DEVELOP 100 2021 – created by MCV/DEVELOP in association with Virtuos

2021

IN ASSOCIATION WITH

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In association with

100 Welcome back Develop 100 There has never been a more exciting time to be a game developer. 2020 has presented its fair share of challenges, and still, our industry reacted, adapted to deliver its most successful year.

Publicly listed publishers delivered an average 30 per cent growth in the second calendar quarter, while Newzoo upgraded its annual forecasted growth to nearly 20 per cent year-on-year.

In a world where almost everyone is either a current or potential gamer, our cultural relevance has never been greater.

Game engines are branching out of games and enhancing more aspects of our lives, for example by replacing traditional dashboards with interactive displays. And when cultural scenes became out of reach due to the pandemic, virtual music concerts and digital art exhibitions started to fill the void.

Working in such a fast-paced industry means we rarely take time to look back and celebrate our big successes. With the gaming landscape changing by the year, which new studios have broken out and become huge household names, and which have created generation-defining blockbuster games? For 2020, it wasn’t always those you might expect.

It’s important to celebrate the studios that contribute to making the games industry better and the powerhouse that it is today. That’s why we’re so passionate about supporting MCV/ Develop’s Develop 100, and why we were so excited to be a part of bringing the list back for 2021.

For everyone included in the list, I want to extend our warmest congratulations. You are a huge reason why the global games industry is going from strength to strength. And all that while creating games that bring a smile to the face of millions around the world. Thank you for making this industry what it is today and being a source of inspiration to thousands of game developers worldwide.

Gilles Langourieux, CEO, Virtuos

HOW IT WORKS We set out to find the most successful games studios from around the globe. We sourced data from our leading providers, representing the very biggest markets, for console, PC and mobile games, from Nov 2019 to Oct 2020.

We combined that data with reports from publicly listed companies, official announcements and public market data.

While no such dataset will be perfect and complete in this often-secretive industry that we work in, we believe the combination of all these sources is unrivalled in creating this list of the 100 most successful studios on the planet.

株式会社角川アスキー総合研究所／ロゴ

7708 C PROVIDERS WITH THANKS TOPanton OUR DATA C94 M51 Y31 K30 R0 G85 B112 FAMITSU Famitsu is a Japanese video game magazine started in 1986.

Panton 151 C We started to run a database with Famitsu resources in C0 M100 Y60 K0 1997. Now our team belongs to KADOKAWA ASCII Research R245 G130 B32 Laboratories Inc. Recently, we have published various white papers and reports. And we have partnered with MCV over 15 years. For more details on Japanese market data visit www.f-ism.net or contact f-ism@ml.gzbrain.jp.

GSD GSD is a unique opportunity to access and analyse full game download digital sales data on PC, PSN and XBL. The project is based on the ‘share data to get data’ principle and is supported by National Trade Associations from across Europe. To get involved, please contact your trade association or email sales@b2boost.com.

NPD With NPD, you get more complete, accurate information about your products’ market share and mindshare, plus industry insights, to help you track trends, and identify business opportunities. We also offer custom research solutions, comprehensive video game metadata, and game evaluations to help you answer critical research questions and gain datadriven feedback throughout the development cycle. For more information on NPD Games, please contact Brent Martyn at brent.martyn@npd.com.

SENSOR TOWER Sensor Tower’s platform leverages billions of data points to offer unparalleled real-time analysis for millions of apps and thousands of publishers in all major countries and categories. Trusted by global mobile game developers, top research institutions, major news publications, and leading financial firms, Sensor Tower serves more than 500k mobile apps worldwide. Contact sales@ sensortower.com for a demo, or head to www.sensortower.com.

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100 111 Dots Studio – Garena Games Online

Akatsuki

Location: Vietnam and Singapore

Location: Tokyo, Japan

Key titles: Garena Free Fire

Key titles: Dragon Ball Z: Dokkan Battle

The Vietnamese studio 111 Dots developed Garena Free Fire for Singapore-based Garena Games. And the title has proved incredibly popular, even in the increasingly crowded battle royale genre. It was the most downloaded mobile game in 2019 and in May 2020 set a record with over 80m daily active users globally.

The third-person shooter puts its success down to performance, as it runs smoothly on low specification handsets. Garena also works with Activision and Tencent to distribute Call of Duty: Mobile in south east asia.

Alibaba – Ejoy

The Tokyo-based studio Akatsuki has seen enormous success with its Dragonball Z mobile game, Dragon Ball Z: Dokkan Battle.

According to Forbes, the game is responsible for about three quarters of the company’s annual revenues of $254m. The free to play title has exceeded 350 million downloads since its release in 2015, grossing an excess of $2bn in worldwide revenue.

The studio itself, meanwhile, was founded in 2010 and was listed on the New York Stock exchange back in 2016, off the back of the success of Dokkan Battle.

Aniplex & Walt Disney

Location: Hangzhou, China

Location: Tokyo, Japan

Key titles: Romance of the Three Kingdoms: Strategy Edition

Key titles Disney: Twisted-Wonderland

Alibaba is primarily known as a technology company specialising in e-commerce, but it has made significant investments in its entertainment division in recent years.

In 2018, the company invested ¥1 bn ($145m) to create a global distribution ecosystem for mobile games. Although, it’s best performing title is only available in China to date.

Romance of the Three Kingdoms: Strategy Edition, developed by Alibaba’s subsidiary Ejoy, is among the most profitable games worldwide, with a lifetime revenue of $500m since its launch in September 2019.

Japanese company Aniplex is largely focused on anime and music production, but it makes the Develop 100 list off the back of Japanese mobile title, Disney: TwistedWonderland. Developed in collaboration with Walt Disney Japan, the game is only available in Japan, and released in March 2020. Despite this, the game has already seen explosive success, attracting 1.5m pre-registered users before the game had even launched.

Aniplex also acts as a publisher, and is responsible for publishing Fate/Grand Order, with its developer Delightworks also appearing on this year’s list.

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100 Archosaur Games

Bandai Namco – Dimps

Location: Beijing, China

Location: Osaka, Japan

Key titles: Dragon Raja

Key titles: Dragon Ball Legends

Archosaur Games, formerly Zulong Entertainment, is located in Beijing, and is responsible for a number of mobile games, such as World of Kings and Novoland: The Castle in the Sky. Most recently the developer is behind the game Dragon Raja, a mobile MMORPG which launched globally on February 27th 2020. The game proved immediately successful, attracting 1.5 million pre-registered players prior to launch.

The developer/ publisher recently raised HKD$2.17bn (£222m) in its IPO on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange

Dimps Corporation is a Japanese developer, based in Osaka. Founded on March 6, 2000 by several former SNK and Capcom employees, the studio is known for developing games in the Dragon Ball and Street Fighter franchises – and most notably for our purposes, Dimps, in collaboration with Bandai Namco, developed the iOS and Android title, Dragon Ball Legends, which has proven to be a global smash hit.

Launched in May 2018, the game has already grossed over $140m worldwide – with the majority of that success, $100m, coming from the United States and Japan.

Blizzard Entertainment Location: California, United States Key titles: World of Warcraft, Overwatch

Blizzard Entertainment, a subsidiary of Activision Blizzard, is responsible for some of the biggest franchises in gaming history and, in better times, is behind the annual gaming convention Blizzcon, which celebrates franchises such as Warcraft, Starcraft, Diablo and Overwatch.

Almost unquestionably the studio’s most famous game – and one of the most famous games in gaming generally – is the 2004 MMORPG, World of Warcraft.

That title has thrived in its 16-year lifetime, becoming synonymous with the genre, and seeing off countless competitors seeking to take its spot as the indisputed king of the MMORPG. By 2017, the game had generated over $9.23 billion in lifetime revenue, making it one of the most lucrative game franchises of all time.

Since then the game has seen multiple content packs to maintain its devoted playbase, as well as the 2019 release of World of Warcraft Classic, which recreates the game in its original state, as it existed when it launched all the way back in 2004.

Stepping away from World of Warcraft, Blizzard Entertainment has seen success with a much newer IP: 2016’s hero shooter Overwatch. The game generated $1 billion in its first year of release, and has seen over 50 million players in its lifetime. A sequel, Overwatch 2, was announced in 2019 and is expected in 2021.

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100 Bungie

Camel Games

Location: Washington, United States

Location: Beijing, China

Key titles: Destiny 2

Key titles: Age of Z Origins

Bungie slides comfortably into the Develop 100 list on the back of its live service title, Destiny 2. Originally released in 2017, the game has seen multiple updates and significant expansions over the years.

Most recent is the November 2020 release of Beyond Light, which made significant changes to the game and its previous expansions.

The Destiny franchise (including the original game) is listed as one of the highest-grossing game franchises of all time. SuperData estimates that Bungie saw $300m in digital revenue in 2019.

Founded in 2009, Camel Games is a Beijing based mobile developer that has found success with a range of titles for the more devoted mobile gamer, such as Little Empire, Storm Age, War and Order and Titan Throne.

Its big hit of late, though, has been Age of Z Origins, a postapocalyptic base building title with great reviews that has been pulling in serious money across numerous regions on official app stores.

Capcom Location: Osaka, Japan Key titles: Resident Evil 2, Monster Hunter: World

Japanese developer and publisher Capcom has had an incredibly successful few years lately, thanks in no small part to it dipping back into its back catalogue and remaking their older titles, with the re-releases and remakes of the Resident Evil franchise routinely topping the sales charts.

The series continues to generate revenue for the company, and 2019’s Resident Evil 2 remake proved particularly popular.

The game released to rave reviews and picked up multiple awards, including picking up the Ultimate Game of the Year award at the 2019 Golden Joysticks.

More importantly than all of that, however, Resident Evil 2 also sold incredibly well. By September 2020, the game had sold over 7 million copies, outselling the original Resident Evil 2 – a game that has been on sale since 1998.

In 2020, Capcom released another remake, this time for Resident Evil 3. While this couldn’t top its predecessor, it sold 2m copies in its first week.

Looking forward, Resident Evil Village (8), was announced back in June 2020, and is expected to hit PC and next-gen hardware sometime in 2021.

Stepping away from Resident Evil, the company has seen huge success with Monster Hunter: World. Released in 2018, it’s gone on to become the best-selling game in Capcom’s history, with over 16.4 million copies sold, as of September 2020. With plenty of DLC to help further boost revenues.

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100 Capital Games

COLOPL – Square Enix

Location: Sacramento, USA

Location: Tokyo, Japan

Key titles: Star Wars: Galaxy of Heroes

Key titles: Dragon Quest Walk

Since 2015 Star Wars: Galaxy of Heroes has been providing many fans with their mobile fix of their favourite galaxy, a long time ago and far, far away. Character collecting and turn-based battles are the order of the day here. With the whole thing overseen by the team at EA’s Capital Games in Sacramento.

Whether its a natural lifespan or the result of a break in the movie release schedule, the game has seen revenues declining over the last year, but it’s still the standout mobile performer based on the IP. Meanwhile the team is working on a new untitled game.

It may be a long time before an AR title matches the global phenomenon that was Pokémon Go, but away from Niantic, it’s Dragon Quest Walk that has made the best effort to date.

The augmented reality RPG title has been earning big since its launch in Japan in June last year. And that’s without a global launch to date.

The title is just one of many from the Tokyobased developer, but it looks set to be the one that puts it on the map.

Creative Assembly Location: Horsham, United Kingdom Key titles: Total War series

Part of the Sega Europe family, Creative Assembly has been making incredible wargames for 33 years now. The Total War franchise has been a hit even longer than digital distribution, although for a long time now it’s been a Steam-enabled success story.

That changed somewhat this year, when the studio decided to switch it up by releasing its latest title, A Total War Saga: Troy, exclusively on Epic Games Store, with a 24-hour giveaway to really get things going.

It’s not all Total War for the future though, with Creative Assembly also

working on an unannounced FPS IP from its second team in Horsham, expect more on that in early 2021.

The company has also seen success with Total War titles using the tabletop Wahammer IP, Alien Isolation (an FPS stealth title) plus it made Halo Wars 2 for Microsoft.

As part of Sega Europe, the studio works alongside Sports Interactive, Relic Entertainment, Amplitude Studios and Two Point Studios. With SEGA leaning heavily into the strategy genre in Europe.

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100 Com2Us

Crystal Dynamics

Location: Seoul, South Korea

Location: Redwood City, California, USA

Key titles: Summoners War

Key titles: Tomb Raider, Marvel’s Avengers

South Korean developer Com2Us, part of the larger Gamevil group, launched Summoners War back in 2014.

The title is a huge success, grossing over a $1bn lifetime, and continues to pull in revenues today, being part of the top 100 mobile titles of the year, on official stores, according to Sensor Tower.

The fantasy RPG continues to lead the company’s broad offering today, which includes MLB and NBA sports titles, dating games and even a stick-figure beat ‘em up.

Even with 28 years under its belt, during which time Crystal Dynamics successfully adopted gaming’s biggest heroine in Lara Croft, it must still have been somewhat intimidated to be handed the reins to Earth’s Mightiest Heroes.

Marvel’s Avengers had sky-high expectations. The results were successful enough to place the studio in our top 100 list, but critically the consensus is that it’s still something of a workin-progress. Parent Square Enix’s deal with Marvel reportedly covers multiple titles, so there’s more to come. And in 2018 the studio opened a satellite in Bellevue, Washington, Crystal Northwest.

Cygames Location: Shibuya, Tokyo, Japan Key titles: Princess Connect! Re:Dive, Granblue Fantasy

Cygames has two standout titles, either of which would have secured it a place in this year’s cohort. Action RPG Princess Connect! Re:Dive has been phenomenally popular in Japan, and has just secured a worldwide release as we go to press – working with Crunchyroll Games.

It’s also seen enduring success with gacha RPG Granblue Fantasy, which shares creative talent, and a whole lot more, with the Final Fantasy series. The game has seen 25m in Japan alone by the end of 2019, spinning off console titles, anime series and manga in the process.

Cygames is based in Shibuya in Tokyo, situated alongside its CyberAgent parent. The company has numerous subsidiaries, including an anime studio to further its homegrown IPs. Upcoming titles include console action RPG Project Awakening, which appears to riff off the Monster Hunter series.

Elsewhere, Cygames is again sponsoring the back of the Juventus football team shirt, until 2022. And has launched its first Switch title in Shadowverse: Champion’s Battle.

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100 Delightworks Location: Tokyo, Japan Key titles: Fate/Grand Order

Japanese studio Delightworks is primarily known as the developer behind the mobile title Fate/Grand Order, published by Aniplex – who also appears in this list. The online free-to-play title is based on Type-Moon’s hugely popular Fate/stay night franchise.

The game was released in Japan in July 2015 for Android, with the iOS version coming in August. The English language version of the game, meanwhile, launched two years later in 2017.

The game is enormously popular in its home country of Japan, with some reports indicating it has seen a level of success comparable with Niantic’s Pokémon Go – another title that makes this year’s list.

In the first year of the game’s Japanese launch, from 2015 to 2016, Fate/Grand Order grossed over $646 million.

In 2017, the year of its Englishlanguage launch, the game was the year’s sixth highest-grossing mobile game, pulling in $982 million. To date, the game has surpassed $4 billion in revenue (as of the end of 2019), and has a global install base of 13.8 million. Fate/Grand Order accumulated $1.1 billion in 2019 alone, becoming the top-grossing mobile game in Japan.

It attracted media attention in 2018, when a player spent $70,000 in the game. Surprisingly, the report only served to highlight the game’s popularity, which continues as strong as ever, blending turn-based and gacha mechanics.

DIGIT Game Studios

DoubleU Games

Location: Dublin, Ireland

Location: Seoul, South Korea

Key titles: Star Trek Fleet Command

Key titles: Mobile DoubleDown - Casino Slots Game

Founded in 2012, DIGIT is the largest games studio in Ireland, based in Dublin.

The studio’s first game was the free to play, strategy MMO King of the Realm, which became a top grossing game in over 50 countries. DIGIT are perhaps better known as the creators of Star Trek Fleet Command.

As of July 2019, the game has surpassed $100m in lifetime revenue with a massively engaged playerbase – 85 per cent of players played Fleet Command 5 out of 7 days of the week, with over 4.7m days played in the game.

The South Korean company describes itself enigmatically as the ‘Enfant Terrible of the Global Games Market’. Its biggest title, and the reason for its inclusion here, is Mobile DoubleDown - Casino Slots Game. It’s a social casino title, with over 100 slot machines included.

Also on its slate are DoubleU Bingo and Hello Vegas Slots.

Established in 2012 it pivoted away from initial success creating Facebook games to make mobile titles.

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100 Digital Extremes Location: London, Ontario, Canada Key titles: Warframe

Warframe showed a then suspicious console industry how to do free-to-play the right way. After seven years and with more than 60m players, developer Digital Extremes, has built an enviable community of dedicated fans for its PvE and PvP space ninja action title.

By avoiding pay-to-win mechanics, reinventing and expanding the game at an impressive rate, engaging with its community (both digitally and in the real world with its own convention), plus porting onto new platforms, including Switch and (as we go to press) nextgen consoles, the team

has repeatedly gone above and beyond.

Based in Ontario, the company was founded in 1993.

Early key titles were in partnership with Epic, creating both Unreal and Unreal Tournament.

Today it’s a subsidiary of Chinese firm Leyou, which also owns Splash Damage in the UK. With over 300 staff Digital Extremes continues to focus on evolving the Warframe experience.

EA Gothenburg

EA Tiburon

Location: Gothenburg, Sweden

Location: Florida, United States

Key titles: Need for Speed Heat

Key titles: Madden NFL 21

EA Gothenburg, formerly Ghost Games, is known for its work on the Need for Speed franchise, which is one of gaming’s most successful franchises, selling over a combined 150m copies.

Their most recent title is the Xbox One, PS4 and PC title Need for Speed Heat, released in November 2019.

In February 2020, EA announced plans to return Ghost Games to being an engineering support studio for all of EA (and renaming the studio EA Gothenburg, its original name), while moving the Need for Speed license back to Criterion Games in Guildford, UK.

Formerly known as Tiburon Entertainment, EA Tiburon is a Florida-based studio known for its work on the Madden NFL franchise.

The now 32-year old franchise is one of the largest in the industry, with a combined lifetime sales of over 130m copies for the series.

EA Tiburon’s titles have proven successful enough that local city councils are eager to attract the company. During their recent headquarters move to Downtown Ontario, the city council offered $9m in economic incentives to bring EA to the city. Now that’s NFL.

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100 EA Vancouver Location: Burnaby, British Columbia, Canada Key titles: FIFA, NHL, EA Sports UFC

EA’s largest and longest-serving outpost is based in Barnaby, British Columbia, and has been the core developer for the astronomically successful FIFA series since the early nineties.

