Pokémon GO joins top grossing mobile games

With over 6 billion in revenue since its release in 2016, Pokémon GO has just entered the very closed circle of the top grossing mobile games. Despite its ups and downs, Niantic's augmented reality game has always managed to bounce back with regular updates to add content or correct certain errors. Let's take a look at its success and the other top grossing mobile games.

Pokémon GO's success is still there

According to figures shared by SensorTower, a highly regarded analysis tool, Pokémon GO players have spent more than 6 billion dollars in 6 years, or 1 billion per year. Its success is far from waning, as in 2021, Pokémon GO was still the seventh most profitable mobile game with $1.3 billion spent on the game.

This is an exception in the augmented reality games sector. Indeed, while Pokémon GO is worth $200 million in the first quarter of 2022, the second most profitable mobile AR game is Dragon Quest: Walk with $90 million, less than half of that.

The rest of the top 5 is far behind as Jurassic World Alive, Station Memories! and Pikmin Bloom took in $7 million, $4 million and $2 million respectively.

The closed circle of the top grossing mobile games

By reaching the $6 billion mark in in-game spending, Pokémon GO joins the club of the most profitable mobile games. Among the members of this circle, the leader of the mobile games that have generated the most revenue is none other than Honor of Kings. Moreover, HoK will be released worldwide soon, after 7 years of operation in China, which should enable it to consolidate its lead in terms of revenue. Combined with the figures for its international adaptation, Arena of Valor, the total revenue for both titles exceeds $14 billion.

Next on the top grossing mobile games podium are the two puzzle RPGs Monster Strike and Puzzle & Dragons, which have reached $9.9 billion and $8.5 billion respectively, but also PUBG Mobile and Clash of Clans, which both just passed $8 billion this year.

The seventh highest grossing mobile game is Pokémon GO. According to Wikipedia, which gives a higher figure, Pokémon GO is in sixth place ahead of Candy Crush Saga's 7.4 billion. Niantic's game is followed by Fate/Grand Order with 5.5 billion dollars.

When we see the astronomical sums of money generated by mobile games, we understand a little more the interest of spectacular buyouts of video game studios, as we saw recently with the Zynga purchase by Take-Two for 12.7 billion dollars, and the Activision-Blizzard purchase by Microsoft for 68.7 billion dollars.

To finish this article on the top grossing mobile games, I have to mention Genshin Impactwhich has some staggering figures. Despite the game's recent release compared to the other titles mentioned above, Genshin Impact has just passed the $3 billion mark, which is an average of $1 billion every 6 months. At this rate, the game may soon overturn this ranking.