on track for their Year on Year Growth for 2021 [5].
• Apple App Store revenue for 2021 was 85.1 billion, combining revenue from in-app purchases, subscriptions, and premium apps [16].
• The average cost of iOS games and apps is $1 ($0.88 for apps, and $0.49 for games) [17].
• Tinder is the highest grossing mobile app in the Apple App Store for the month of June 2022. Their revenue was $38.4 million for that month. Tiktok came in second place with $29.2 million in revenue and Pokemon Go in third place with $25 million for the same period of observance [17].

Google Play Store Revenue Statistics

• Consumer spending for Google Play Store hit $38.6 billion in 2020, a slight increase from $29.7 billion earned in 2019 [5].
• The number of mobile apps available to Google Play and Android mobile users increased by 6% during Q2 2022, compared to Q1 2022’s almost 30% dismal drop [18].
• There are 3.5 million apps available to Android users from the Google Play Store in Q2 2022, a slight increase compared to the previous quarter’s 3.2 million [19].
• Google Play Store earned $48 billion in gross revenues for all their mobile apps, showing a 23% increase compared to the previous year’s $38.8 billion in revenue [20].

App User Statistics

• Comic book apps had the highest one day user retention at 33.8%, but significantly dropped to 9.3% for 30 day retention. News apps retained 13.3% of users for one day and after thirty days of installing [21].
• User session for 2020 averaged at 18.78 minutes for gaming alone and 20.4 minutes on all categories. This meant that mobile users spent more time on gaming apps than on any other app by a huge margin [22].
• 81% of iOS users spent most of their time streaming videos, TV shows, and movies compared to 78% of Android users doing the same activity [23].
• 81% of iOS users spent more of their time playing mobile games compared 78% of Android users [23].
• Android users in Asia spent the highest number of hours on social media apps for 2021 with 449 billion hours clocked. South America Android users spent 84.4 billion on social media for 2021 [24].

Total App Downloads Statistics

• Mobile app downloads worldwide hit 230 billion in 2021, which was a 12 billion increase from 2020’s 218 billion downloads [25].
• During Q1 of 2022, Google Play Store had 28.3 billion downloads for its apps compared to 8.5 billion downloads from Apple App Store [26].
• During Q1 of 2022, there was a total of 14.4 billion downloads from mobile games alone for both platforms (Androidn and iOS) [27].

iOS Downloads Statistics

• 2.18 million apps are available in the Apple App Store for Q2 2022. It’s a 5% increase compared to the previous quarter [28].
• TikTok remains one of the most download app for iPhone as of June 2022. For the time period, the app generated 11.3 million downloads or so. WhatsApp is the second most downloaded app with 5.8 million downloads recorded for that time period [29].
• As of March 2022, there are more than 1 million gaming apps found in the Apple App Store and more than 3.79 non-gaming apps [30].

Google Play Store Downloads Statistics

• In June 2022, the most downloaded apps belong to the Mobile Gaming category. Dessert DIY was the most downloaded app in the Google Play Store with more than 22 million downloads from its users. Bucket Crusher comes in close second with 21.5 million downloads [31].
• In June 2022, there were 90,000 new mobile apps released in the Google Play Store. This was a slight decrease compared to 134,500 new apps recorded back in May 2019 [32].
• For Q2 2022, more than 3.65 million apps are available on the Google Play Store, which is a 6% increase from the previous quarter [33].
• In June 2022, the most downloaded social media app is NGL or Not Gonna Life for Android users. For that month, the app generated 11 million downloads. Likee comes in second place with 5.8 million downloads worldwide [34].

The Wrap Up

As you can see from the numbers above, the mobile app industry is only going to get bigger and bigger within the next few years. App usage will always be at an all-time high given our complete reliance on smartphones and tablets.

The mobile app market will always be a close fight between Google Play Store and Apple App Store. And with more mobile devices becoming more powerful each year, app users should be getting the most out of any apps, be it gaming or non-gaming.

References

[1] https://www.statista.com/statistics/330695/number-of-smartphone-users-worldwide/

[2] https://www.statista.com/statistics/377977/tablet-users-worldwide-forecast/

[3] https://www.reviews.org/mobile/cell-phone-addiction/

[4] https://www.insiderintelligence.com/content/the-majority-of-americans-mobile-time-spent-takes-place-in-apps

[5] https://sensortower.com/blog/app-revenue-and-downloads-2020

[6] https://www.statista.com/forecasts/1262892/mobile-app-revenue-worldwide-by-segment

[7] https://sensortower.com/blog/sensor-tower-app-market-forecast-2024

[8] https://airnowplc.com/

[9] https://www.businessofapps.com/guide/app-stores-list/

[10] https://datareportal.com/reports/digital-2020-october-global-statshot

[11] http://www.cnnic.cn/hlwfzyj/hlwxzbg/hlwtjbg/202004/P020200428399188064169.pdf