FIFA is one of the biggest grossing games in the world, with FIFA 20 reaching over 35m consumers on console and PC across the last cycle, plus earning well beyond that thanks to the incredibly popular FIFA Ultimate Team mode.

The developer is also responsible for the NHL series, again going back over 25 years, and more recently (since

2014) it’s taken on EA Sports UFC franchise too. Tot all of those up and you have an incredible revenuegenerating powerhouse.

The location boasts over 1,300 staff in total and supports development at other studios, providing a huge testing capability and motion capture facilities, as well as playing home for corporate teams. Numerous rooftop patios overlook the studio’s full-size football pitch, giving you an idea of both the quality of the offices and their dedication to the cause.

More broadly EA had a stellar 2020, with record-breaking results across multiple metrics.

Epic Games Location: Cary, North Carolina, USA Key titles: Fortnite

Epic Games, responsible for the hugely popular Unreal Engine, as well as the creator of the Gears of War and Unreal franchises, finds a comfortable spot in the Develop 100 list off the back of one game: Fortnite.

Fortnite’s dominance of the industry, following its release in 2017, is unquestionable. While Epic Games did not invent the battle royale genre – and indeed Fortnite originally launched without a battle royale mode, the game has become synonymous with it, and quickly became a household name. The mobile version of the game alone has accumulated $1bn in revenue in just two years.

As with any title that becomes a cultural phenomenon, Fortnite is no stranger to controversy: both contrived and justified.

Most recently the game has been at the heart of an ongoing legal battle between Epic Games and Apple – a battle that began with Epic Games circumventing Apple’s revenue cut for games by offering direct payment methods for the game’s microtransactions. The legal battle even became part of an in-game tournament, the #FreeFortnite Cup, which featured an evil-looking, apple-headed businessman skin called the Tart Tycoon.

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100 Firecraft

FoxNext

Location: San Francisco Bay Area, USA

Location: Los Angeles, USA

Key titles: Matchington Mansion

Key titles: Marvel Stike Force, Avatar: Pandora Rising

Firecraft, based in the San Francisco Bay Area, are the creators of casual Match-3 title Matchington Mansion.

It’s the small team’s only title to date but it’s performed brilliantly, earning them a place in our 2020 cohort.

Launched in 2017, the game combines puzzle mechanics with a makeover game, letting players renovate the titular mansion as they progress.

The game has received highly positive feedback for its soft approach to monetisation, incentivising players to spend rather than making it a necessity.

Currently the most successful of the Marvel licensed crop is Marvel Strike Force. The turn-based mobile RPG uses a gacha model to allow players to collect heroes and villains alike for their team, and then engage in 5v5 fights with other teams.

Los Angeles developer FoxNext created the game as part of 20th Century Fox, it then became part of Disney in the $71bn Fox buyout, but was moved on in early 2020. It now operates as part of Scopely, and continues to develop the upcoming Avatar: Pandora Rising strategy title, currently in soft launch.

Funplus – Century Games

Gearbox

Location: Various, China

Location: Frisco, Texas, USA

Key titles: State of Survival: Survive the Zombie Apocalypse

Key titles: Borderlands 3

Chinese-based publisher and developer Funplus, and its subsidiaries, including Century Games, manages a number of high-grossing games with a global release strategy.

Of particular note is the long-titled State of Survival: Survive the Zombie Apocalypse, which has been heavily promoted and has a huge following, combining base building and realtime combat. Then there’s strategy builder King of Avalon: Dominion, plus Guns of Glory: The Iron Mask, an MMO based in a fantastical French setting.

It’s made many other games in its 20 year history, but Gearbox is now synonymous with the Borderlands franchise, with its shoot-and-loot gameplay.

The latest iteration, Borderlands 3, was launched just before our qualifying period, but even shorn of its release day earnings, the game has totted up enough sales to make the 100.

Based in Frisco Texas, and run by games press favourite Randy Pitchford, the company partners with Take Two’s 2K label for publishing duties. It’s stated that Borderlands 3 had sold 8m copies by the end of 2019, with the biggest Windows sales to date for any 2K title.

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100 Game Freak Location: Tokyo, Japan Key titles: Pokémon Sword and Shield

Before it was the architect of many of our childhoods, Game Freak actually began life as a video game magazine in the 1980s.

However, because video game magazines are a stupid idea that will never catch on, the video game company of the same name launched in 1989.

After finding initial success with the NES title Mendel Palace (known as Quinty in Japan), Game Freak went on to create Pokémon in 1996, which has dominated their output (and the industry as a whole) ever since.

Pokémon is the world’s largest media franchise, earning roughly $4 billion a year.

As of March 2020, the series has sold a combined 368 million units worldwide. Beginning life in video games, it has since expanded into trading cards, a long-

Glu Mobile

running anime series, films, merchandise and even a shortlived theme park.

Despite the series’ age, new entries have proven to be remarkably popular.

The most recent entries to the series, Pokémon Sword and Pokémon Shield, have sold more than 19 million copies worldwide and are the fastest-selling Nintendo Switch games to date.

Pokémon’s other foray onto the Nintendo Switch, Pokémon Let’s Go Pikachu & Let’s Go Eevee also proved monstrously popular. These remakes of the original games have sold over 12.5m copies.

Gram Games – Zynga

Location: San Francisco, USA

Location: Istanbul and London

Key titles: Design Home

Key titles: Merge Dragons!

US mobile developer and publisher Glu Mobile has had a successful couple of years, boosted by its back catalogue of titles, such as Design Home. Looking ahead, the company is expected to continue to ride this wave of success into next year as well.

The developer’s flagship title, Design Home, which has surpassed $435 million in lifetime revenue. In March 2020 Glu officially launched Disney Sorcerer’s Arena, a soft-launched title that had already seen 100,000 downloads on Google play alone prior to its official launch, no doubt helped by the Disney IP.

Gram Games is one of three parts of the Zynga family to make our 2020 cohort. It became part of Zynga in 2018 and reports since have shown that it has very much outperformed expectations.

Its star title remains the smash hit Merge Dragons!

Which has often been Zynga’s top performer, an impressive feat given the internal competition. With offices in Istanbul and now London, the company has a range of Merge titles as well as classic puzzle game 1010, among others.

