Stumble Guys didn’t journey up with its efficiency within the cellular market throughout August, combining an all-new shard system with a collaboration with one among YouTube’s greatest influencers, MrBeast, to launch one among its most profitable occasions to this point within the US. 

In the meantime, Umamusume Fairly Derby dominated downloads and income in China with its launch and topped the charts in Japan with its two-and-a-half-year anniversary occasion, including a Parisian coaching simulation and an enormous gacha marketing campaign with greater than 20 completely different gachas that resulted in an enormous day by day income spike. August additionally noticed some attention-grabbing experiments throughout cellular, significantly from Blizzard, who introduced battle royale to Diablo followers for the primary time and soft-launched a tactical battle spin-off of its ever-popular MMO, World of Warcraft. 

That’s solely scratching the floor of all of the unbelievable updates our analysts got here throughout within the greatest iOS video games throughout August. Take a look at our August Cellular Sport Market Evaluate beneath for a breakdown of every little thing they uncovered throughout the US, China, and Japan. 

US Market Overview

First up is Stumble Guys, which added a brand new materials system, Pores and skin Shards. Because the identify suggests, these are used to unlock unique beauty skins, with the rarity of the pores and skin dictating what number of distinctive shards are wanted. Gamers can earn a restricted quantity of pores and skin shards free of charge by occasion rewards, however gaining sufficient shards to unlock a pores and skin often requires buying an IAP bundle. 

The Pores and skin Shards had been launched alongside a brand new collaboration occasion with MrBeast, that includes a number of unique skins themed across the in style YouTuber that would solely be acquired with the brand new useful resource. The collaboration additionally added a brand new MrBeast-inspired Warehouse map alongside three limited-time sport modes the place gamers might earn Beast Bucks and Beast Tokens; these had been used to spin occasion gachas to accumulate additional shards.

In comparison with the sport’s previous monetized collaborations, which embody Ubisoft’s Rabbids and Barbie, the MrBeast occasion was extra profitable by way of income efficiency. That is most certainly a mix of a well-matched collaboration IP and the brand new Pores and skin Shard system. A day by day calendar view, with actual dates and durations of the MrBeast occasions, provides, gachas, and different particulars, will be present in our Stay Occasions Tracker. 

We’ve written extensively about interactive story video games, the place gamers observe the journey of various characters and make selections that affect the course of the narrative, and the way their builders aren’t scared to incorporate mechanics which can be barely uncommon for the subgenre. That development appears to proceed with Episode implementing its first limited-time gacha in August, the Gumball Machine: Bubblegum Restricted Assortment.

Gamers draw the gacha in two methods: utilizing a premium foreign money referred to as gems or with one among their 5 free day by day turns. The gacha prize pool contains unique Bubblegum avatar outfits and different cosmetics, gems, small gumball tokens (that give further free turns), and extra. Every Gumball Machine gacha has a novel theme, equivalent to Okay-pop or goth.

Different US Market highlights embody:

• Diablo Immortal launched a limited-time battle royale mode on 9 August known as Wild Brawl. The mode, which lasted till 22 August, labored equally to different main titles within the style and noticed 24 gamers divided into six groups of 4, who then entered a map and battled in opposition to one another till only one was left standing. 
• Triple Match 3D continued its spectacular scaling streak in August, reaching an all-time excessive day by day income peak at grossing 9. One other title with an analogous find-three puzzle core, Glad Match Cafe: ASMR, additionally scaled properly all through the month. Peak Video games additionally soft-launched its personal triple match title, Match Manufacturing facility.
• Blizzard took its well-known MMO on the go along with the tactical battler spin-off Warcraft Rumble. The title is in comfortable launch, however preliminary impressions recommend it might show to be a worthy competitor to Conflict Royale.  The sport is extra PvE-focused than Supercell’s titan, with a stunning quantity of depth and tactical components, together with battles in opposition to legendary World of Warcraft characters.

August was a big month for Umamusume Fairly Derby, marking the sport’s two-and-a-half-year anniversary. The sport celebrated the milestone with the launch of its sixth coaching situation on 24 August, Attain For The Stars – Mission L’Arc, centered round conquering the legendary Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe in Paris. The brand new situation launched recent coaching mechanics, new Parisian race tracks, and formidable opponents.

The anniversary replace additionally featured an unlimited gacha marketing campaign with over twenty distinctive gacha swimming pools. These included the Anniversary Pickup Gachas, that includes new assist playing cards primarily based on Mission L’Arc, and Group Choose Gachas, which may very well be divided into one among ten particular character specialty swimming pools and required premium foreign money. 

These had been complimented by varied IAP bundle provides, that are hardly ever featured in Umamusume, full of premium foreign money or gacha tickets. Mixed, these resulted in a dramatic improve in day by day income of over 1000% in Japan.

Different Japan market highlights embody:

• Cellular video games primarily based on the anime and manga sequence One Piece, together with Treasure Cruise and Bountry Rush, noticed important obtain and income spikes throughout August following the discharge of ‘Gear 5 Luffy’ in these video games in addition to within the anime. Netflix’s extremely profitable live-action adaptation of the sequence has additionally stored the IP on the floor.
• In August, two uncommon successes within the Japanese market had been the idle RPGs Wan-chan GochaGocha Dai Sensou and KonnichiWAN! Hero, which prominently characteristic Shiba Inu – a Japanese canine breed that’s one thing of an web meme sensation. These video games launched after one of many world’s most well-known Shiba Inu, Cheems, handed away on 18 August, each hitting the highest 20 downloads and high 200 grossing of their first week.
• Pokémon Sleep continued to dominate Japan and held the highest obtain spot for nearly all of August. It additionally sat comfortably as the highest 20 grossing title. For extra details about how this gamified sleep app works in follow, take heed to episode 48 of our podcast, the Cellular Video games Playbook. 

China market overview

Main the cost in China over August was the survival shooter 黎明觉醒 (Undawn), which introduced a brand new specialised occupation system to the sport. On high of the opposite occupation methods Undawn already had, the title added 5 further professions, every with distinctive expertise to unlock and improve. These expertise are unlocked by finishing varied designated duties. Every of those professions impacts the participant’s playstyle in all sport modes. The system additionally launched everlasting boosts known as Abilities.

Different China market highlights embody:

• Whereas it might not be extensively identified within the West, basketball enjoys important reputation in China. As evident from its fast rise, All-Star Streetball Occasion (全明星街球派对) achieved outstanding success out there throughout August, reaching seventh in grossing and fourth in downloads. The sport is a 3v3 avenue basketball multiplayer title with a Fortnite aesthetic and extremely customizable characters. 
• Umamusume Fairly Derby was launched within the China market, catapulting it to first place in downloads and the highest 10 grossing. 
• The 2D sidescrolling MMORPG Maple Story Cellular carried out fiercely in August, inserting fifth in grossing and 13 in downloads.