[12] https://www.statista.com/statistics/289909/mobile-app-spend-on-per-user-mobile-apps-quarter/

[13] https://www.statista.com/statistics/266275/mobile-app-consumer-spend-on-mobile-apps-quarter/

[14] https://www.statista.com/forecasts/1262892/mobile-app-revenue-worldwide-by-segment

[15] https://www.statista.com/statistics/266489/earnings-forecast-for-mobile-apps-providers/

[16] https://www.statista.com/statistics/296226/annual-apple-app-store-revenue/

[17] https://www.statista.com/statistics/267346/average-apple-app-store-price-app/

[18] https://www.statista.com/statistics/185729/google-play-quarterly-growth-of-available-apps/

[19] https://www.statista.com/statistics/289418/number-of-available-apps-in-the-google-play-store-quarter/

[20] https://www.statista.com/statistics/444476/google-play-annual-revenue/

[21] https://www.statista.com/statistics/259329/ios-and-android-app-user-retention-rate/

[22] https://www.statista.com/statistics/243779/total-minutes-spent-on-average-app-by-category/

[23] https://www.statista.com/statistics/1265453/app-activities-worldwide-by-platform/

[24] https://www.statista.com/statistics/1268491/global-time-spent-social-apps-by-region/

[25] https://www.statista.com/statistics/271644/worldwide-free-and-paid-mobile-app-store-downloads/

[26] https://www.statista.com/statistics/695094/quarterly-number-of-mobile-app-downloads-store/

[27] https://www.statista.com/statistics/661553/global-app-stores-mobile-game-downloads/

[28] https://www.statista.com/statistics/779768/number-of-available-apps-in-the-apple-app-store-quarter/

[29] https://www.statista.com/statistics/695791/top-iphone-apps-worldwide-by-number-of-downloads/

[30] https://www.statista.com/statistics/268251/number-of-apps-in-the-itunes-app-store-since-2008/

[31] https://www.statista.com/statistics/693944/leading-android-apps-worldwide-by-downloads/

[32] https://www.statista.com/statistics/1020956/android-app-releases-worldwide/

[33] https://www.statista.com/statistics/289418/number-of-available-apps-in-the-google-play-store-quarter/

[34] https://www.statista.com/statistics/263919/most-popular-mobile-apps-worldwide-sorted-by-reach/

You’ve seen this game once or twice at the peak of its popularity. Maybe you played it a bit even. Or maybe you were one of those hardcore Clash of Clans players who had alarms go off every time a building finished upgrading or you had troops finish their training.

But what exactly was Clash of Clans, and why was it so popular?

Clash of Clans was a freemium (Free To Play game with pay-to-win features) developed by a Finnish mobile game developer, Supercell. Founder and CEO of Supercell, Illka Paananen, was inspired by games such as World of Warcraft who had longer shelf lives. And so, Clash of Clans was developed with this goal in mind.

Lassi Leppninen and Lasse Louhento were the concept creators for Clash of Clans and they wanted to develop a strategy game that’s easy to play on any mobile device. During those times, mobile game developers saw the strategy game genre as too complicated to port over due to the mobile devices’ limited functionality.

The game was created over a period of six months after its conceptualization before it was released on the iOS. Three months later, it became one of the highest grossing games in the USA. Clash of Clans is one of the the most popular mobile games on iOS and Android to hit more than 500 million downloads while earning more than $1 billion in revenue annually.

Now, Clash of Clans isn’t as popular as it was during the first few years since it was released, but its accolades, revenues, and stats are too impressive to ignore.

In this article, we’ll be looking at the numbers that explain why this game is one of the most successful and most profitable games in the mobile game industry.

Key Clash of Clans Statistics

• Tencent acquired a controlling stake (81.4%) of Supercell for $8.6 billion [1].
• Revenue for microtransactions in 2019 was $727 million [1].
• The company earned $66.6 million in revenue on the month that they released The Gold Pass on April 2019 [1].
• Worldwide revenue as of July 2022 is $4.09 billion [2].
• Average daily revenue on April 2019 during the release of the Gold Pass was $3.9 million [2].
• 18.2% of the players playing Clash of Clans are from the United States [6].
• As of April 2021, daily peak players logged in was recorded at 2.2 million [7].
• There are roughly 7.7 million clans live in game right now [7].
• Indonesia is the country with the highest number of clans at 978,573 [80]

Clash of Clans Revenue Statistics

The last three years of Clash of Clans were impressive in terms of their revenue [1]:

• The game earned $727 million in revenue from microtransactions on 2019, which was a $200 million increase from $527 million earned in 2018.
• The Gold Pass, introduced in April of 2019, earned $66.6 million in revenue for that month. The Gold Pass was Clash of Clans’ own version of a season pass where players get something as they achieved certain tasks or goals.
• Clash of Clans accounts for 42% of Supercell’s annual revenue.
• Tencent paid Supercell $8.6 billion to acquire the company with a controlling share of 81.4%.

It didn’t take long for Clash of Clans to become one of the biggest mobile games to dominate both Apple App Store and Google Play Store. Seven months after its release in 2012, the game was at the top of the charts for both Android and Apple platforms.

And there was no game-breaking mechanic introduced by Clash of Clans. In fact, Clash of Clans was your typical cookie-cutter RTS or real-time strategy game. You build, you wait, you train, you attack, and then you re-do everything again.

But what the game capitalized on was the players’ inability to wait for these buildings to finish. To speed up the build, players had to spend Gems, the game’s in-game currency. But Gems were finite and you could only get them in small quantities when you’re not going to spend money on the game.

Gems are available in the game’s virtual marketplace. You purchased X amount of Gems for a certain denomination, and there was no limit to how many you could buy. If the average spending for these Gems were $10, and you had 100,000 players logging in daily with 10,000 of them spending money, how much do you think Clash of Clans earned? Well, do the math.

Clash of Clans wasn’t the only mobile game that Supercell developed. There were other Clan games that came from the company, but not as big as Clash of Clans. However, these games were just as profitable.

Here was their earnings worldwide for these titles, including Clash of Clans, as of July 2022 [2]:

• Clash of Clans earned $4.9 billion in revenue.
• Clash Royale earned $2.7 billion.
• Brawl Stars earned $1.3 billion.
• Hay Day earned $1.03 billion.
• Boom Beach earned $600.6 million.

In 2021, Clash of Clans earned $490 million in revenue through in-app purchases while Clash Royale earned $294.11 million [3], [4]. The highest in-app purchase revenue was back in 2015 with a record-breaking $1.3 billion [4].

In terms of daily revenue, Clash of Clans still pulls in close to a million in revenue [5].

• In 2014, daily revenue worldwide was $654,000.
• In 2015, daily revenue was $1.56 million. That average soon closed out at $5.5 million by the end of the year.
• During the first week after the release of the Gold Pass in 2019, the average daily revenue was $3.9 million.

How Popular Is Clash of Clans?

The revenue numbers just don’t justify the immense popularity of this mobile game. We know that there are people who spent money on this game, but how many players are we actually talking about here.

Clash of Clans User Stats

• USA is the country with most number of Clash of Clans players, comprising 18.92% of the player-base [6].
• Turkey comes in second place with 6.17%, followed by China with 4.09%. Honorable mentions are Germany and Russia with 3.65% and 3.57% respectively [6].
• At any given time, there are more than 750,000 players worldwide logged in to the game [6].

Note that just because the United States has the biggest market share doesn’t mean they’re the country with the biggest spenders as well. Participation does not always mean that players are spending money. But given the players in the USA for their spending habits for a video game, there’s a good chance that US players are spending just as much money as the other players for other games.

What else do the numbers tell us?

• As of 2016, Clash of Clans has about 55 million users [7].
• In April 2021, more than 2 million players were logged in daily [7].
• 42% of Clash of Clans players are core gamers and 44% of players are midcore [7].
• 16% of Clash of Clans players are also playing Candy Crush, while only 6% of Candy Crush players play Clash of Clans [7].
• Clash of Clans player base is comprised of 77% male gamers and 23% female gamers [7].
• 43% of the player base are aged between 21 and 35 years old [7].
• 15% of their player base are aged between 36 and 50 years old [7]..
• Players aged 10 and 20 years old represent 16% of the player base [7]..
• There are roughly 7.8 million clans in Clash of Clans [8].
  • Indonesia has 978,573 clans while India comes in second place at 870,451.
  • China has 722,274 clans.
  • United States bags the fourth spot with 678,548 clans.
  • The Philippines rounds off the Top 5 countries with the most number of clans with 512,454 clans.

It’s pretty obvious that there are a lot of Clash of Clans players globally. I mean just look at the number of clans for the top 5 countries out there. They’re at least averaging more than half a million clans at any given time.

Clash of Clans Download Stats

Let’s take a look at the number of downloads for both Google Play Store and Apple App Store.

• In the USA, Clash of Clans is ranked #7 on iPhone and #17 on iPad for the Free Strategy Games category [9].
• In Great Britain, Clash of Clans is ranked 5th for iPhone and 19th for iPad in the Free Strategy Games category [9].
• In China, Clash of Clans is ranked 16th and 18th for the iPhone and iPad respectively [9].
• In Indonesia, Clash of Clans is the 3rd most popular game in terms of downloads in the Google Play Store as well as the top grossing game for the Strategy category
• In the USA, Clash of Clans is the 7th most downloaded game in the Google Play Store and the highest grossing game.

Is Clash of Clans Pay To Win?

Being a popular mobile game for both iOS and Android platforms, and being a free one at that, one can’t help but wonder if Clash of Clans is a pay to win game.

Do you really need to spend money to win at this game? The answer is both YES and NO.

Now, Clash of Clans follows a freemium business model. This business model allows people to access the content of a particular app, some features are hidden behind a paywall. The caveat here is that the experience of using this app is not hindered at all when you don’t want to spend money.

Is Clash of Clans a pay to win game? To some extent, YES. Clash of Clan users can purchase in-game items like the Gold Pass, Gems, and more that give them a certain advantage over users who just play the game for free. But the advantage these Clash of Clans users get for purchasing items is minimal at best.

Some core gamers will probably spend a few bucks on Gems. Gems allow you to speed up building, training, and allow you to acquire the necessary Gold or Elixir that you lack to do something in the game.

But between a paying player and a free player playing Clash of Clans, it’s really hard to distinguish which one of them spent money. The Gems that these paid users are getting for real money can be acquired in game as you progress, just not in the same amount as you’d pay for them.

If you look at the best Clan players in the game in terms of their rankings, you’ll probably conclude right off the bat that these are paying players given the state of their base. I mean, just look at this example right here:

You could argue that that might belong to a player who never spent a single dime, but the time it would take them to complete something like this would be far longer than the player who spends money on Gems. The latter would probably just use the Gems to speed up the building process, and nothing more.

Within the mobile games industry, the freemium business model is considered normal. Clash of Clans, or any other game for that matter, will always have a high player counter but this doesn’t mean that all of them are spending money on the game.

Wrap Up

The numbers don’t lie, from the annual revenue to the number of active players playing Clash of Clans to almost a million on live player count on a daily basis. Now on their 10th year anniversary, Clash of Clans’ huge presence in the mobile games industry is nothing to scoff at.

Reference

[1] https://www.gamesindustry.biz/clash-of-clans-sees-first-year-over-year-revenue-increase-since-2015

[2] https://www.statista.com/statistics/1135746/supercell-games-spending/

[3] https://www.statista.com/statistics/557510/clash-of-clans-and-clash-royale-sales-revenue/

[4] https://www.statista.com/statistics/1089399/clash-of-clans-player-spending/

[5] https://sensortower.com/blog/clash-of-clans-daily-revenue

[6] https://playercounter.com/clash-of-clans/

[7] https://newzoo.com/insights/articles/supercell-vs-king-how-do-their-gamers-compare

[8] https://clashspot.net/en/statistics/clans

[9] https://app.sensortower.com/ios/US/supercell/app/clash-of-clans/529479190/overview?tab=about

[10] https://app.sensortower.com/android/US/supercell/app/clash-of-clans/com.supercell.clashofclans/overview

This puzzle doesn’t really seem as innovative as one might suspect, but it was everywhere in social media.

You saw friends posting green and yellow blocks on their Instagram and Facebook Stories. You probably saw a couple even posting about how stumped they were for the day’s puzzle. Soon, it got you interested enough to ask what game they were playing, and sure enough they told you they were playing Wordle.

But why is the game so popular? Why are so many people taking the time out of their busy day to guess one word?

This article will cover everything there is to know about the game and why people are so obsessed with it.

Wordle Overview

Wordle is a word guessing game invented by former Reddit employee Josh Wardle. As a software engineer, he came up with the game back in 2013 and created a prototype for his friends to try out. They really didn’t like it, so Wardle decided to retire the idea [2], [3].

The next time Wardle visited the idea of Wordle was during the Pandemic and proved to be popular amongst his family members. After seeing how his family liked the game, he publicly launched the game.

In 2022, one company bought the rights to the game and is now accessible to play online. There’s no app developed yet, so many people are leaving their tabs open with Wordle on it so they don’t lose their winning streak.

Worldle Key Statistics

• Started with 90 players a month after its release, but grew to 300,000 players over the next two months [4].
• Website traffic reported for January 2022 was at 45 million [4].
• More than 20% of Wordle players in the USA are aged between 35 and 44 years old [5].
• Daily active users for Wordle as of June 2022 is 144,121 [6].
• 14% of Americans play, or have played, Wordle [7].
• 59% of adults and 75% of millenials say that they love to post their scores on social media, which explains why the game went viral after a couple of months [7].
• Sweden is home to the best Wordle players, with the country pulling in an average score of 3.72 guesses [9].
• Canberra, Australia is the city with the best Wordle average score at 3.58 [9].
• North Dakota is the best state in the USA with the highest Wordle average score of 3.65.

How Is Wordle Played?

Wordle is an online word puzzle game where the player guesses a five letter word using six attempts. Every time a player guesses, the game lets them know which of the chosen letters are part of the target word and if they are in the correct order or not [1].

Here’s what you need to know:

• If the letter is correct and is in the correct order, it’s colored green.
• If the letter is correct but in the wrong order, it’s colored yellow.
• Incorrect letters are colored grey.
• Letters can be used more than one time for a single word.
• You need to complete the first word within six attempts.