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100 Grande Games

Gumi Inc & Square Enix

Location: Hong Kong

Location: Tokyo, Japan

Key titles: Cash Frenzy Casino

Key titles: War of the Visions: Final Fantasy Brave Exvius

Based in Hong Kong, Grande games has built an enviable stable of social casino titles. Led by its Cash Frenzy Casino – Free Slots Games, there’s also Lotsa Slots – Vegas Casino and Cash Frenzy.

All of which feature the usual multitude of virtual slot machines each.

Newer titles such as Jackpot Fever and Vegas Friends, developed in Unity, looks set to continue its success.

Founded in 2007, Gumi is a Tokyo-based studio responsible for a number of titles, most notably War of the Visions: Final Fantasy Brave Exvius, which Gumi developed in collaboration with Square Enix.

War of the Visions: Final Fantasy Brave Exvius borrows gameplay elements from the Final Fantasy Tactics series, and proved instantly popular.

Following its Japanese release on November 14, 2019, the game has been downloaded 3 million times in 10 days.

By February 2020, it had been downloaded over 9 million times.

GungHo Online Entertainment Location: Tokyo, Japan Key titles: Puzzle & Dragons

Tokyo based Gungho has seen incredible success with its Puzzle & Dragons IP since it launched way back in 2012. Although ‘managed decline’ was the phrase usually associated with the breakout Match-3 title in recent years, which in its heyday was the talk of the industry and even spawned a Mario crossover game for the 3DS. The IP looks to have turned a corner in early 2019 though with earnings up for the first time in years. Elsewhere the company has seen success with Switch title Ninjala

and mobile MMORPG Raganarok Masters, via subsidiary Gravity.

It operates Teppen, a card battler based upon Capcom’s characters and properties.

Gungho is also the parent company of many Japanese developers.

Grasshopper Manufacture, Goichi Suda’s arthouse developer, creator of console classics No More Heroes and Killer 7; Acquire, co-developer of Octopath Traveler; and Game Arts, creator of the Grandia series.

Gungho has been involved in gaming since the early days of MMORPGs. Created as a joint venture by Softbank, Gungho was majority owned by the company until 2016 when it became fully independent at a cost of around $685m for just under a 24 per cent stake.

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100 Hypergryph/Studio Montagne – Yostar

Huuuge Games Location: 12 o�ces globally

Location: Shanghai, China

Key titles: Billionaire Casino, Huuge Casino slots

Key titles: Arknights

Huuuge Games has offices in 12 countries and over 600 employees, pretty huuuge. Its biggest earners are social casino titles, but it’s not a one-trick pony, with puzzle games and other casual titles in its portfolio. Most notable of late is Trolls Pop, a bubble puzzle game based on the popular license.

Originating in Poland, the company filed for a potential IPO in the middle of last year, and has been acquiring others too, with developer Double Star joining the group recently.

Arknights is amongst the newest mobile titles in this year’s list having received a Chinese release in mid-2019 and a worldwide one early in 2020. A blend of tower defence and gacha mechanics, the polished gameplay and production values place it well ahead of many competitors.

Co-developed by Hypergryph and Studio Montagne, who are based in Shanghai, and published by Yostar (also in this year’s cohort for Azur Lane), the game is quickly building a big fanbase and looks well-equipped to build a media empire to rival its ship-based sibling.

id Software

IGG (I Got Games)

Location: Richardson, Texas, USA

Location: Singapore

Key titles: Doom, Doom Eternal

Key titles: Lords Mobile, Castle Clash

id Software is a Texas-based studio known for the Wolfenstein and Doom Franchises. Both are still popular today, Doom in particular, despite the franchise celebrating its 27th birthday in 2020.

2016’s Doom, which revived the franchise, proved immediately popular on release – and again upon its rerelease on the Nintendo Switch.

2020’s Doom Eternal meanwhile, doubled the launch weekend revenue of the 2016 title. The game debuted at number 2 in the UK charts, beaten only by some tough competition in Animal Crossing: New Horizons.

Singapore’s I Got Games owes a lot of its success to Lords Mobile, which has become one of the most influential strategy titles on mobile – attracting 200 million players worldwide and winning multiple awards since its launch in March 2016 In 2018 it was announced that the game had generated $825 million in lifetime revenue. During that same year I Got Games was earning up to $50 million a month from Lords Mobile alone.

Another of the studio’s titles, Castle Clash, has generated over $550 million in lifetime revenue, according to a 2018 report.

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100 Infinity Ward Location: Los Angleles, USA Key titles: Call of Duty: Modern Warfare, Call of Duty: Warzone

Founded in 2002, Infinity Ward has become a household name as the creator of the Call of Duty franchise. The studio’s first game was the original Call of Duty, and Infinity Ward has been responsible for numerous entries to the franchise in the years since: Most recently with 2019’s Call of Duty: Modern Warfare and its battle royale spin-off Call of Duty: Warzone.

As of May 2019, the Call of Duty franchise has sold over 300m copies, and has been verified by the Guiness Book of Records as the best-selling FPS series of all time.

Call of Duty: Warzone, codeveloped by Infinity Ward and Raven Software has now seen in excess of 85m players to date.

And Activision reported that the entire franchise had seen $3bn of revenue across all formats in the last 12 months — that figure includes Treyarch’s Black Ops: Cold War, which missed our qualifying period, so we’ll be seeing them here next year.

While Modern Warfare’s time in the sun looks to be over, Warzone continues to roll on, with Infinity Ward’s design and , supported by Raven’s work, and now with content drawn from Treyach’s Cold War. It’s a truly modern beast.

Jagex

Kabam

Location: Cambridge, UK

Location: Vancouver, Canada

Key titles: Runescape

Key titles: Marvel Contest of Champions

The success of Runescape under Jagex is an incredible, enduring story. Celebrating its 20th anniversary as we go to press, the fantasy MMO continues to enthrall, with subscriber numbers higher than ever before. And it pays homage to its own history, running Old School Runescape alongside the core game since 2013.

More recently we’ve seen mobile versions of the game, to let its devotees play as and when they like, plus at the end of last year the game was finally released on Steam as well, in order to draw yet more players. Meanwhile Jagex is also taking its expertise and utilising it in a third-party publishing arm.

Vancouver’s Kabam became part of Netmarble back in 2016, largely as a result of its success with Marvel Contest of Champions, a success that continues for the studio to this day, with the title remaining Netmarble’s biggest single earner internationally.

