PUBG Mobile is now the biggest mobile battle royale game on the planet with over $1 billion in total revenue.
We tend to discount mobile gamers as not true gamers, but the fact is there are more mobile gamers in the world than console and PC players combined. Most of them are in Asia, where the concept of a living room with a TV or personal computer is relatively foreign, but phones are everywhere. Everybody has one, so they game on that.
And that makes mobile gaming big business. PUBG Mobile is big everywhere, but it’s really exploded in China after finally becoming monetized earlier this summer.
When PUBG Mobile first arrived in China (courtesy of a deal struck with Tencent, of course), the game was pretty much the same as everywhere else. That didn’t sit well with the Chinese government which objected on the grounds that it promoted excessive violence and social unrest.
Taking the hint, Tencent took the game back to the drawing board and re-released it as “Game for Peace.” It’s still the same game, only instead of jumping out of a nameless transport plane, you jump out of a Chinese military transport flanked by the latest-gen Chinese fighter jets. And once on the ground, the violence has been toned down. Instead of leaving bloody smears and a corpse after killing someone, they just pleasantly wave goodbye and hand over their backpacks.
The Chinese propaganda managed to get Game for Peace past the Chinese censors, and then the money train came rolling in. According to GamesIndustry.biz, PUBG Mobile's revenue spiked 540% since releasing in China, and now has over $1 billion in gross revenue. Although China helped a lot, other countries did too with an average increase of 165% revenue everywhere OTHER than China over the past year.
PUBG Mobile's success comes on the back of Fortnite Mobile, which has seen its revenue fall by 36% over the past year. Players seem to be bailing on Fortnite for PUBG Mobile, which has grown to 400 million player accounts.
Of course, Fortnite still isn't on sale in China. We could see a reversal of fortune if Fortnite ever manages to sneak its way past the Chinese government. Maybe they just need to add a few Chinese tanks to the game? That seemed to work for PUBG.
(source: GamesIndustry.biz)