State of Game Monetization 2022

Sensor Tower's State of Mobile Game Monetization 2022 report examines how the world's top mobile titles generate revenue, using the firm's new monetization descriptors within its Game Intelligence and Game Taxonomy tools. Published in March 2022 and focused on 2021 performance, it covers global top-grossing games, with additional attention to the U.S. market, and spans Casual and Mid-Core classes across the App Store and Google Play.

The central finding is that half of 2021's top-grossing mobile games worldwide incorporated a Season Pass, a mechanic popularized by Fortnite and later adopted by major Mid-Core hits such as PUBG Mobile, Honor of Kings, and Genshin Impact. The feature is also migrating into Casual games, with Candy Crush Saga, Homescapes, and Gardenscapes adding it. Ad Removal emerged as the most widely used mechanic overall, driven by Casual titles, which account for 90 percent of games offering it because of their heavier reliance on advertising.

Gacha remains highly lucrative in Asia but is increasingly successful in Western markets. Half of the top-grossing U.S. titles featuring Gacha are built on existing intellectual property, including Star Trek Fleet Command, Marvel Strike Force, and Star Wars: Galaxy of Heroes. This suggests that well-known IPs with deep character rosters provide a strong base for Gacha monetization, alongside non-IP successes like RAID: Shadow Legends and Genshin Impact.

NFT and Crypto mechanics remain a small but growing segment, spread across both Mid-Core and Casual classes, which signals early experimentation to find the most monetizable audience. Five of the top 10 most downloaded blockchain games launched in 2021, led by Thetan Arena with more than 8 million downloads. Few of these titles combine multiple monetization methods, with MIR4 and Crazy Defense Heroes the notable exceptions. The full report offers further case studies and descriptor analysis.