Top 10 Most Downloaded Games in 2021

How about the Mobile Game Market in 2021?

During the 2020 epidemic, the mobile game market continued to expand. In a period when people can only work at home and rest, mobile games have become the best choice for people's entertainment. And this brings up some most downloaded games in different categories.

According to the global market report for the first half of 2021 released by Sensor Tower, the scale of global mobile application revenue (including games) hit a new high, which is expected to reach 64.9 billion U.S. dollars, an increase of 24.8% from the 52 billion U.S. dollars in the same period in 2020.

Let's have a glance at the most downloaded games in 2021 on both App Store and Google Play!

• Top 10 Most Downloaded Games in 2021
• The ASO Strategy of Shoo-ins
  • Among Us
  • Roblox
  • Subway Surfers
• The Bottom Line
• Most Downloaded Games in 2021 by Categories
  • Top 10 Action Games on App Store
  • Top 10 Action Games on Google Play
  • Top 10 Adventure Games on App Store
  • Top 10 Adventure Games on Google Play
  • Top 10 Board Games on App Store
  • Top 10 Board Games on Google Play
  • Top 10 Casino Games on App Store
  • Top 10 Casino Games on Google Play
  • Top 10 Role-Playing Games on App Store
  • Top 10 Role-Playing Games on Google Play
  • Top 10 Casual Games on App Store
  • Top 10 Casual Games on Google Play

The full top 10 most downloaded games worldwide in 2021 on App Store and Google Play are above. App downloads are estimated by ASOTools’s Top Revenue Intelligence.

Looking into the categories, adventure, puzzle, music, casual, arcade, and simulation are the popular categories by downloads. From the ranks we can see App Store players have a preference for simulation, action, and puzzle games, while Google Players like action, arcade, casual, and music games better. 

Among Us was the most downloaded gaming app worldwide for 2021 with more than 300 million installs, followed by Garena Free Fire – Illuminate, a survival shooting game, with more than 200 million installs.

Roblox, Subway Surfers, and Join Cash 3D rounded out the rest of the top five ranking of gaming apps worldwide by downloads in 2021.

Though not hit on the top 10, a dark horse of 2011 has reached an eye-catching milestone-like goal in downloads. Bridge Race, the dark horse, is a casual game released by Supersonic Studios LTD in February 2021. Global downloads of Bridge Race have exceeded 20M on App Store and 95M on Google Play in less than 10 months, stoning its name on the top 20 most downloaded lists of 2021.

Well, the moment when we compare its performance on App Store to on Google Play, we see two extremes in rating and MAU. On App Store, this game is rated 4.4 while getting only 2.8 Google Play, in the meanwhile, on App Store the MAU of Bridge Race outnumbers of on Google Play, with an advantage of nearly 200K in numbers, despite that the Android version has been downloaded more than double than the iOS one. Perhaps Supersonic Studios needs to pay attention to maintaining the reputation while converting leads into paid players.

The ASO Strategy of Shoo-ins

You may have noticed that Among Us, Roblox, and Subway Surfers get their places in the both ranks of App Store and Google Play. As the most downloaded games in 2021 (globally), what are their strategy for ASO? Find out with ASOTools.

▻ Among Us

On the whole, Among Us has covered over 3000 keywords, among which 16 have a search volume of more than 5999, 1.1K more than 4605. Sorting those keywords under which Among Us performs well, ASOTools find Among Us has a preference on descriptive phrases, they choose a lot with "fun", "cool", "best", "good", "funny", "free", "awesome", "rated", "multiplayer" in them, and ranks #1 under the majority, telling the well-received quality of this game and a huge amount of high rated reviews. Who Among Us targets are those with a willingness to play but no idea where to start.

As the King of 2021 action mobile games, Among Us is showing an advantage in downloads that more than doubles the second - Roblox. ASOTools estimates the downloads of Among Us as over 84M in the last year, while its follow-by was estimated to be downloaded over 43M times. Reelected as the most downloaded game since 2020, the success of Among Us is seen to continue.

Despite the fact, it's still not a wise act to copy what Among Us does unless you are conceited enough about your game's content that it satisfies anyone, and have adequate money to pay for campaigns.

▻ Roblox

Roblox is similar to Among Us in the number of keywords. 17 have a search volume of more than 5999, 1.2K more than 4605.

Unlike Among Us, Roblox places itself as the traffic magnet. Well-performing keywords such as "roblox free game", "roblox for free", "roblox jailbreak", "roblox tycoon" either include "roblox" or are the name of a derivative (a game inside the game).

Rising with the heat of "Metaverse", Roblox is spreading through the world with its creative and productive gameplay. Nowadays, it's hard to make a "Roblox the second".

▻ Subway Surfers

【Basic knowledge】 Subway Surfers has two following differences when compared to the former two:

1) non-ported. Both Among Us and Roblox are ported from Steam, where they've established themselves a substantial user pool.

2) offline game. The other two are multiplayer-support and encourage users to build connections, while Subway Surfers allows individuals to play in an alone and self-dependent way.

When it comes to ASO strategy, it appears that "kids" and "run" are the core words to Subway Surfers, such as "games for kids", "game for kids", "run games", "running games", etc. With wide coverage of 10K+ keywords, this game has an ambition of standing out among all running games as a stand-alone parent helper.

The Bottom Line

Experienced app researchers should be aware that some games settle on the tops for several seasons, naming Roblox, 8 Ball Pool™, and UNO!™, while some rank #1 on both Android and iOS devices.

To be one of the most downloaded games in a certain category, high-quality content and effective advertisements are indispensable. But this does not mean ASO can be ignored. An excellent game company will inevitably improve ASO to the extreme and make itself a traffic vane.s

Most Downloaded Games in 2021 by Categories