The online brawler remains immensely popular, with an ever-growing array of characters to keep players engaged and entertained.

Set to run for as long as Marvel retains its popularity, which given the new TV series looks like forever.

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100 Kojima Productions

King Location: Stockholm, Sweden

Location: Tokyo, Japan

Key titles: Candy Crush Saga

Key titles: Death Stranding

King has gained fame from their astronomically successful cross-platform franchise Candy Crush franchise, which includes Candy Crush Saga, Candy Crush Soda Saga, Candy Crash Jelly Saga and Candy Crush Friends Saga. Activision Blizzard acquired the developer in 2016 for $5.9bn.

Five years after its mobile release, the Candy Crush Saga series has received over 2.73bn downloads.

According to Sensor Tower estimates, the series has generated a collective $1.5bn in microtransaction revenue, adding up to an absolutely enormous average daily spend of $4.2m. Truly Kingly.

‘What Hideo Kojima did next’ sums up this entry. The Metal Gear veteran split from Konami in 2015 to make Death Stranding, a title that launched at the very start of our Develop 100 year in early December 2019.

Kojima Productions already existed in name as a Konami subsidiary, but having split away, Kojima had to rebuild the team, largely with Konami veterans, in order to create his latest title.

It’s one of the few titles that had strong appeal across all our key regions, propelling the studio onto the list despite it being its only title, and with no paid DLC released to date either.

Lilith Games

Long Tech Network

Location: Shanghai, China

Location: Hong Kong

Key titles: AFK Arena, Rise of Kingdoms: Lost Crusade

Key titles: Last Shelter: Survival

Founded in 2013, Lilith Games is China’s third largest game developer and publisher by overseas revenue. The studio has seen success with mobile titles such as Rise of Kingdoms: Lost Crusade and AFK Arena. Their flagship title, Soul Hunters, has garnered over 80 million players.

Casual multiplayer title AFK Arena surpassed 6.6 million players in just two months, following its launch back in April 2019.

The game has grown popular enough to feature hugely popular YouTuber Markiplier in the game, as well as a new advert starring starring Elijah Wood.

Beijing-based Long Tech Network has a big hit on its hands with Last Shelter: Survival. Even just looking at the official Google and Apple stores, it’s clear the game has a huge following, giving it a high ranking in Sensor Tower’s top 100 earning titles for the last year.

The MMO zombie strategy game has many of the typical genre tropes, with players throwing up complex bases very quickly.

That makes the experience much like Long Tech’s own, which only started in 2015 with five employees and now numbers over 160. It has released three strategy games to date.

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100 Mediatonic

Mixi

Location: London, United Kingdom

Location: Tokyo, Japan

Key titles: Fall Guys: Ultimate Knockout

Key titles: Monster Strike

London-based Mediatonic has been busy since its founding back in 2005, having released over 100 games.

In more recent times however, the company has hit upon a genius formula in Fall Guys: Ultimate Knockout.

The knockabout, assault course, battle royale title has undoubtedly put the studio on the map. The game launched as a free title to PS Plus subscribers, as well as a simultaneous PC launch. Within 24 hours of release, the game had drawn over 1.5 million players. By August 2020, Fall Guys had become the most downloaded PS Plus game of all time.

Mixi is a Japanese company founded in 1999. It’s also known for its social networking site of the same name, but its relevance to this list however lies in its gaming efforts, namely in developing and publishing iOS and Android title Monster Strike.

By 2018 the game had surpassed Puzzle & Dragons to become the highest-grossing mobile game of all time, and has grossed a total revenue of at least $8.13 billion as of 2019.

Gameplay blends Pokemon-style monster collecting with flicking your monsters in to battle a la Puzzle Bobble.

miHoYo Location: Shanghai, China Key titles: Genshin Impact

Chinese studio miHoYo is the developer behind the smash-hit free to play title Genshin Impact. The company was founded by three Shanghai Jiao Tong University students, united by their love of anime.

The studio has released a number of games since its founding in 2011, such as Guns GirlZ and Honkai Impact 3rd, but Genshin Impact is by far its most successful title to date.

Upon the game’s launch on September 28th 2020 on PC, PS4 and mobile devices, Genshin Impact became an overnight sensation. Within its first week after release itwas downloaded 17m times.

The game grossed over $393 million on mobile devices within two months, making Genshin Impact the second biggest mobile game launch in history, after Honor of Kings.

The action RPG title blends an open world environment with a battle system using elemental powers and gacha character switching. Up to four players can form a party to fight togther, while some elements of its gameplay and style have been compared to Nintendo’s Zelda Breath of the Wild.

Speaking of which, miHoYo is now planning on releasing Genshin Impact on the Nintendo Switch (and PS5 too).

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100 Mojang Studios Location: Stockholm, Sweden Key titles: Minecraft, Minecraft Dungeons

Founded as an independent studio back in 2009 by Markus “Notch” Persson, the studio then just called Mojang, this Swedish developer has certainly come a long way from the early days of Minecraft’s first publicly-released alpha stage.

The studio was founded around the development and release of the ubiquitous sandbox title Minecraft – a game that would go on to dominate the gaming landscape, eventually becoming the bestselling games of all time.

To date the game has sold 200m copies, and has 126m monthly active users. That success has prompted multiple spin-

off titles, such as Minecraft: Story Mode (developed

by TellTale Games) as well as the augmented reality title Minecraft Earth, which was also developed by Mojang Studios.

More recently the studio released Minecraft Dungeons, which was developed by Mojang in collaboration with Double Eleven, the first new Minecraft game by the studio since the original’s release.

In November 2014, the studio was acquired by Microsoft for $2.5bn and was later rebranded as Mojang Studios in May 2020. It seemed like a lot of money then, it wasn’t.

Moon Active

Moonton

Location: Tel Aviv, Israel

Location: Shanghai, China

Key titles: Coin Master

Key titles: Mobile Legends: Bang Bang

Moon Active is a startup based in Tel Aviv, Israel, that focuses on iOS, Android and Facebook games. The studio has a second office in Kiev, Ukraine and boasts over 600 employees.

The studio is perhaps best known as the creator of the hugely successful casual free to play mobile title Coin Master – which was released back in 2015 and is currently the highest-grossing mobile game in the UK. As of October 2019, Coin Master has seen over 81m downloads, and has grossed in excess of $508m in gross revenue in its lifetime.

