According to Sensor Tower data, in September 2021, 4 out of the top 5 grossing mobile games were developed by Chinese game studios, with Genshin Impact topping the chart, earning 341.7 million USD last month.
An interesting fact is that despite increasing work being put in to make Chinese games that do well on overseas markets; they can still do very well by only focusing on the domestic market. Over 90 percent of Honor of Kings’ and Harry Potter: Magic Awakened’s revenue was from China. This shows the incredible market potential in China alone and since the Harry Potter game has only launched in few Asian regions, its future performance is definitely worth further attention.
PUBG Mobile has fallen out of the top 2 for the first time, this September. The game developed by Tencent’s Lightspeed Studio was the top-grossing Chinese mobile game overseas in the first half of 2021, but it appears that it is momentum was overtaken by Genshin Impact.
Fantasy Westward Journey, ranked 8th in App Store Revenue, is only available in China. This game has very deep Chinese traditional cultural connotations, which can be a bit difficult for foreign players to understand. However, being one of the most popular folklores in China since 600 AD, the story of Journey to the West always has a special place for Chinese players. Serval video games took inspiration from this story, including the upcoming Black Myth: Wukong.