According to Sensor Tower, player spending on strategy games in the U.S. reached $2.8 billion in the first 10 months of 2020.
When we compare this figure with the previous year, we can see 21.7 percent Y/Y growth. In H1 of 2020, it was seen that the strategy genre revenue in the U.S. grew 16.7 percent year-over-year.
Top-grossing strategy game was Supercell’s Clash of Clans, which earned $262 million. The No. 2 grossing strategy title was Rise of Kingdoms from Lilith Games, followed by Game of Thrones: Conquest from Warner Bros, both part of the 4X Strategy subgenre.
Downloads dropped as revenue increased
On the download front, there were 113 million downloads in 10 months in the strategy genre. This means a 5.8 percent decrease on an annual basis.
If we look at which games have the biggest share of these figures, FunPlus’s 4X strategy game State of Survival is the most downloaded game of the first 10 months with 6.3 million downloads. Top Games’s Ebony: The King’s Return and Clash of Clans were the second and third most downloaded strategy games.
The title uses the Post-Apocalypse setting, which saw player spending rise by 106 percent Y/Y in the U.S. during Q1 to Q3 2020 to approximately $384 million.
The strategy genre has proven to be quite lucrative for leading publishers. 8 of 4X strategy games that earned more than $100 million in revenue, especially in the first 10 months of 2020, reveal the profitability of this subgenre. The 4X genre, with an annual increase of 34 percent, earning $1.9 billion, takes the first place among all strategy subgenres. Besides, the category was the most downloaded subgenre with 44.2 million.
In terms of revenue, on the other hand, The fastest-growing subgenre by revenue was Tower Defense, which rose 131 percent year on year to $ 63.7 million. The subgenre with the most significant download increase is Card Battler, with 11 million downloads, with an annual increase of 5.9 percent.
