December GameRefinery Bulletin: Major revenue spikes for Clash of Clans and Pokémon TCG Pocket

GameRefinery, a Liftoff company, has unveiled its December 24 report on the mobile games market. Backed by the latest data, the report features expert insights from GameRefinery’s analysts and highlights new releases, performance-boosting live events, and notable game updates across the US, China, and Japan.

Here’s what GameRefinery found:

• Following the introduction of a new level for its Town Hall system, Clash of Clans saw a dramatic increase in daily revenue performance, which was boosted by around 200% on the US iOS market on 25 November. The update brought an array of new content to the game, including a new Hero called the Minion Prince and a new Hero Hall building, which acts as the central hub for managing all hero-related features.

• Daily revenue in Pokémon TCG Pocket spiked by more than 470% on 17 December in the US following the release of the game’s first card pack expansion, which included 68 new basic cards alongside a whole bunch of associated tasks and achievements. A number of new solo challenge battles were also added, featuring opponents equipped with the new cards. 

• While Infinity Nikki made quite an impact when it launched on 5 December, jumping to eighth place in downloads on the US iOS market, it has since fallen down the ranks and out of the top 200 overall titles. However, given that the game is also available on PS5, it’s possible players are still spending—just not on mobile. That being said, the game’s monetisation strategy is relatively light, relying on a gacha system that focuses primarily on cosmetic outfits.

• Buzz Lightyear from Disney’s Toy Story came to Brawl Stars in December, marking the game’s first-ever collaboration event. All players were gifted the all-new playable character as part of Brawlidays, a 14-day-long login event with daily gifts. Given that licensed IPs are typically costly and time-consuming to acquire, such a generous giveaway with a prolific partner is somewhat out of the ordinary. However, it’s possible Disney themselves fronted the cost to bring the Toy Story IP to a new audience.

• As part of the game’s Christmas celebrations, Lily’s Garden players could take part in a raffle to win an iPhone or Samsung Galaxy and Amazon gift cards. Real-world giveaways are rare in the Western side of the mobile market, and this competition was likely conceived to encourage more players to visit Lily’s Garden’s online webstore, where transactions aren’t subject to iOS and Google Play store royalty fees, as players needed to submit their email to enter.

To see the full breakdown of the mobile games market during December 2024, visit the GameRefinery website via the link below:  https://www.gamerefinery.com/mobile-game-market-review-december-2024/

About GameRefinery, a Liftoff Company 
GameRefinery, a Liftoff Company, is the leading provider of feature-level data in the mobile games market, with an ever-growing database covering hundreds of thousands of games. GameRefinery's customers include leading mobile games companies such as Zynga, Wargaming, King, and FunPlus. The GameRefinery platform uses unique algorithms and a team of expert analysts to help developers, investors, and publishers delve into the very building blocks of mobile games to uncover the drivers behind success, understand why games are successful, and how to achieve success from pre-production to LiveOps.

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Mike Durham
Big Games Machine
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