Game Releases
Major Games
1.Warpath by Lilith Games. WW2-themed 4X strategy with real-time controls of troops. From Chinese company behind top-grossing Rise of Kingdoms and AFK Arena.
2.A3: Still Alive by Netmarble. Dark fantasy open-world MMORPG with various PvP modes, including battle royale for 30 players.
3.Guitar Girl: Relaxing Music Game by Neowiz. Music game with UI simulating livestreaming app.
Notable Updates
Plague Inc. by Ndemic Creations/Miniclip. Long-awaited update The Cure adds a new mode, where you research the vaccine and adopt public policies to stop the pandemic instead of trying to eradicate humanity.
Medium & New Publishers
4.Forsaken World: Gods and Demons by Youzu. Fantasy open-world MMORPG with autoplay and flying from Chinese publisher.
5.Frostborn: Co-op Survival by Kefir Games. iOS release of survival crafting game in Nordic setting from Russian studio. Android version was available since May 2019. Last Day on Earth: Survival from Kefir was downloaded 50M+ times on Google Play.
Top Downloaded Hypercasuals
1st time entries in top 15 of the US App Store
6.Rush Hour 3D by Good Job Games. Arcade racing from Turkish pulisher. What?! Did they just add textures to 3D models? That’s advanced 3D graphics for hypercasual.
7.Cat Escape! by Sunday.gg (Applike Group). Stealth game with a cat character. Debut game by a new hypercasual publisher from Germany.
Premium Games
8.MO:Astray by Rayark International, $4.99. Side-scrolling puzzler with art style similar to Dead Cells. Was released on Steam in October 2019, Very Positive (2.4K reviews).
Apple Arcade
9.The Pathless by Giant Squid/Annapurna Interactive. Action-adventure with archery and falconry, where you are trying to lift a curse on an island playing as a huntress accompanied by an eagle. Released simultaneously on PC and PS4/5.
Notable Indies
10.Underworld Office! by Buff Studio. Chat style interactive narrative game with ghosts from Korean developers. Their previous title 7 Days amasses 4M downloads.
11.ChocoHunters by Orhan Keskin. Pirate-themed shoot’em up about 3 heroes on a hunt for chocolate, which is more precious than gold. Game by German solo-developer of Turkish origin.
Upcoming Games
Announced
1.Summoners War: Lost Centuria by Com2Us. Real-time battles of 8v8 characters - a change to a“proven formula of turn-based RPG combat. Closed Beta starts on November 21. Original Summoners War: Sky Arena grossed $2B in life-time revenues in August 2020, 6 years since launch in June 2014.
Canceled Games
1.Saint Seiya Shining Soldiers by Bandai Namco. 1v1 command-based battler with a license from Japanese manga Saint Seiya is closing global servers in January 2021. The game amassed 500K+ downloads on Google Play.
Research & Market Data
SensorTower: Top Mobile Games by Worldwide Revenue for October 2020. Two new games stormed the top: Genshin Impact by MiHoYo and Moonlight Blade by Tencent, which was released only in China.
SensorTower: Top Mobile Publishers Worldwide for October 2020 by Downloads. 6 of 10 are game publishers: Voodoo, AppLovin, Outfit7, InnerSloth, Azur Interactive, Crazy Labs.
SensorTower: Global Mobile Game Revenue Grew 26% YOY in First Nine Months of 2020 to $58.7B:
Yahtzee With Buddies by Mediatonic exceeds $500M lifetime revenue since launch n November 2017.
Among Us has been downloaded more than 217M times and grossed $39M on mobile.
Hypercasual publisher CrazyLabs surpasses 3.5B downloads across games library.
Premium title Pascal's Wager has hit 1M sales since it launched in January 2020.
GameRefinery: Strategy Game Features – Genre and Great Games Report Highlights.
Read
Pitching your game: The essentials you need to know (GamesBeat);
How to Scale a Games Company (Deconstructor of Fun);
The Argument for Simpler Games, in an Industry Obsessed with Complexity (Gamasutra);
In Twitch’s Fight with the Music Industry, Streamers are Paying the Price (The Verge);
Developing a Tabletop Game (Gamasutra).
Bonus Level - weekly newsletter by Maxon Pugovsky, producer of mobile games at Gameloft. Please recommend and forward BL to your colleagues, if you find it useful. Got a forward? Subscribe or browse through archive: