This guide provides an overview of the mobile games industry, including a list of the key mobile games companies, a detailed look at the history of mobile gaming and a breakdown of mobile gaming concepts and terms.
Neon River is a headhunting firm that has deep experience of working with mobile games clients around the world.
1. Mobile Games Companies List
2. Mobile Games Glossary
3. The History of Mobile Games
The companies listed below are some of the largest and most influential mobile games companies in the world:
Playtika
Headquartered in Herzliya, Israel, Playtika is best known as a developer of social casino games and known for titles such as Bingo Blitz and Slotomania. In 2023, the company had revenues of £2.01bn.
Supercell
Founded in 2012 and based in Helsinki, Finland, Supercell is one of the biggest mobile games companies in the world and known for big hits like Hay Day and Clash of Clans. Supercell revenues in 2023 were €1.7bn.
King
King is headquartered in Stockholm and is best known for the hit game Candy Crush Saga. In 2016, King was bought by Activision Blizzard for $5.9bn which itself was acquired by Microsoft in 2023. In 2023 King achieved revenues of $1.42bn.
Dream Games
Dream Games is an Istanbul-based mobile games developer founded in 2019. The company has risen quickly to become one of the major players in the sector. Smash hit Royal Match has proven to be a huge success for the company. The company has many ex-Peak Games and ex-King employees who have used their experience in the sector to help the company to grow swiftly.
Zynga
Founded in 2007, Zynga has been one of the pioneers of social and mobile gaming. Zynga went public in 2011 and was acquired by Take-Two Interactive in 2022 for $12.7bn. Zynga’s annual revenue in 2021 were $2.8bn prior to the acquisition.
Scopely
Scopely, founded in 2011 and based in Los Angeles, has published games across various genres, including puzzle and strategy. Major titles include Monopoly Go! launched in 2023, and The Walking Dead: Road to Survival. In 2023, Savvy Games Group, owned by Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund (PIF), acquired the company for $4.9bn.
Playrix
Playrix is a free-to-play mobile game developer known for puzzle games like Gardenscapes and Homescapes. The company was founded in 2004 in Russia but today is headquartered in Ireland. Playrix generated approximately $1.83bn in revenue in 2023. The founders, brothers Dmitry Bukhman and Igor Bukhman, still own the company and have not raised outside funding.
Pixel United
Pixel United, a London-headquartered mobile games company, was formed in 2021 when gambling company Aristocrat Leisure rebranded its mobile division. Aristocrat Leisure had previously acquired Product Madness, Plarium, and Big Fish Games in 2012, 2017, and 2018, respectively, and combined them to form Pixel United. Product Madness specializes in social casino games. The company generated revenues of $2.65bn in 2023.
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The following companies have been highly acquisitive in buying mobile games businesses;
EA
Playdemic, Glu Mobile (2021), PopCap (2011) and Playfish (2009)
TakeTwo Interactive
Social Point (2016), Nordeus (2021), Zynga (2022)
Stillfront Group
Bytro Labs (2016), Goodgame Studios (2017), Imperia Online (2018), KIXEYE (2019), Storm8 and Sandbox Interactive (2020), and Moonfrog (2021).
Tencent
Acquisitions: Riot Games (2011), Miniclip (2015), Supercell (2016)
Investments: Epic Games (2013), Netmarble (2018), Krafton, Kakao Games (2018), Voodoo (2020), Playtonic Games (2021)
Savvy Games
Scopely (2023)
Ubisoft
Kolibri Games (2020), Green Panda Games (2019), Ketchapp (2016)
Supercell
Acquisitions: Space Ape Games (2017), Trailmix Games (2022)
Investments: Metacore (2018)
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The companies below are also notable within the global mobile games sector:
Voodoo
Voodoo is a mobile game developer based in Paris. The company was founded in 2013 and known for hypercasual games like Mob Control and Block Jam. The company is backed by investors like GBL and Tencent. In 2023, Voodoo reported $570m in revenues.
Peak Games
Peak Games is an Istanbul-based developer known for developing casual mobile games like Toy Blast and Toon Blast. It is founded in 2012 and was bought by Zynga in 2020 for $1.8bn (Zynga itself was acquired by Take Two Interactive in 2022). The company generated around $294.5m in 2023.
Metacore
Metacore is a Helsinki-based mobile game developer that launched its first game, Merge Mansion, in 2020. Since 2018, Supercell has invested a total of approximately €180 million in the company. Metacore acquired the rights from Supercell to develop the game Everdale, but later stopped development of the title, and returned the rights to Supercell in 2024.
Miniclip
Miniclip, founded in 2001 and based in Switzerland, began as a browser game company. Miniclip is best known for making casual games (often with a sports theme) such as 8 Ball Pool – the most popular pool game on mobile. Tencent acquired the company in 2015, and in 2021, Miniclip purchased SYBO, best known for the smash hit endless runner Subway Surfers.
Rovio
Rovio is a Finnish mobile games company best known for the Angry Birds franchise. Rovio was founded in 2003 by Helsinki University of Technology students Niklas Hed, Jarno Väkeväinen and Kim Dikert. Rovio went public in 2017 with a valuation of $1bn. In 2023, Sega bought Rovio for $776m, making it a subsidiary of its Sega Europe division.
Moon Active
Moon Active is an Israeli mobile game company founded in 2011. Specialized in developing social casino and casual games, its best known games are Coin Master and Travel Town. Moon Active has raised in total $426m by investors including Insight Partners.
Homa
Headquartered in Paris, Homa was founded in 2018 and develops hypercasual and casual mobile games. Some of its notable titles include All in Hole and Sky Roller. Homa also created a SaaS game development tool, Homa Lab, which supports game analytics, market insights, and testing. Homa is funded by investors including Quadrille Capital, Headline, and Northzone.
Wooga
Wooga is a Berlin-based mobile games company founded in 2009 by Jens Begemann. They are specialized in story-driven hidden object and puzzle games such as June’s Journey and Tropicats. In 2018, Wooga was bought by Playtika for $200m.
Ten Square Games
Ten Square Games is a Polish mobile game developer best known for two main games; Hunting Clash and Fishing Clash. Ten Square Games was founded in 2011 and has a revenue of over €100m in 2023. The company went public in 2018 on Warsaw Stock Exchange.
Gameloft
Paris-based company Gameloft was founded in 1999 by Michel Guillemot, one of the five co-founders of console game publisher Ubisoft. The company develops games for mobile, console, and PC platforms, with notable mobile hits including the Asphalt series of racing games and Minion Rush. In 2023, Gameloft’s revenue was €311m. Formerly a publicly traded company, Gameloft was acquired by media conglomerate Vivendi in 2016.
Tripledot Studios
London-based mobile games company Tripledot was created in 2017 and is known for developing solitaire and puzzle games. Some notable titles include Woodoku and Solitaire. They have raised over $200m in funding since 2021 and valued at over $1.4bn in 2022. Tripledot investors include 20VC, Access Industries and Lightspeed Venture Partners.
Tactile Games
Tactile Games was founded in 2008 in Copenhagen and develops casual puzzle games such as Lily’s Garden and Makeover Match. The company was valued at $432m in 2020. Tactile Games was founded in 2008 by CEO Asbjoern Soendergaard.
Azur Games
Azur Games, based in Cyprus, is a mobile game developer with a portfolio ranging from midcore PvP to hypercasual games. Founded in 2017, their leading games include Stack Ball and WormsZone.io.
Space Ape
Space Ape is a London-based mobile game company founded in 2012, and later acquired by Supercell. Space Ape Games have created a diverse range of games across genres including strategy, casual, arcade, and action. Hit games include Chrome Valley Customs (racing) and Beatstar (rhythm).
Trailmix
Formed in 2017 by ex-King duo Carolin Krenzer and Tristan Clark, Trailmix is a mobile game company focused on casual free-to-play games. Its hit game Love & Pies is a match-3 game that combines mystery-solving with dramatic story elements. In 2022, Supercell acquired a majority stake in Trailmix.
Rollic
Rollic is a Istanbul-based hyper-casual games developer founded in 2018. The company is known for titles such as High Heels! and Blob Runner 3D. Zynga acquired 80% of the shares in Rollic for $180m in 2020.
Deca Games
Deca Games is a Berlin-based mobile game publisher and developer. The company primarily focuses on acquiring the rights to free-to-play games and specialize in managing games from a live operations perspective. Some of their notable hits include Realm of the Mad God and Knights & Dragons. In 2020, the company was acquired by Embracer Group. Deca Games has subsidiaries including A Thinking Ape and CrazyLabs.
Kolibri Games
Kolibri Games is a Berlin-based mobile games developer known for developing idle games such as Idle Miner Tycoon and Idle Bank Tycoon. In 2020, Ubisoft acquired a 75% share of Kolibri with a valuation of €160m.
Madbox
Madbox is a French hypercasual mobile game developer founded by Maxime Demeure, Jonathan Hattab, Emily Keohane, and Jean-Nicolas Vernin in 2018. They have developed hit games including Stickman Hook and Dash Valley. The company is backed by venture capital investor Alven.
Nordeus
Nordeus is headquartered in Belgrade, Serbia. The company was founded in 2010 and known for its sports games. Nordeus is perhaps best known for its popular Top Eleven football management game and Golf Rivals Sports. In 2021, Take-Two Interactive acquired Nordeus for up to $378m.
Boombit
Polish mobile games developer Boombit was founded by Marcin Olejarz and Hannibal Soares in 2010. Boombit was listed on Warsaw Stock Exchange in 2019 and had total revenues of $58.7M in 2023. BoomBit creates games in a variety of genres including sports, driving, RPG and strategy. Some of their most popular games include Hunt Royale and Darts Club.
Huuuge Games
Huuuge Games creates multiplayer social casino games. Founded in 2014 and based in Berlin, the company is known for its hit titles like Huuuge Casino and Billionaire Casino. In 2023 Huuuge generated revenue of $283.4m.
MobilityWare
MobilityWare was founded in 1990 and publishes card and puzzle games. Headquartered in California, the company is known for games such as Solitaire and Spider Solitaire.
Outfit7
Outfit7 is a Slovenian mobile games company, best known for the Talking Tom and Friends franchise. My Talking Tom is a game where players raise a grey tabby cat called Tom. In 2017, Outfit7 was sold to Chinese company Jinke Entertainment Culture based in Zhejiang for $1bn.
Playstudios
Playstudios is a San Francisco-based mobile game developer known for puzzle and social casino games such as Tetris and myVEGAS Slots. Playstudios went public in 2021 on NASDAQ and had revenue of $310.9m in 2023.
SciPlay
SciPlay, based in Austin, Texas, specializes in free-to-play slots and bingo games for mobile and web platforms. Originally founded as the social gaming division of Light & Wonder (formerly Scientific Games) in 1997, it adopted the name SciPlay in 2019 and became an independent company. Light & Wonder reacquired the company in 2023. The company is known for hits like Jackpot Party Casino and Gold Fish Casino.
FunPlus
FunPlus was founded by Andy Zhong and Yitao Guan in Silicon Valley in 2010 and today is headquartered in Switzerland. FunPlus is best known as a developer of midcore RPG games like State of Survival and Frost & Flame.
Tencent Games
Tencent Games was founded in 2003 and is a game publishing subdivision of Tencent Interactive Entertainment, the digital entertainment division of Tencent Holdings. Based in Shenzhen, the company publishes free-to-play games in China, including Dungeon Fighter and ArchAge. Tencent Holdings owns Riot Games, Miniclip and various other mobile game companies.
NetEase Games
NetEase Games is the online games division of NetEase. NetEase Games is a mobile game developer and publisher known for strategy and RPG titles such as Knives Out and Blood Strike. It recorded revenues of $11.5b in 2023.
MiHoYo
Founded in 2012, MiHoyo is a Chinese mobile game developer and publisher based in Shanghai. The company is best known for its RPG games such as the Honkai series and Genshin Impact. In 2024, the company was valued at $23bn.
IGG
IGG is a Singapore-based games company originally founded in 2006 in Fujian, China. IGG is known for strategy and MMORPG games such as Lords Mobile and Castle Clash. In 2018, the company was listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange.
GungHo Online Entertainment
GungHo Online Entertainment is a Japanese game developer and publisher best known for Ragnarok Online and, more recently, the match-3 game Puzzle & Dragons. The company is listed on the Tokyo Stock Exchange and was owned by SoftBank Group until 2016.
Netmarble
Netmarble is a Korean mobile game developer and publisher founded in 2000. It is the parent company of Kabam and the major shareholder of Jam City. Netmarble has a diverse portfolio of games, including casual, RPG, and strategy titles. Some of its notable hits include Lineage 2: Revolution and MARVEL Future Fight.
Com2uS
Com2uS is a Korean mobile game developer founded in 1998. The company is known for its MMORPG hit series Summoners War, which launched in 2014. Com2uS was listed on the Korean Securities Dealers Automated Quotations (KOSDAQ) in 2007 and was later acquired by rival company Gamevil in 2013. Gamevil changed its corporate name to Com2uS Holdings in 2021.
Kakao Games
Kakao Games is a subsidiary of Kakao Corp, which owns the popular messaging app KakaoTalk in Korea. The company is known for its diverse range of games, spanning genres from puzzle to RPG, including Guardian Tales and Friends Town.
Cygames
Cygames, a subsidiary of CyberAgent, is a Japanese mobile games company. It achieved its biggest success with Uma Musume Pretty Derby, a horse-racing mobile game that has expanded into a multimedia franchise, including an anime series and manga adaptations.
Garena
Founded in 2009, Garena is a Singaporean mobile games company and a subsidiary of Sea Group. Garena focuses on the battle royal genre and probably best known for Free Fire, one of the biggest hits in Southeast Asia. Sea Group is traded on the NYSE.
Casual game – An accessible, easy-to-play game that is simple and is likely to appeal to a broad audience
Midcore game – A moderately complex game that is more challenging to play than a casual game
Core game (or hardcore game) – A complex, relatively challenging game that is likely to appeal to a more niche audience
Hypercasual game – A very simple, easy to play game that is usually monetized through advertising
Hybrid casual game – A game that has the simplicity of hypercasual core gameplay with some more sophisticated progression mechanics often found in midcore games. Hybrid casual games usually monetize in part through in app purchases (IAP), unlike hypercasual games which purely monetize through advertising
In app purchases (IAP) – Upgrades that consumers can purchase in-game to enhance their experience. These could be extra lives, powerups, costmetic upgrades like character skins, extra levels or content for example. IAP is a key monetization method for a lot of mobile games
Premium game – A game that costs money to download, as opposed to a free-to-play game
Free-to-play game (f2p game) – A game that is free to download, typically monetizing through advertising or in app purchases (IAP)
User Acquisition (UA) – Marketing activities and advertising designed to attract new users to play a game. Typical UA activities include advertising on social networks and on mobile advertising network
App Store Optimization (ASO) – Marketing activities concerned with optimizing the placement of an app or game within an app store
Customer Relationship Management (CRM) – Marketing activities relating to retaining customers
Live game (or Games as a Service) – A game that is continually updated with new content and features after its initial launch
Live game operations – The management of live games post launch, which involves the creation of new content and features, community management, events and promotions
Average Revenue Per User (ARPU) – A measurement that helps mobile games companies to understand how effectively they monetize users
Cost Per Install (CPI) – The advertising cost of a new user installing an app
Daily Active Users (DAU) – The number of users who actively engage with an app or game each day
Identifier for Advertisers (IDFA) – A device identifier assigned by Apple that helps advertisers to track users. IDFA deprecation has recently been a cause of a slowdown in the mobile games market (see The History of Mobile Gaming)
Return on Ad Spend (ROAS) – A key marketing metric that tells companies how much of a financial return they have made on their advertising spending
Soft launch – Launching a game into a small market before full launch in order to test and optimize its performance
The first mobile game to be released on mobile devices was a Tetris variant in 1994. Perhaps the first mobile game to really resonate with mainstream audiences was Snake, which was pre-installed on most Nokia mobile phones from 1997 onwards.
Mobile phones exploded in popularity during the 1990s and 2000s, which created new opportunities for games companies as this new platform became almost ubiquitous. Early mobile games were often quite simple and graphically limited due the the limitations of the hardware at the time.
Many of the mobile games built in the early 2000s were built on the Java ME platform and available for download via mobile operator’s web stores or SMS.
The limits of hardware capabilities and the clumsiness of the keypad controls made early mobile games often quite basic. They lacked the depth, graphics, accessibility and polish to become mainstream cultural phenomena. It was a niche part of the games industry where the big hits were to be found on console and PC.
The launch of Apple’s iPhone in 2007 and App Store in 2008 would deeply change the mobile games sector. With Apple – and later Google – dominating the mobile phone operating system market and opening their app stores to users, mobile phone operators were no longer the entities who controlled access to the consumer.
The rise of smartphones with touchscreen controlled enabled a much more intuitive way for consumers to play games without using clumsy keypads. Smartphones also increasingly had the processing power to support high quality graphics. Billions of consumers now had a capable gaming device in their pockets – between 2010 and 2020, smartphone penetration in the US would grow from around 20% in 2010 to over 70% by 2020.
Suddenly one major obstacle to becoming “a gamer” had been removed – there was no longer a need to have a console or capable gaming PC in order to play games. The rise of mobile gaming has had a massive impact on the demographics of gamers – and in particular has encouraged many more women to become gamers. In 2024, 53% of US smartphone gamers are women. Research from NewZoo in 2024 shows that 44% of female gamers play exclusively on mobile devices and 36% of the women surveyed considered themselves to be “a gamer”.
The increased popularity of online gaming in the 2000s would also influence the mobile gaming sector. With consumers increasingly using the internet, browser-based games became more popular. Flash games sites – such as Kongregate, Armor Games, and Miniclip.com grew substantially during this period. Flash games were typically relatively “casual” (accessible, easy to learn), simple games that could be played for a short period of time and appealed to a broad audience that went far beyond traditional hardcore gamers. This emphasis on accessible, intuitive games would be a key philosophy of many successful mobile games companies when the industry took off in the 2010s.
Indeed many successful mobile games companies had their roots in browser-based Flash games in the 2000s. King developed browser-based games on its portal King.com in the 2000s that would inspire their hit mobile games in the 2010s – King had a good idea that Candy Crush Saga could be a hit mobile game because its browser-based predecessor had been one their most popular games on their online portal. Companies such as PopCap Games (acquired by EA for $750m in 2011), Miniclip (acquired by Tencent in 2017) and King ($5bn IPO in 2017) all evolved from offering browser-based games portals to becoming hit mobile game developers.
The iPhone launched in 2007 and would ultimately revolutionize the mobile games industry, although smartphones would take a few years to reach widespread adoption. Before mobile games started to really take off in the 2010s, the new phenomenon of social gaming on platforms like Facebook became increasingly popular. Indeed many of the later mobile gaming market leaders such as King and Zynga had strong social gaming businesses on Facebook in the late 2000s and early 2010s before focusing increasingly on making mobile games. Social game developers were keen to bake virality into their Facebook games – with features such as being able to ask friends for extra lives if you had run out. Social games could also use in app purchases (IAP) as well as advertising in order to drive monetization. In app purchases could be extra lives, powerups, extra levels, or cosmetic upgrades for example. Game developers had huge amounts of data that they could analyze in order to optimize their games and marketing activities.
Traditionally, PC and console games developers had focused on brand advertising with retailers selling their products to consumers. I once interviewed the Marketing Director of a well known console game developer and asked him how he marketed their hit first person shooter and he jokingly said, “In a TV advert with a lot of explosions and a pumping rock sound track“. This new world of social gaming (and later mobile gaming) was very different – social game developers sold in app purchases directly to the consumer. Social companies used data and sophisticated analytics to optimize their products (games) and marketing activities. They were inherently data driven and oriented around performance marketing rather than brand marketing.
Performance marketing is a focus on advertising activities that deliver a measurable return on investment – which generally means investing in online advertising where its effect on sales can be clearly measured. Social gaming companies would advertise their games heavily on Facebook and other websites and become more and more sophisticated at retention marketing as they sought to keep and enlarge their player base. In this sense, social games companies were closer to internet and e-commerce businesses than traditional games companies – they were direct-to-consumer, online businesses that used data in a sophisticated way to enhance their products and optimize their marketing. As social games companies grew, they often hired talent from internet companies as although their products were different, often their commercial challenges and data-driven approach was similar.
Free-to-play games (f2p) that monetized through a combination of advertising and in app purchases were becoming increasingly popular on social media platforms. With no upfront cost like traditional (“premium”) computer games, millions of consumers could try new online games with no financial commitments.
Farmville was a smash hit social game for Zynga, launching on Facebook in 2009 and attracting over 80 million monthly active users (MAU) at its peak in 2010. Other popular Zynga Facebook games included Mafia Wars and Zynga Poker.
In 2008 the iOS and Android app stores were launched and the premium game Angry Birds by Rovio (2009) was an early hit, being downloaded over 1 billion times by 2012.
As previously noted, mobile games took some time to gain mainstream traction following the launch of the app stores in 2008.
ResearchGate data shows strong growth in mobile games users in 2011 (70%), 2012 (73.7%) and a staggering 248.4% in 2013.
Match-three puzzle game Candy Crush Saga was launched by King in April 2012, and has remained one the of the most enduring hit mobile games of all time. As of 2024, Candy Crush Saga has generated over $20bn in revenues and been downloaded over 2.5bn times. Endless runner games like Temple Run and Subway Surfers were enduring hits with the latter being downloaded over 4bn times during its lifetime.
From 2015-2020, the mobile games industry was still growing but at a slower rate of around 10-15% year on year growth as the market matured and became more saturated with games. Early industry pioneers such as King had grown to become multi-billion dollar revenue companies and had huge advertising budgets to spend on acquiring new users. It was becoming increasingly difficult for smaller studios to compete without major funding as the market became increasingly competitive.
The major console game developers such as EA and Ubisoft generally struggled to adapt to the new, direct-to-consumer, data-driven world of mobile free-to-play games and generally had more success with acquisitions than building mobile games in-house. EA – with their acquisitions of PopCap Games, Playfish, Glu Mobile and Playdemic, and Take Two Interactive with their acquisitions of Social Point, Nordeus and Zynga, have both spent heavily on acquisitions in order to gain market share. King itself would be acquired by Activision Blizzard, who themselves were acquired by Microsoft in 2023.
The Covid Pandemic of 2020-2022 was generally a boon for mobile games companies as consumers spent more time indoors and sought new ways to entertain themselves. Data from SensorTower shows in app purchase revenues reaching a high in 2021 before declining in 2022.
In April 2021, Apple announced changes to its privacy policies that would have important consequences for the mobile games industry. Apple devices had an Identifier for Advertisers number (IDFA) that helped mobile advertisers to track consumers and more accurately measure the return on their advertising investments. Now consumers would be able to opt-out of this tracking – essentially blanking out their IDFA number and making them much less difficult to track. This made digital advertising less efficient and therefore more expensive for mobile games companies.
Following the strong market growth during the early phases of the Covid pandemic, the market was saturated and companies were struggling to make their unit economics work with a higher cost of advertising. Many mobile game developers had to make layoffs and cut costs as the market slowed down during 2022, 2023 and 2024.
Whilst the last couple of years have been challenging for many mobile games companies, the industry is predicted to grow by 6.39% between 2024 and 2027, reaching a total value of $118.9bn by 2027, according to Statista. The industry has grown massively over the last 15 years to become one of the leading consumer entertainment categories, and is a tremendously dynamic sector where new companies can grow very quickly. Dream Games, founded in Istanbul in 2019, has emerged as one of the global market leaders with its hit game Royal Match, with experienced founders from King and Peak Games (acquired by Zynga). Saudi Arabia is investing heavily in mobile games through its own game studios such as Sandsoft and its acquisition of Scopely, one of the global market leaders, through its PIF fund. Scopely has seen tremendous success with the hit game Monopoly Go! whilst games like Genshin Impact have shown how modern mobile games can have impressive graphics and depth.
Mobile gaming is also a sector in which Europe has a huge influence with the likes of King, Supercell and Dream Games being some of the global market leaders and many countries in Europe having multiple medium sized mobile games companies. Mobile games have democratized the games industry and created many new gamers who might not have otherwise found the sector appealing. In 25 years the industry has evolved from basic games like Snake to polished and sophisticated games which can generate hundreds of millions or billions of dollars each year. It will be fascinating to see how the industry will evolve in the future.
Peter Franks – Founder, Neon River
Peter has spent the last fifteen years specializing in recruiting leaders into mobile games companies. He has worked with some of the largest mobile games companies as clients – such as King (11 placements) and Miniclip (10 placements) as well as many earlier stage clients.
He holds a degree in Philosophy, Politics and Economics (PPE) from Oxford University.
Neon River is a headhunting firm that specializes in working with mobile games clients around the world.
To get in touch please email us hello@neonriver.com
