The Average Size of the U.S. App Store’s Top Games Has Grown 76% in Five Years

The average file size of top-performing mobile games on the U.S. App Store has increased by 76 percent over the five-year period between 2016 and 2020. This trend reflects a broader industry shift toward more complex, high-fidelity gaming experiences on mobile devices. The analysis, which tracks the initial download size of the top 100 revenue-generating games annually, indicates that publishers are increasingly leveraging expanded hardware storage capacities to deliver more content and sophisticated, console-quality titles.

Data shows that the average game file size grew from approximately 264 megabytes in 2016 to nearly 465 megabytes by the end of 2020. This growth was particularly pronounced in 2020, which saw a 30.3 percent year-over-year increase. The median file size experienced even more significant growth, rising by 102.6 percent over the same five-year window to reach nearly 299 megabytes. While some titles remain relatively compact, others have expanded significantly; for instance, CSR Racing 2 reached a storage footprint of 3.8 gigabytes by the end of 2020, representing a 123.3 percent increase since 2016.

The rise in file sizes is driven by a combination of improved mobile hardware performance, larger device storage capacities, and evolving consumer expectations for live-service content. By utilizing this additional space, developers can maintain higher player engagement through frequent content updates and the delivery of "triple-A" experiences. This trend suggests that as mobile hardware continues to advance, the threshold for what constitutes a standard mobile game size will likely continue to climb, allowing for increasingly immersive and data-intensive applications.