Who Will Replace the Declining Giants?: Mobile RPG Genre Report

The mobile RPG sector is currently navigating a period of significant structural transition, characterized by a 9.3% year-over-year revenue decline in 2022 despite a modest increase in total downloads. This divergence stems from the lingering impact of Apple’s App Tracking Transparency framework, which has inflated user acquisition costs and hindered the ability of new titles to achieve long-term sustainability. While the market remains a high-value segment, the industry is struggling with an aging roster of dominant titles and a lack of innovation that has left many subgenres, particularly Team Battle and Puzzle RPGs, in a state of contraction.

Market dynamics are heavily fragmented, with success increasingly concentrated among a few major publishers capable of sustaining high-budget, complex titles. While established giants like Genshin Impact have set a new global benchmark for quality and retention, most new entrants fail to replicate this success, leading to a reliance on aggressive live-ops and monetization mechanics to offset shrinking player bases. The Team Battle subgenre, in particular, has suffered from the normalization of marketing spend following the unsustainable growth seen in 2021, creating a high barrier to entry that favors entrenched intellectual property over new, unproven concepts.

Conversely, the Idle RPG subgenre emerged as a notable outlier in 2022, achieving substantial growth in both downloads and revenue through aggressive acquisition strategies and the integration of novel, accessible gameplay loops. Looking ahead, the industry is shifting toward a hybrid-casual model that blends simplified mechanics with deeper monetization features to capture broader audiences. Future growth will likely depend on the ability of developers to move beyond derivative formulas and successfully penetrate high-value, localized markets like Japan, where established titles continue to command significant market share despite broader sector volatility.