Reports of the week:
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Singular: Trends in Mobile Game Marketing in Q2’25
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Games & Numbers (July 2 – July 15, 2025)
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GameDiscoverCo: Steam Revenue Distribution by Genre
Data is based on trillions of ad impressions, tens of billions of clicks, billions of installs, and user spending. This report covers the overall mobile market, but I will only cover figures relevant to the gaming sector.
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Growing segments are entertainment, finance, travel, and education apps. Marketing spend is declining in shopping, health, fitness, and games.
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According to Singular, 89.5% of all game installs are on Android devices. However, iOS devices account for 89.6% of total revenue.
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Puzzle, simulation, and action games are the leaders in downloads on Android, accounting for 76% of all installs.
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Simulation, puzzle, and sports games are the leaders in downloads on iOS, making up 63% of all downloads.
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Fastest-growing genres by iOS downloads in Q1’25: action (+218% YoY), educational (+210% YoY), card/board (+177% YoY), simulation (+154% YoY), gambling (+136% YoY).
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Games have one of the highest ATT opt-in rates on iOS at 26.5%.
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On Android, the highest CPI is in the US ($3.25), China ($2.3), and Japan ($2.05). China has the lowest CTR, while Tier-3 markets have the highest.
❗️Since Singular uses SKAN data for this report, there is no regional breakdown.
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Google, Meta, AppLovin, Apple Ads, and TikTok are the five most popular ad networks for games.
Source
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GameDiscoverCo considered only projects that generated more than $1M in gross revenue. The data covers the entire history of Steam.
The idea during the research was to assign each project a single genre and a single subgenre. Because of this, there may be debatable taxonomy questions (some of which I highlight below). This is a dangerous road, so pay respect to the bravery!
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Action games (Arena Shooter, FPS, Action-Adventure, etc.) generated 58.37% of all Steam revenue.
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RPGs are in second place (17.11%),
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Strategy is third (13.97%),
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Simulators fourth (9.76%),
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and sports games come last.
If you look at the distribution of released games by genre, you’ll notice that there are slightly fewer Action projects compared to their share of revenue. For other genres, there are more released games relative to the revenue they generated.
Action games generated 58,37% of all Steam revenue. Here is the breakdown:
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Arena Shooter: 18.99% of action genre revenue, $9.52B — Counter-Strike 2 and others.
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FPS: 13.3% — $6.67B (Call of Duty, Left 4 Dead 2, Ready or Not, etc.)
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Action-Adventure: 11.37% — $5.7B (Red Dead Redemption 2, Hogwarts Legacy, Sea of Thieves)
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Open World Survival Craft: 10.65% — $5.34B (Rust, ARK: Survival Evolved, Palworld, and others)
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Other major subgenres: Battle Royale (9.89%), Souls-like (5.65%), Survival Horror (5.17%), Hero Shooter (4.12%), TPS (2.86%), Hack and Slash (2.55%).
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RPGs make up 17.11% of all Steam revenue. Here’s the subgenre breakdown:
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Action-RPGs earned more than other RPGs — 26.45% ($3.89B, e.g. Warframe, Monster Hunter World, Monster Hunter Wilds)
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MMORPGs: 25.08% ($3.69B, The Elder Scrolls Online, Lost Ark)
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CRPGs: 18.26% ($2.69B, Cyberpunk 2077, The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, Fallout 4)
❗️In my view, all those projects are Action-RPGs.
❗️Again, it feels that Divinity: Original Sin 2 better fit the CRPG, while Kingdom Come: Deliverance fits Action-RPG.
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Other subgenres: Party games (7.89%), JRPG (6.2%), Visual Novels (3.18%), Party-Based RPG (0.76%), Dungeon Crawler (0.76%), Strategy RPG (0.3%).
Strategy titles account for 13.97% of all Steam revenue.
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MOBA: 19.23% of the genre ($2.31B, DOTA 2, SMITE, Eternal Return)
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RTS: 15.33% ($1.84B, Total War: Warhammer II, Total War: Warhammer, Total War: Three Kingdoms)
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Grand Strategy: 9.7% ($1.16B, Stellaris, Hearts of Iron IV, Europa Universalis IV)
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4X: 8.45% ($1.01B, Sid Meier’s Civilization VI, Sid Meier’s Civilization V, Endless Legend)
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Other top subgenres: Base Building (7.22%), Colony Sims (5.58%), Card Games (4.12%), Turn-Based Strategy (3.96%), Puzzle Platformer (3.09%), Puzzles (2.8%).
Simulators account for 9.76% of all Steam revenue:
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Simulators: 44.57% ($3.74B, War Thunder, Arma 3, Cities: Skylines)
❗️As noted earlier, the methodology is discussable. Some projects should, in my view, be classed as Action games.
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Job Simulators: 16.21% ($1.36B, Euro Truck Simulator 2, American Truck Simulator, Schedule I)
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Racing: 11.24% ($942.9M, Forza Horizon 5, Assetto Corsa, Need for Speed Heat)
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Farming Simulators: 10.15% ($851.3M, Stardew Valley, Farming Simulator 22)
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Other subgenres: Life Sim (5.59%), Rhythm Games (3.63%), Dating Simulators (2.92%), Immersive Sim (2.23%), Political Simulators (1.3%), Walking Simulators (1.09%)
Among projects with more than $1M in revenue, Arena Shooter ($634.8M average) and Battle Royale ($354.2M) have the highest average revenue. In the entire history of Steam, only 29 games have broken the $1M mark in these genres. Since 2020, only Naraka Bladepoint, Overwatch 2, and Marvel Rivals have made over $25M in these subgenres.
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Looking at things from the opposite side, subgenres with the lowest average earnings are: Action Roguelike ($8.4M — 104 games), Metroidvania ($7.9M — 53 projects), JRPG ($7.5M — 121 games).
GameDiscoverCo notes that by analyzing only projects that have earned more than $1M, thousands of games that did not reach this mark are excluded.
Source