Data digest: Squid Game, Infinity Nikki, Pokémon and Scopely numbers, Paxie’s $67m sale, CEOs predict ’25, more

Our data digest column breaks down the latest data, research and financial results into digestible chunks.

Read on for the numbers you need to know about minus the fluff.

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Squid Game Unleashed surpasses 6m downloads in two weeks

Netflix’s first-ever free mobile game, Squid Game Unleashed, hit 6.3m downloads last month following its release on December 17, according to Sensor Tower data cited by Pulse.

The multiplayer battle royale game is available to all iOS and Android players, rather than just Netflix subscribers, “for a limited time”. It charted at 52 on December’s downloads chart, based on Appmagic data. According to an earlier Appfigures report, 54% of the game’s first 3m downloads were via the App Store.

Scopely hits $10bn in lifetime revenue and 1bn downloads

Scopely has announced several major milestones, including surpassing $10bn in lifetime revenue.

In a blog post (via VentureBeat), co-CEOs Walter Driver and Javier Ferreira said the Monopoly Go maker surpassed 1bn downloads and 15bn hours of playtime last year too. Scopely also said back in October that it was lining up a “megadeal” acquisition for 2025.

Infinity Nikki tops $14m in its launch month

The mobile version of Infinity Nikki grossed over $14m in its launch month, according to Appmagic data published by Gaming on Phone. China was the game’s largest market, accounting for 64% of revenue, followed by the US (14%), Japan (4%), Taiwan (3%) and Hong Kong (2%).

Paper Games‘ open-world dress-up adventure title has reached 5.4m downloads on mobile, which was enough to chart at 60 on last month’s downloads chart. Released on December 5 for mobile, PC and PS5, the game topped 10m downloads across all platforms in its first four days of availability.

Scopely expands into China with $34.5m studio buy

Scopely is establishing a presence in China with the acquisition of Perfect World’s Chengfeng Studio for $34.5m, PocketGamer.biz reports.

The deal will see most of the Chinese studio’s employees leave and form a new company in which the US-based Monopoly Go maker will hold a minority stake. It also includes a number of assets for a project Chengfeng Studio was working on titled ‘Codename PIE’.

Gamovation hits 100m installs 

Netherlands-based developer Gamovation says it has hit 100m installs across its portfolio of puzzle and board games.

The announcement follows “a record year” for the Tile Club and Mahjong Club maker, which was founded in 2010 and initially focused on web games before shifting its focus exclusively to mobile.

DoubleU buys Paxie Games for up to $67m

Social casino games developer DoubleU has agreed to acquire Merge Studio: Fashion Makeover developer Paxie Games in a deal that could be worth up to $67m.

As first spotted by PocketGamer.biz, the South Korean firm will acquire a 60% stake in the Turkey-based studio for $27m, but the final buyout price could rise by a further $40m, with the remainder of the company set to be acquired over a three-year period subject to certain targets being hit.

Founded in 2021, Paxie’s other titles include Tile Star and Mahjong Infinity. Its flagship game, Merge Studio: Fashion Makeover, has been downloaded over 25m times, according to Sensor Tower.

Pokémon TCG Pocket passes $280m

This was only released on October 30 but still managed to make a dent on Appmagic’s 2024 full-year top downloads and top grossing charts, as we reported earlier this week.

So we thought it was worth another check-in, again using Appmagic’s data. After just over two months on the market, Pokémon TCG Pocket has now earned The Pokémon Company over $280m from just under 49m downloads.

The spend is still heavily weighted towards players in Japan, who represent 43% of the income, but US players are now spending more of the total $280m earned so far with 26% – a far larger figure than when we last checked in. Other markets are way down in the low single digits in terms of spend share.

Most gaming bosses not expecting market growth in 2025, survey finds

Most top industry execs aren’t anticipating growth in the games market this year. That’s according to a survey of “close to 50 CEOs of prominent gaming companies” across mobile, PC and console conducted by investment firm Aream & Co.

Its inaugural Gaming CEO Survey found that 50% of participants expect the mobile IAP segment to be flat year-over-year, 10% expect it to decline, and the remainder forecast growth. For mobile in-app ads, 48% expect the segment to be stable this year, 21% predict a year-over-year decline, and 31% expect growth.

Elsewhere, a third of respondents said their biggest concern for the industry heading into 2025 is content saturation/oversupply. This is perhaps unsurprising given that 54% of participants said they’re planning to start development of more games in 2025 than they did in 2024. 35% are planning a similar amount of new titles to 2024, and 12% are planning fewer/no new games this year.