7 mobile games now make over $100 million every month

Mobile gaming is a big deal. A massive deal. Seven mobile games, up from just two in 2019, now pull in over $100 million each and every month, on average.

From my story at Forbes:

App Annie says that there are now over one billion weekly game downloads on the iOS App Store and Google Play, resulting in more than $1.7 billion in weekly spend, and five billion hours spent playing. The average smartphone results in $9 of monthly spend on “free” games as players buy in-app purchases for upgrades, power-ups, speed-ups, other advantages, and some cosmetic goods.

This, of course, is the pot of gold that Epic Games, maker of Fortnite, is locked in a legal battle with Apple and Google over. Apple and Google take a 15-30% cut of most of this revenue; Epic (and many other game publishers) would prefer not to pay the platform tax.

I’ve also recorded this story, with some additional commentary, in a TechFirst (short) podcast:

Get the full story in my post at Forbes … and subscribe to the TechFirst podcast on your podcasting platform of choice: