Analytics: In 2024, mobile games had a 39% higher chance of earning a million dollars compared to games on Steam
The founder of Turbine Games Consulting, Matthew Emery, decided to examine which platform was easier to succeed on last year—PC or mobile. To do this, he compared the revenue of approximately 8,000 new releases in 2024.
Black Myth: Wukong — on the left, Royal Kingdom — top right, Balatro — bottom right
As part of his analysis, Emery used data from Gamalytic and AppMagic* to study the income generated by games on Steam, Google Play, and the App Store from January 2024 to April 2025. He aimed to exclude hobbyist teams from the statistics. For example, on mobile, Emery collected information only on games from the 5,000 most profitable publishers worldwide, excluding China, Hong Kong, South Korea, and Japan, whereas on Steam, he focused on games from teams with revenue no less than $10,000.
Here are the conclusions Emery reached:
- In 2024, the share of successful new games on Steam was 6.2%. In numbers, this represents 257 projects;
- Among new mobile releases, 8.6% or 372 games achieved success;
- In both cases, Emery considered successful games those that generated at least one million dollars in net revenue;
- The probability that a game on Google Play and the App Store would earn more than a million dollars was 39% higher than on Steam;
- Among all analyzed new releases in 2024, 328 mobile games and 351 games on Steam have made around $100,000 to date;
- Net revenue of $250,000 was shown by 426 mobile games and 303 games on Steam;
- There were more games with ultra-high earnings on Steam. For example, 19 games on Steam and four mobile games earned about $20 million. In Steam, earnings at the $50 million mark were boasted by eight new releases, while in Google Play and the App Store—only one new release. Additionally, four games released last year earned over $100 million on Steam, whereas only one game achieved this result on mobile.
*AppMagic only reports revenue from in-app purchases and does not disclose advertising revenue from games, which is a significant portion of some titles' income. To provide a complete picture, Emery estimated how much games might have earned from ads, calculating that each download brings 30 cents.