Think of it as something like the board game Mastermind, but with words.

The game is currently popular around the world and has been adapted to different languages such as Arabic, French, and German to name a few [1].

How Many People Play Wordle?

• The game launched in October 2021. A month later, there were only 90 Wordle players recorded but the growth of the game skyrocketed to where they were getting 300,000 users daily after a couple of months [4].
• By January, traffic to the website was reported to be at 45 million, and this was before the month was over. What’s unclear though is how many of these players are playing Wordle every single day [4].
• In a survey of 2,210 adult sin the USA, the biggest share of Wordle players belong to the age group of 35 and 44 years old at a little bit above 20%, followed by players belonging to the age group of 18 and 34 years old.
• Roughly one in every five millenials are playing Wordle according to a new survey [7].

• Wordle is also one of the top 10 most popular games in the Apple App Store in terms of DAU (daily active users) with 144,121 recorded by June 2022 [6].

• 14% Americans say they play Wordle [7].
• Coming from the same survey, 43% of people who play Wordle say that they first heard about the game on social media while 21% report that the game was recommended to them by friends and family. 12% of respondents say that they heard about Wordle on the news [7].  
• The big reason why Wordle went viral is because Wordle players love posting their score. In fact, 59% of adults and 73% of millenials say that they share scores on social media sometimes or as often [7].
• 74% of players reported that they “always” or “sometimes” successfully solve the puzzle, while 17% said “rarely” and 9% are reported to have “never” solved the puzzle [7].

How Many People Play Wordle Daily?

• As of June 2022, more than 144,121 are logging in through Wordle through the Apple App Store [6].
• More than 300,000 people are playing Wordle daily [8].

Global Wordle Stats

What are the Wordle stats looking like for players around the world? Let’s find out [9]:

• Sweden is the country with the best Wordle players, with an average score of 3.72.
• Canberra, Australia is the best in terms of Wordle average guesses at 3.58.
• The USA is ranked #18 in the world with a 3.92 national average.
• Saint Paul, Minnesota is the best city in the USA with the best Wordle scores, with an average score of 3.51.

Poland and Switzerland come in second and third place right after Sweden in terms of the fastest country to solve Wordle puzzles. After all, everyone around the world are guessing the same word and have the same number of guesses. It just so happens that the Swedes are better when it comes to solving puzzles on their first guess or even second guess. And so they just wait until the next day’s puzzle is loaded up and they go back to doing what they love.

You can refer to the chart below to see how each country is doing for Wordle, what their average score is, and what the best Wordle average is in the world.

In the USA, North Dakota is considered as the Wordle State, as you can see from this chart right here. The state has the highest average Wordle score of 3.65 guesses, followed closely by Delaware with 3.70 average score and New Hampshire with an average Wordle score of 3.73 guesses. And as you guessed it, 3.65 is also the best Wordle average around the world.

For cities in the USA, Saint Paul, Minnesota has the highest average with 3.51.

Why Is Wordle So Popular?

There are probably different puzzle games out there available online, but why is Wordle so popular?

The game was so popular that it was acquired by The New York Times. The game captured the attention of puzzle enthusiasts and social media users alike. But what really made this game so popular is its simplistic gameplay.

People around the world share the same starter words for a given day, probably translated within local languages for different countries. The concept was to guess the words based on guessing correct letters made available after each attempt out of six.

Each colored letter will tell you if you’re close to guessing the right word after an initial guess. Green letters mean that the letter is correct and it’s in the right order. Yellow letters mean the letter is correct but not in the right order. Grey letters mean that they are incorrect and do not form part of the word. Note that you might see the same letter within a single word, so there’s that to consider as well.

Using deduction and critical thinking, you use what’s available to you to make an educated guess. Players have six guesses, but the real bragging rights come to how many guesses it actually takes you to solve it. The fewer the guesses, the better you are than the other players. The national average worldwide is somewhere at about three guesses or so.

While the concept sounds addictive, Wordle does a good job of keeping the pace. Everyone just gets only one puzzle per day, no more and no less. The Wordle App on the Apple App store lets you play as many games as possible, but the score isn’t considered official.

You can also find different Wordle simulator apps or games to help you get your fix if you feel that only one puzzle is not enough.

The Wrap Up!

It comes as no surprise that the number of people who play Wordle are right about close to hitting a million on a daily basis. This popular word game started out as a way for the developer and his partner to bond over, and then it became a global phenomenon.

Reference

[1] https://www.gadgetsnow.com/faqs/wordle-what-is-wordle-how-does-it-work-rules-of-wordle-and-more/articleshow/90202966.cms

[2] https://www.goodto.com/entertainment/entertainment-news/what-is-wordle-2022-word-game-647186

[3] https://www.tomsguide.com/news/what-is-wordle

[4] https://www.statista.com/chart/26765/wordle-monthly-visits-traffic/

[5] https://www.statista.com/chart/26667/usage-of-wordle-and-other-online-games-in-the-us/

[6] https://www.statista.com/statistics/299832/leading-mobile-games-usa-dau/

[7] https://morningconsult.com/2022/01/20/wordle-millennials/

[8] https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/03/technology/wordle-word-game-creator.html?smtyp=cur&smid=tw-nytimes

[9] https://word.tips/wordle-wizards/

Long before Little Big Planet allowed players to create and post their own levels for other players to rate, Roblox was a game ahead of its time. It wasn’t as big as LBP, but Roblox eventually turned into one of the biggest multiplayer social platform on the Internet.

The game allowed players to create their own games or products, and it allowed for the growth of a community of developers who shared their homebrewed games using the engine and other assets provided for by Roblox.

Other players could play these homebrew games and give feedback to the developers when possible. Eventually, Roblox allowed developers to earn from their own games through the platform’s microtransactions. The game has its own currency called Robux and players could purchase said currency for real money.

Today, we’re going to look at some interesting Roblox statistics, from revenue to average Roblox users, and see why this platform has become one of the biggest online gaming platforms on the Internet right now.

Roblox Overview

Roblox was founded back in 2004 by Eric Cassel and David Baszucki, and was released for PC in 2006. The game had a certain charm to it thanks to its funky physics and graphics. But its biggest appeal was allowing players to express their creativity by letting them develop their own Roblox games within the platform.

As the company and platform grew, more features were added over time, including the in-game currency, safe chat filter, and cross-compatibility amongst devices to name a few. Roblox surged in popularity by 2010 and even more so during the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic.

Roblox Key Statistics

• Roblox is currently valued at $27.3 billion in 2022 [1], [2].
• In 2020, they generated $924 million [4], [7].
• Roblox generated more than $1.9 billion in revenue in 2021 [1], [3].
• For Q1 2022, Roblox already earned $537 million in revenue [6]
• Google Play users have made it possible for Roblox to become one of the top 10 highest grossing Apps in the Google Play Store. Google Play users have generated more than $9.14 million for June 2022 [8].
• Roblox monthly active users reached 202 million [11].
• Out of these 202 million monthly active users, 43 million are daily active users [11].
• Roblox is comprised of younger users. 67% of their daily active users are aged 16 years old and below.
• Adopt Me! is the gaming platform’s most popular game in terms of visits. The game has almost 29 billion visits from different Roblox users total [15].
• 79% of Roblox daily active users log in through the game using their mobile devices or smartphones.

Roblox Revenue

• Roblox is currently valued at over $38 billion, and is one of the most valuable gaming companies in the world [1] ,[9].
• Roblox’s valuation went from $1.1 billion in 2017 to $27.38B in 2022 (currently) [1],[2]
• Roblox generated $1.9 billion in revenue just in 2021 [1], [3].

How Much Money Did Roblox Make?

• Roblox earned $924 million in revenue back in 2020 [4], [7].
• 57%, or six out of ten, Roblox app users who purchased from the gaming platform during the first three quarters of 2021 spent an hour or less on average using the platform. 24% of Roblox iOS users who made in app purchases spent an average of 1 and 5 hours playing during the period of observation [5].
• During Q1 of 2022, Roblox generated $537 million in revenue, which was down from $568.8 million in revenue from the previous quarter [6].
• Roblox is one of the top 10 leading Android Apps based on revenue in the Google Play Store worldwide as of June 2022. Roblox generated $9.14 million in revenue just from Android users for that time period [8].
• In November 2021, Roblox Corporation ranked first amongst the biggest gaming companies in terms of market cap, sitting at $74.55 billion. Further activity and hype from the Metaverse fueled the market activity [9].
• The company’s market cap decreased to $18.95 billion after pulling out of the Chinese market in December 2021 [9].
• In October 2021, Roblox was the highest grossing gaming app in the United States for iPhones with more than $3 million in daily revenue coming from the millions of daily active users. Candy Crush Saga and Coin Master followed with less than $2 million in daily revenue [10].
• Roblox was the highest grossing iPad app in the Apple App Store in the USA in terms of revenue. The game earned $37 million from iOS users through iPad. Candy Crush Saga came in second place with $19.6 million revenue [13].

Roblox Users Statistics

With the revenue that Roblox is generating on a monthly basis, we’re going to take a look at just how many users there are on this platform, whether they’re Roblox players or Roblox developers.

How Many People Play Roblox?

