SocialPeta has released its latest report, Global Top Mobile Game in May 2025, hoping to be of assistance to more people in the mobile app industry who are trying to understand the changing trends of the global mobile market.
Brawl Stars stood out with its 2025 Global Miner Festival, posting a month-on-month revenue increase of around 50%.
India played a major role in driving mobile game downloads in May. Ludo King® led the charge with around 19 million downloads, more than 65% of which came from Indian users. Fruit Merge: Match Game also saw rapid growth, reaching approximately 2 million App Store downloads—up 100% month-on-month—with India contributing roughly 21.8% of that total.
This edition of SocialPeta’s report also higlights key games from China and Korea in the mobile games industry.
The overall performance of global mobile games in May:
- Wuthering Waves by Kuro Games celebrated its first anniversary on May 22, showing a month-on-month revenue increase and entering the advertising chart.
- Two different RPG games by FUNFORGE TECHNOLOGY simultaneously entered the ad charts in the App Store and Google Play with strong rankings.
- The classic Korean game IP Dragon Nest: Rebirth of Legend returned with a remastered version, entering the iOS ad chart in its launch month.
- The Southeast Asian shooter game Free Firecelebrated its 8th anniversary with simultaneous increases in both downloads and revenue.
Top 20 Mobile Games by Advertising in May 2025
Dragon Nest: Rebirth of Legend— A Classic Remake by a Korean Developer
Developed by Korea’s Eyedentity Games, Dragon Nest: Rebirth of Legend was launched in the Hong Kong, Macao, and Taiwan regions on May 29. As a long-standing and popular MMO IP, this official remake satisfies the nostalgia of many original fans.
With its 3D non-lock combat system and fluid combo mechanics, the game is well adapted to mobile platforms while preserving the hardcore battle experience of the PC version.
In terms of promotion, the game invited MC HotDog as its ambassador, who also created the game’s theme song “Dragon Valley OG”, which went viral across platforms, reviving the true Dragon Nest spirit remembered by millions of players.
Additionally, the game collaborated with top streamers to share live gameplay experiences and partnered with 7-ELEVEN to launch joint top-up campaigns that further stimulated player spending.
According to SocialPeta, over 7,000 de-duplicated creatives for Dragon Nest: Rebirth of Legend were captured across the App Store and Google Play in May, with the following details for iOS advertising:
- Approximately 67% of creatives in the past 30 days were videos, and more than 65% of these were shorter than 30 seconds;
- The main video dimensions included square (720×720), landscape (1280×720), and portrait (720×1280), together accounting for over 95% of creatives;
- Creative placements began in the launch month, peaked before launch, then gradually declined and stabilized;
- Over 98% of the ad was in Traditional Chinese.
From the perspective of a creative, popular video creative for Dragon Nest: Rebirth of Legend included gameplay introductions, clips from female streamer live streams, and combat footage. Some of the creatives also featured promotional posters of MC HotDog, enhancing visibility and engagement.
Live-action videos primarily featured female streamers showing off their ‘lucky’ drops with meme edits like ‘NICE’ to emphasize the game’s high loot rate.
The Seventh Disaster from FUNFORGE TECHNOLOGY New Post-Apocalyptic Fantasy MMO Enters App Store and Google Play Ad Rankings
As a major publisher of MMO titles, FUNFORGE TECHNOLOGY released two different MMORPGs across various regions in May: the post-apocalyptic fantasy RPG The Seventh Disaster and the anime-style cultivation RPG 패스 오브 라이징 (Path of Rising).
Of the two, The Seventh Disaster received more user acquisition investment, particularly targeting Hong Kong, Macao, Taiwan, and Southeast Asia (Singapore and Malaysia), and performed significantly better than Path of Rising in the May ad rankings.
Set in a world plagued by cataclysmic disasters, players take on the role of saviors fighting against monstrous calamities in The Seventh Disaster.
According to SocialPeta, The Seventh Disaster launched over 12,000 duplicated ad creatives across App Store and Google Play in May. The specific data on Android is as follows:
- Approximately 72.08% of creatives in the past 30 days were videos, with more than half being over 30 seconds in duration;
- The most commonly used video format was portrait (720×1280), accounting for about 38% of App Store and Google Play;
- The campaign mainly targeted the Taiwan region, which accounted for 85.98% of placements;
- Ad creatives began running on May 3, neared their peak by May 5, peaked again 10 days after launch, and remained steady through the end of the month;
- Over 99% of the ad creatives were in Traditional Chinese;
- Key creatives included iPhone 16 giveaways, high drop rates, and apocalyptic combat.
Popular creatives for The Seventh Disaster included the game’s theme song, in-game combat scenes, and AI-generated apocalyptic monster visuals.
Interestingly, the AI-generated footage of the eight disaster monsters had a comedic effect rather than invoking fear, making it stand out in a quirky way.
Top 20 Mobile Games by Revenue in May 2025
Games with surging revenue on the App Store in May:
- Match-3 champion Royal Match returned to the top of the App Store revenue chart with approximately $71 million in May, marking a 4.4% month-on-month increase.
- Brawl Stars, a multiplayer real-time battle game, saw revenue surge in May with the launch of the 2025 Global Miner Festival on May 17. This nearly 7-year-old title earned over $27 million, up around 50% month-on-month.
- Pokémon TCG Pocket, the Pokémon-themed card draw game, saw a revenue rebound in May with over $50 million, a 13.3% month-on-month increase.
Games with surging revenue on the Google Play in May：
- Whiteout Survival, a popular SLG mobile game from Century Games, saw another revenue increase this month, with approximately $35 million in May, up about 9.4% from the previous month.
- Dark War Survival, a post-apocalyptic zombie-themed strategy SLG, continued to see rising revenue, reaching $11 million in May—an increase of approximately 10% month-on-month.
Top 20 Mobile Games by Downloads in May 2025
Games with surging downloads on the App Store in May:
- Fruit Merge: Match Game, a casual merge-and-match puzzle title, saw explosive growth with around 2 million downloads on the App Store in May-up 100% month-on-month. Indian users contributed approximately 21.8% of the total downloads.
- Delta Force, Tencent’s new tactical shooter, became the breakout download star of the month, with approximately 2 million downloads in May, of which 34.7% came from U.S. users.
Games with surging downloads on the Google Play in May:
- Ludo King®, a Mobile card and board game, experienced impressive growth with around 19 million downloads in May, over 65% of which came from users in India.
- Free Fire, a Southeast Asian shooter game, saw an uptick in downloads during its 8th anniversary celebrations. The game recorded over 11 million downloads in May, with Brazilian players accounting for 17.6% of the total.
- Music Piano 7: Rush Song Games, a perennial rhythm game favorite, also saw a download boom with around 9 million App Store and Google Play downloads in May. Brazilian users contributed 10.7% of those downloads, the highest share.
The above are insights into global mobile game launches in May 2025, as well as mobile game revenue and download situations across both the App Store and Google Play. For more mobile marketing data, you can visit SocialPeta’s website.
