We haven’t heard much about the battle royale shooter PUBG lately. However, the game is particularly successful in its mobile version.
What is the current state of PUBG? Especially the mobile version of the battle royale shooter is on the rise, even though we hardly hear anything about the game. Generally, there has been relatively little news about Playerunknown’s Battlegrounds. The last major news about the game was the launch of the free-to-play version PUBG Lite in this country.
Mobile Game Storms the Charts
How successful is PUBG? PUBG Mobile achieved the number one spot in the global mobile games chart in the third quarter of 2019. This allowed the shooter to dethrone the “eternal” champions Honor of Kings and Fate/Grand Order.
According to the website Sensor Tower, PUBG Mobile generated a revenue of 496 million dollars in the third quarter of 2019, an increase of 652% compared to the previous year!
What is the reason for this success? The success of the mobile game is mainly driven by the Asian market. There, PUBG Mobile is so popular that the Indian government even had to intervene. There are reports suggesting that the game may even be responsible for some deaths in India.
A 16-year-old reportedly died of a heart attack due to the game. Two men were hit by a train while supposedly not noticing the approaching train because they were so engrossed in PUBG Mobile. The popularity of PUBG Mobile in India is incredibly high.
In China, the game was even taken off the market, where it had been among the most successful mobile games until May. Due to regulations, China replaced the shooter with the “government-friendlier” Game for Peace.
What about the PC and console version? This version does not reach the success of the mobile version. This is because more games are played on mobile devices than on PC or console, especially in Asia.
The Mobile Market is Extremely Large
How does it compare to other mobile games? In the second and third places of the charts, we find Honor of Kings and Fate/Grand Order. Honor of Kings generated a revenue of 377 million dollars in the third quarter of 2019, while Fate/Grand Order achieved 354 million. In third place is Pokémon GO with a revenue of 308 million dollars.
The mobile game Mario Kart Tour did not make it into the top 100 mobile games with the highest revenue, but it landed in 3rd place for most downloads, just behind PUBG Mobile in 2nd place and Fun Race 3D in 1st place.
What does this tell us? Mobile games are extremely successful – especially in Asia. According to Sensor Tower, the total revenue of all mobile games was 16.3 billion dollars in the third quarter of 2019.
In this country, mobile games still do not enjoy quite the success they have in Asia, but the games are no longer to be missed in the market.