• Roblox has 202 million monthly active users [11].
• Out of the 202 million active users, 43 million are Roblox daily active users, or people who play Roblox daily [11].
• There are more than 9.5 million developers right now on Roblox. These are the people who create content for other people playing Roblox [11].
• 67% of Roblox players are aged 16 years old and younger [11].
• 51% of Roblox users are male, and 44% are female [11].
• Majority of Roblox daily active users are located in Canada and in the USA, despite being available in 22 countries [11].
• Roblox has accumulated more than 73.1 billion hours of gaming since 2018 [12].
• Kids under the age of 13 spent a total of 51.5 million hours on the Roblox platform [12].
• Total time spent on the platform for Q2 of 2021 reached 9.73 billion hours [12].
• The Bloxy Awards is Roblox’s very own awards ceremony. In 2021, the awards ceremony generated more than 26 million visits with 855,000 players connected simultaneously [14].
  • In 2020, The Bloxy Awards raised $100,000 for charity [14].
• Adopt Me! is one of the most popular games in the platform [1], [15]. In terms of visits, Adopt Me! has about 28.6 billion from users. Visits are counted when a player has spent more than 30 seconds, which is one of many Roblox user sessions being considered [15].

How Many People Downloaded Roblox?

• Roblox has been downloaded 383 million times across mobile devices using Google Play and Apple App Store [16].
• More than 25 million reviews have been left by Roblox’s daily active users on the Google Play Store, while only 6.3 million reviews are found on Apple App store [16].
• More than 79% of Roblox’s daily active users access the platform using their mobile devices [17].
• 25% of Roblox users access the game through the desktop [17].

Roblox And Their Controversies

Setting aside the Roblox statistics and the revenue they generated, both the game and company were not without their controversies. These controversies led to the company developing certain features to protect the million daily active users that are logging on.

Some of the most notorious controversies to plague the game developers and the platform itself included:

• An 11-year old girl was found to have spent more than $6,000 on Roblox. The company was criticized for making it easy for kids to purchase in game products using their parents’ money [17].
• The game turned into a playground for right wing and fascist groups [18], on top of being avenues for sexual harassment and activities.
• Online gaming is not without its profanities, and the company was called out for their AI’s inability to properly filter out offensive language [19].

Wrapping It Up!

So what’s next for Roblox developers and the company itself? It’s safe to assume that Roblox is constantly working on improving the functionality and safety of their platform. After all, young children comprise more than a couple million daily active users for the platform.

Every feature, from the chat filters to the microtransaction system, is always under a microscope. But despite trolls and vandals proliferating the game, Roblox boasts of being one of the safest online communities around for the younger gaming audience.

References

[1] https://www.businessofapps.com/data/roblox-statistics/

[2] https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/RBLX/roblox/net-worth

[3] https://www.wsj.com/articles/roblox-raises-150-million-in-funding-in-bet-on-metaverse-11582754400

[4] https://pitchbook.com/news/articles/roblox-gaming-direct-listing-valuation

[5] https://www.statista.com/statistics/1292697/us-ios-roblox-iap-purchasers-by-time-spent/

[6] https://www.statista.com/statistics/1190638/quarterly-revenue-roblox-corporation/

[7] https://www.statista.com/statistics/1189990/annual-revenue-roblox-corporation/

[8] https://www.statista.com/statistics/271674/top-apps-in-google-play-by-revenue/

[9] https://www.statista.com/statistics/1197213/market-value-of-the-largest-gaming-companies-worldwide/

[10] https://www.statista.com/statistics/263988/top-grossing-mobile-ios-gaming-apps-ranked-by-daily-revenue/

[11] https://backlinko.com/roblox-users

[12] https://blog.roblox.com/2018/03/roblox-emerges-top-online-entertainment-platform/

[13] https://www.statista.com/statistics/690847/us-top-ipad-apps-by-revenue/

[14] https://blog.roblox.com/2021/03/8th-annual-bloxy-awards-complete-winners-list/

[15] https://roblox.fandom.com/wiki/List_of_places_with_the_most_visits

[16] https://www.gamesindustry.biz/roblox-player-spending-passes-usd1-5bn-on-mobile

[17] https://www.techspot.com/news/85882-eleven-year-old-girl-spends-almost-6000-roblox.html

[18] https://www.wired.com/story/roblox-online-games-irl-fascism-roman-empire/

[19] https://web.archive.org/web/20210101115812/https://www.foxbusiness.com/technology/roblox-discord-teen-gamers-inappropriate

Who would’ve thought that Candy Crush would turn from a browser game into one of the most played mobile games in history.

Developed by King, Candy Crush started out as a browser game on Facebook back in April 2012. The premise of the game was simple. You were given a puzzle where you needed to identify and match three elements on the grid in order to remove them and get new elements after.

Matching more than three elements will give you more power-ups and clear up the grid faster. As you progress through the game, you’ll encounter maps with different goals and requirements. There’s also a time limit so it’s going to be difficult for you the more levels you go through. This in turn requires you to think ahead and strategize your moves for any particular grid before moving on to the next one.

The game has been around for almost ten years now and is consistent in keeping itself up to date. In this article, we’ll explore different candy crush statistics and go through the numbers to answer questions such as how much they’ve made over the years and how many users they have as of this writing.

Key Candy Crush Statistics

• How many people play Candy Crush? Candy Crush Saga has over 273 million monthly active users.
• Candy Crush was the first F2P or Freemium game to generate $1 billion in revenue [1].
• Candy Crush only earned $77 million a year after its release. They earned $1.13 billion two years later [1].
• Activision Blizzard acquired King, the developer of Candy Crush and other titles, for $5.9 billion in 2016 [1].
• Candy Crush Saga revenue for Q3 of 2021 was $652 million and was considered the highest earning title under the Activision flag [1].
• Candy Crush Saga had more than 2.7 billion downloads accumulated as of 2017 [1].
• 50% of the Candy Crush players are aged between 20 and 40 years old [4].
• There are currently 11,690 levels installed in the game as of May 2022. Each Wednesday, they add anywhere between 30 and 90 levels. Players can also participate in polls that let devs know how many levels should be added for the next patch [7].
• The game is played by people all over the world, spanning 6 continents [7].
• 38 minutes a day is the average time Candy Crush Saga players spend playing the game [4].

Candy Crush Revenue Statistics

• Candy Crush was the first F2P game to earn over $1 billion in revenue back in 2014 [1].
• A year after the release, the game only made $77 million. In two years, they earned $1.13 billion [1].
• In 2020, the game earned $1.19 billion and was one of the highest grossing mobile games for that year [1].
• King was acquired by Activision Blizzard back in 2016 for $5.9 billion. In Q3 of 2021, King generated $652 million in revenue for Activision Blizzard and was considered the highest earning title under the Activision brand.
• Candy Crush Saga earned $556.4 million in revenue from in app purchases in 2021, making it the highest earning Candy Crush title for that year. Candy Crush Soda Saga comes in second place with $196.3 million in IAP revenue and Candy Crush Friends Saga with $28.29 million in IAP revenue for that year [2].

Candy Crush Download Statistics

• As of 2017, Candy Crush Saga generated 2.7 billion downloads [1].
• In 2021, Candy Crush Saga accumulated 119 million downloads and is one of the top 10 leading mobile game apps worldwide by downloads [3].

How Many People Play Candy Crush?

Candy Crush User Statistics

• Candy Crush Saga’s core market is women aged 35 years and older [4].
• 50% of the people who play Candy Crush Saga are aged between 20 and 40 years old [4].
• The average age of people who play Candy Crush games is 30 years old [4].
• Candy Crush Saga Players distribution by gender is 54% female and 46% male [4].
• Candy Crush Saga reported 273 million monthly active users for 2020 [1].
• Players spent an average of 38 minutes per day playing the game in 2019 [1].
• 16.7 % of people who downloaded Candy Crush Sage prefer casual games, while 9.8% lean more towards puzzle games [5].

Other Impressive Candy Crush Saga Usage Statistics

• People playing Candy Crush Saga from the United States played the most number of rounds at 212 billion Candy Crush levels played in March 2018. Players from Great Britain followed with 50 billion levels played and Spain with 40 billion levels[5].
• The game is currently popular in 196 countries. That’s the equivalent of saying there are people playing Candy Crush games from 6 continents out of 7.7 [5].
• The highest score recorded was 1,999,259,792 and this was in 2018 [6].
• As of May 2022, there are currently 11,690 levels available for Candy Crush players from Google Play, Apple App Store, and Facebook versions. King’s official forums also keeps track of the current number of levels [7].
• Every Wednesday, between 30 and 60 levels are added to the game. The forums also has polls that allows Candy Crush players to dictate how many levels should be added per week for the next updates [7].

Wrapping It Up

Candy Crush Saga is probably one of the most addictive mobile games in the mobile games market right now. The game is simple and it’s easy to understand the mechanics of the different games under its franchise. It doesn’t come off as a surprise that something as simple as this game could end up becoming one of the highest grossing games in the mobile game market.

The premise of matching and destroying candies to move on to the next level might be underwhelming for the elite mobile gamers, but for the casual gamers, this game is heaven sent. Candy Crush Saga, and any other game under their umbrella, could keep you entertained for hours just by matching candy pieces. Whether you’re killing time in a waiting room, coffee shop, or classroom, Candy Crush Saga is the perfect mobile gaming partner.

References

[1] https://www.businessofapps.com/data/candy-crush-statistics/#:~:text=While%20Candy%20Crush%20is%20not,the%20game%20for%20returning%20players.

[2] https://www.statista.com/statistics/954681/candy-crush-mobile-revenue/

[3] https://www.statista.com/statistics/1285134/top-downloaded-gaming-apps-worldwide/

[4] https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/may/11/candy-crush-saga-games

[5] https://www.similarweb.com/app/google-play/com.king.candycrushsaga/statistics/

[6] https://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-5518933/Candy-Crush-Saga-statistics-total-games-played-highest-score.html

[7] https://www.pocketgamer.com/candy-crush-saga/how-many-levels-are-there/