Shanghai-based Moonton has launched a raft of games under its Mobile Legends IP, but it’s the 2016 Mobile Legends: Bang Bang that is performing best for the 300-person company and secures its place in our list.

The 5v5 mobile MOBA title has grown its roster from 10 to 103 heroes since release, providing a steady income stream. Its success has brought attention, though, with Tencent and Riot taking legal action in 2018 for plagiarism and winning.

Despite that the title continues to flourish, being one of the few mobile MOBAs to have also thrived in the US market.

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100 Nat Games – Nexon

NHN PlayArt + LINE

Location: Seoul, Korea

Location: Tokyo, Japan

Key titles: V4

Key titles: Disney Tsum Tsum, Yo-kai Watch Wibble Wobble

Nat Games is responsible for creating hit MMO RPG V4, the grand prize winner at the 2020 Korea Game Awards.

A high production value title spanning PC and mobile, the game builds on the studio’s previous title, the Korean chart-topping Heroes of Incredible Tales (HIT).

Nat Games was acquired by the goliath Nexon (best known for Dungeon Fighter Online) back in May 2018. In recent months it has seen record revenues and profits as V4 has become the next big thing in South Korea. And with 300 player boss battles there’s room for all.

Disney’s curiously limbless yet adorable Tsum Tsums are are a phenomenon, and also very suited to a twist on the usual Match-3 genre. Developed by Tokyo-based NHN PlayArt and operated by LINE, Disney Tsum Tsum has been a huge success alongside the collectible plush toyline.

In fact, Disney Tsum Tsum appears to be the bestperforming mobile IP from the powerhouse brand, with 85m downloads worldwide.

The IP now has a spinoff too, the new Tsum Tsum Stadium, which takes the concept and applies it to 50-player survival games – a Tsum Tsum royale!

Naughty Dog Location: Santa Monica, USA Key titles: The Last of Us Remastered, The Last of Us Part II

Uncharted protagonist Nathan Drake may have gone into retirement back in 2016, but that hasn’t kept Naughty Dog from having an absolute blockbuster of a year in 2020, following the June 19 release of The Last of Us Part II. Predictably, the game did pretty well. The Last of Us Part II is one of the best-selling Playstation 4 games of all time, in part thanks to launching late into the console’s life.

It is also the fastest-selling PlayStation 4 exclusive, with over four million units sold in its release weekend .

The Last of Us Part II was the biggest launch of 2020

in terms of both physical and digital sales (though at the time of writing, CD Projekt Red’s Cyberpunk 2077 has yet to release, so this may change).

The game is on every game of the year list under the sun, and has swept multiple awards this year. In November 2020 the game went home from the Golden Joysticks with 6 awards – winning in every category in which it was nominated.

The original game in the series remains popular too, The Last of Us is among the best-selling games on the PS3, and The Last of Us Remastered is one of the best selling PS4 games of all time.

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100 NCSOFT

NDcube

Location: Seongnam, South Korea

Location: Tokyo & Sapporo, Japan

Key titles: Lineage M, Lineage 2 M

Key titles: Super Mario Party

NCSOFT is based in Pangyo, Seongnam, South Korea, and is perhaps best known for its work on the MMORPG franchise Lineage.

In recent years NCSOFT has seen huge success with mobile ports of the older Lineage titles, 2017’s Lineage M and 2019’s Lineage 2 M – the former of which has generated $2.8bn, as of July 2020. The latter meanwhile grossed $152m following the first three months after its release.

The Lineage franchise as a whole is one of the highest-grossing IPs of all time, with a combined lifetime revenue of $10.3bn.

Most of Nintendo’s first-party efforts are grouped under its gigantic Nintendo EPD group. But the perennial Mario Party series is the sole domain of Nintendo subsidiary NDcube .

That even a smaller Mario title, such as Super Mario Party, can put a developer on our list is a testament to the power of both the IP and the Switch. The series’ consistent success over the last decade is down to series director, now company CEO, Shuichiro Nishiya. Who has upheld the quality bar set by Nintendo itself.

The company also made the well-received Clubhouse Games: 51 Worldwide Classics, a brilliant eclectic collection of classic games from Mahjong to slot car racing.

Neople

NetherRealm

Location: Jeju-si, South Korea

Location: Chicago, USA

Key titles: Dungeon Fighter Online

Key titles: Mortal Kombat 11

Beginning life back in 2001 as an independent developer, Neople was later acquired by Nexon back in 2008. The South Korean studio is primarily known as the creator of Dungeon Fighter Online.

Although the game was released in 2005, the game remains incredibly popular, and is one of the most played and highest grossing games of all time. The game has exceeded 700m players worldwide, and as of May 2020 has grossed $15bn in lifetime revenue – Making it one of the highest-grossing entertainment media products of all time.

Ed Boon’s Chicago-based studio creates (literally) incredible fighting games. The Warner Bros subsidiary has done just that with title after title, most recently with Mortal Kombat 11 – available on all console formats.

The game actually launched back in Spring 2019, but it’s a testament to its staying power that the studio makes our top 100 without a flagpole release in our qualifying period, with big earnings in both the US and EU. Recently the game has added both Rambo and Terminator characters to its roster, and with crossplay now set to unite the community, it’s a game with a lot more potential.

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100 NetEase Location: Hangzhou, China Key titles: Fantasy Westward Journey, Knives Out, Identity V

NetEase is a goliath of gaming. In its third quarter of 2020 alone it posted revenues of $2bn, an increase of 20 per cent year on year. If we could actually identify its various internal teams, they would likely all have their own individual presences on this list.

That said, no one of Netease’s titles are on the scale of Game for Peace, or Honor of Kings, but its strength in depth is incredible, and also gives it a stability that places it above almost anyone, bar arch rival Tencent.

Fantasy Westward Journey remains the firm’s topgrossing title, and that’s after almost 20 years of incredible returns on PC. The mobile version of the popular MMORPG, launched in 2015, now takes the lead but the brand remains as strong, if not stronger, than ever.

Netmarble

On mobile, at least, that title is closely followed in revenues by Netease’s battle royale effort, Knives Out (not to be confused with the excellent film of the same name). Also notable are Identity V, an asymmetrical multiplayer horror titles and Onmyoji, with its fantasy turn-based battles. It’s also launched the Marvel Super War MOBA, although that doesn’t seem to be getting a global release.

