In pictures: Here are the mobile games that ruled the screens this year

SUMMARY

Other than video calling, it was mobile gaming that took India by storm during the lockdowns and social distancing times. With the COVID-hit year entering its last leg, Indians were spending around 7 hours in a week on playing games on their mobiles and the duration increased among majority (53 percent) since the lockdown that began early this year.

By CNBC-TV18Dec 23, 2020 9:26:46 PM IST (Published)

Other than video calling, it was mobile gaming that took India by storm during the lockdowns and social distancing times. With the COVID-hit year entering its last leg, Indians were spending around 7 hours in a week playing games on their mobiles and the duration increased among majority (53 percent) since the lockdown that began early this year.

1# Among Us: Developed by gaming company InnerSloth, it was the most downloaded mobile game worldwide in September 2020 with 83.8 million installs, which was 40 times more than the title had in September 2019. In India, kids went crazy for it. (Image & text: IANS)

2# Ludo King: Launched in 2016, it became one of the top five most installed mobile games in April. The growth during the initial phase of the ongoing lockdown helped Ludo King reach the number-one ranking in the top charts of free games on Google Play for some days. Ludo King surpassed top games like Candy Crush Saga, PUBG, Clash of Clans, Subway Surfers, Temple Run, and others in monthly active users in India.

3# PUBG Mobile: The Tencent owned game has emerged as the highest-grossing mobile game of 2020. According to Sensor Tower, the game raked in a revenue of close to $2.6 billion from both Google Play Store and Apple's App Store. The figure represents an increase of 64 percent from last year. The immensely popular PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds (PUBG) Mobile app was among the 118 Chinese apps that the Indian government banned in September over national security concerns. In November, PUBG Corporation said it is making a comeback with the creation of an Indian subsidiary and a new game. (Text: IANS)

4#Pokemon Go: 2020 has been the best year for this game where it accumulated a revenue increase of 31.5 percent. The sudden increase in player spending was because of the various implementations in the game allowing for playing during the pandemic-induced lockdown. Pokemon GO has been around for a few years now, but it continues to impress with its longevity and massive popularity. (Text:IANS)

5# Garena Free Fire: The game grew to become one of the top five grossing entries in the burgeoning genre since its launch in late 2017. Garena Free Fire (also known as Free Fire Battlegrounds or Free Fire) is a battle royale game, developed by 111 Dots Studio and published by Garena for Android and iOS. The game received the award for the "Best Popular Vote Game" by the Google Play Store in 2019. As of November 2019, Free Fire has grossed over $1 billion worldwide.