In 2024, the top 10 most downloaded mobile games got around 1.7 billion installs combined.
Titles like Block Blast!, Pizza Ready! and Roblox might not share genres, audiences, or even art styles, but they do have something in common: they figured out how to grow and how to make that growth profitable.
In this article, we break down 7 recurring themes across the year’s top performers, from hybrid monetization and user-generated content to the power of community and localization.
What Are the Most Downloaded Games of 2024?
According to AppMagic, here are the top 10 games of 2024, ranked by downloads.
- Block Blast! (222 million), puzzle
- Roblox (215 million), sandbox
- Subway Surfers (181 million), endless runner
- Pizza Ready! (171 million), simulation
- Ludo King (159 million), casual
- Free Fire (156 million), battle royale
- Offline Games – No Wifi Games (145 million), casual
- 8 Ball Pool (134 million), sports
- My Talking Tom 2 (121 million), virtual pet
- Free Fire MAX (116 million), battle royale
As you can see, they’re all different genres, but if we analyze their UA and monetization strategies, we see that they have something in common.
1. Paid UA Dominated, But Not for Everyone
With new games being released every day, attracting new users is not easy.
That’s why even top performers invest a lot in paid user acquisition. Titles like Block Blast!, Pizza Ready!, and Free Fire leaned into large-scale paid UA campaigns.
They adopt a multi-channel approach, sometimes even experimenting with innovative channels, such as CTV ads.
However, there are also a few outsiders who didn’t need to invest huge budgets into paid UA.
Offline Games and Ludo King achieved their reach almost entirely through organic growth, smart ASO, or pure virality.
In the case of Offline Games – No WiFi Games, the name perfectly matches what people are looking for on app stores: games that work offline. This alone brought in millions of daily installs, without a single paid ad.
Lesson 1: You don’t need a massive UA budget to scale, but you do need a clear strategy. If you can’t outspend the competition, you’ll need to out-optimize or out-serve a specific user intent (like “games that work offline”).
2. Community & UGC Power Growth
Many of these games not only invested in paid user acquisition but also leveraged the community of players that created around the game.
A perfect example of this is Roblox, which has become a global phenomenon mostly without traditional paid UA.
The platform has 3 million developers and 5.5 million user-created games. This inherently encourages people to invite friends and share their games on the platform, creating a network effect.
This is a common approach that almost every top performer tries to replicate in their own way.
For example, Subway Surfers makes use of UGC content on their TikTok account, which has more than 10 million followers.
My Talking Tom, too, has a strong presence on YouTube (32 million followers!) and kids’ entertainment channels, where they produce Talking Tom shorts and cartoons.
This indirectly funnels brand awareness into app downloads.
Lesson 2: Your community is your best marketer and UGC is the content that never stops working. Give players tools and reasons to share your game, and they’ll do the heavy lifting for you.
3. Hybrid Monetization is Now the Norm
If we look closely at the monetization strategies of these top 10 games, we notice that almost everyone uses a hybrid monetization strategy, which combines in-app purchases (IAP) with advertising.
While there are some exceptions, like Block Blast monetizing entirely through advertising, or Free Fire only through IAPs, using multiple revenue streams is now the norm.
This approach unlocks value from both spenders and non-spenders.
Paying users can enjoy faster progression or cosmetic upgrades through purchases, while free users generate consistent revenue from ads.
Lesson 3: Offering both IAP and ad-based monetization is becoming standard. Build for both types of users, and you’ll increase your ARPU without sacrificing player experience.
4. Content Freshness = Retention & Revenue
The fastest way to lose a user?
Let them get bored.
Games like Subway Surfers, Free Fire, and Roblox keep things fresh with frequent updates, seasonal content, and partnerships that tap into pop culture.
For example:
- Every three weeks, Subway Surfers runs a “World Tour” update.
- Free Fire frequently drops limited-edition collaborations with icons, like the K-pop group BTS or footballer Cristiano Ronaldo.
- Offline Games often releases new mini-games to keep the offer fresh and new.
Lesson 4: Ongoing content is a great way to boost engagement. Fresh content keeps current users playing and gives them a reason to come back.
5. Audience Accessibility Matters
Sometimes, growth isn’t about the game, but it’s more about who can play it.
Titles like Free Fire, Ludo King, and Offline Games nailed this by making their games accessible to users with older devices, limited data plans, or language barriers.
For example, around 70% of Ludo King’s players are Indian.
So the studio that developed the game, Gametion, localized it into Indian languages, such as Hindi, Gujarati, and Tamil. This made the game accessible to non-English speakers and older adults, who also became gamers.
Lesson 5: Don’t overlook practical barriers. If your game runs smoothly on most devices or solves a niche need (like working offline), you’ll unlock a new, and often underserved, user base.
6. Player-First Monetization
None of the top 10 games relies on pay-to-win mechanics.
Instead, they monetize through cosmetics, convenience, or light progression perks.
Whether it’s skins in Free Fire, extra coins in 8 Ball Pool, or decorative items in Talking Tom, purchases enhance the experience. They don’t break it.
This is the best way to approach monetization, especially if your player base is mainly non-paying users.
Lesson 6: Long-term monetization depends on trust. Build systems that reward spending without punishing those who don’t, and players will stick around (and spend more) over time.
7. Rewarded Ads for Higher Engagement
Interstitials are still very much part of the mobile monetization playbook, and for some of these top games, they’re a big revenue driver.
But these games also balance passive ad formats with rewarded ones that players actively choose to engage with.
Titles like Block Blast! or Pizza Ready!, which rely almost entirely on ads, integrate rewarded video ads at key moments, like revives, boosts, or extra currency.
Lesson 7: Rewarded ads have many benefits, including higher engagement and retention rates and ROAS. Use them as a bridge between monetization and retention.
Final Takeaways
At the end of the day, there’s no single playbook for reaching the top of the charts. But looking at top-performing games can help us gather some useful insights.
As you can see, the most successful titles rely on both great gameplay and a well-thought-out UA and monetization strategy. Moreover, they can also leverage the power of community, be it through UGC content, smart partnerships, or solving a problem for their audience.
If you’re developing or marketing a mobile game in 2025, these patterns can work as benchmarks.
Focus on understanding your audience, testing continuously, and designing systems that turn growth into long-term retention.