Next Level Games

Location: Seoul, South Korea

Location: Vancouver, Canada

Key titles: Lineage 2 Revolution

Key titles: Luigi’s Mansion 3

South Korea’s mobile gaming giant recently posted Q3 results of $535m in total revenue up 3.6 per cent year on year. Behind that success lies its perennial earner, the UE4-powered MMO Lineage 2 Revolution.

The company has also shown itself adept at making the most of licensed IPs. A big title for the last 12 months was The Seven Deadly Sins: Grand Cross, based on the successful manga and anime series (which is shown globally by Netflix).

Netmarble has worked with Marvel on Marvel Future Flight, a 2019 action RPG title.

Next Level Games is an independent developer established in 2002. While the studios’ first project was NHL Hitz Pro, it is perhaps better known for its collaboration with Nintendo.

The studio has developed the Mario Strikers games, Punch Out!! for the Wii, 3DS titles Luigi’s Mansion 2 and Metroid Prime: Federation Force, and most recently – 2019’s Luigi’s Mansion 3.

The latter in particular proved successful for the studio, attracting positive reviews and receiving the ‘Best Family Game’ award at The Game Awards 2019.

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100 Nexters

Niantic

Location: Larnaka, Cyprus

Location: San Francisco, United States

Key titles: Hero Wars

Key titles: Pokémon Go

Yes, you know Hero Wars, it’s the game advertised by those everpresent lava/treasure/acid/hero ‘puzzles’ at the bottom of every page on the internet. Well it turns out that those ads really work, and the game behind them has captured players’ attention too, notching up a very healthy revenue stream, propelling creator Nexters into our cohort this year.

Privately-owned Nexters is based in Cyprus, from which it also operates RTS title Throne Rush and Island Experiment, an adventure-puzzle title.

Formerly known as Niantic Labs, this San Francisco-based studio has seen enormous success with its augmented reality mobile titles Ingress, Pokémon Go, and Harry Potter: Wizards Unite.

Pokémon Go has been a particular success story, boasting a lifetime revenue of over $4bn, with $1bn earned in 2020 alone – despite the COVID-19 pandemic limiting player’s mobility.

Niantic attracted enormous mainstream attention following the 2016 launch of Pokémon Go – And even got a shoutout during Hilary Clinton’s unsuccessful Presidential run.

Nintendo EPD Location: Kyoto, Japan Key titles: Animal Crossing: New Horizons, Zelda: Link’s Awakening

After the disappointment of the Wii U, Nintendo has bounced back in spectacular fashion with the Switch, which seems to print money – thanks to both its own titles and strong indie sales on its digital store. The console has performed fantastically for Nintendo – particularly during 2020, with sales boosted by the COVID-19 pandemic.

The console now sits at over 68.3m units sold in its lifetime, offering an enormous user base for Nintendo’s first party titles.

As such the Switch has seen a lot of popular remakes and re-releases of Nintendo’s

back catalogue, such as Mario Kart 8 and The Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening (co-developed with Grezzo).

By far the company’s biggest success story last year was Animal Crossing: New Horizons. The game released at absolutely the right time: March 2020, right as the pandemic forced countries worldwide into lockdown, and towards gaming – particularly social games.

As such, the game surpassed its lifetime sales expectations within its first two months, and is now the second-best selling game in Japan of all time, beaten only by Game Freak’s Pokémon Red and Blue.

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100 PawaPuro Productions – Konami

Peak – Zynga

Location: Osaka, Japan

Location: Istanbul, Turkey

Key titles: Pro Yakyuu Spirits

Key titles: Toy Blast,Toon Blast

In the western media, much has been made of Konami’s focus on mobile titles for its home market rather than attempting to repeat past glories on console.

However, based on the earnings of titles such as Pro Yakyuu Spirits (or Professional Baseball Spirits to give its westernised title), this is a sound move for the company.

One of the top earners globally, it competed with the likes of Brawl Stars and Call of Duty: Mobile in terms of total revenues from official app stores.

The title was developed by Osakabased PawaPuro Productions, a part of Konami’s internal development team.

Based out of Istanbul, Peak Games is now part of the growing Zynga family, having been acquired for a massive $1.8bn in June of last year. The deal was Zynga’s largest to date and the key prizes were Toy Blast and Toon Blast, puzzle titles which have performed incredibly well in recent years – with a total DAUs of 12m at the time of purchase.

By Sensor Tower’s reckoning Toon Blast was Zynga’s biggest single grossing title, but the original Toy Blast is also pulling in a huge chunk of cash annually as well.

Pearl Abyss

PES Productions – Konami

Location: Anyang, South Korea

Location: Tokyo, Japan

Key titles: Black Desert Online

Key titles: eFootball PES

Pearl Abyss is a Korean developer best known for the MMORPG Black Desert Online, Black Desert Mobile and Shadow Arena.

Pearl Abyss has reached over 30 million players in over 150 countries through Black Desert Online, earning a lifetime revenue of $1.5 billion worldwide.

The developer is currently working on Crimson Desert, a PC and console title that was originally planned to act as a prequel title to Black Desert. As the game’s development went on however, it became a new, standalone IP with a new story and characters.

The eFootball PES series remains a strong alternative to FIFA. And in terms of the mobile version of the game, PES appears to be ahead of its rival, with Sensor Tower putting the game in its top 100 titles globally in official app stores.

PES Productions approach the mobile version by trying to stay as true as possible to the console gameplay..

The well-received 2020 version of the game only got a ‘Season Update’ for 2021, effectively new stats and lineups for the current game. That’s because PES Productions is working on an all-new next-gen version for PS5 and Xbox Series consoles to launch in late 2021.

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100 Plarium – Aristocrat Technologies

Playdemic – TT Games

Location: Herzliya, Israel

Location: Manchester, UK

Key titles: RAID: Shadow Legends

Key titles: Golf Clash

One of two developers here from the Aristocrat family but this is a long way from the publisher’s core social casino titles. RAID: Shadow Legends is a high-production value fantasy RPG with the action centred around PvE and PvP combat featuring hundreds of champions.

Founded and headquartered in Israel, with offices around the globe, Plarium was acquired by Aristocrat back in 2017 for $500m. Other key titles include Match-3 adventure, Lost Island: Blast Adventure, and upcoming is Mech Arena: Robot Showdown, a 5v5 real time PvP title.

Playdemic earns its place here for the continuing success of its smash-hit multiplayer title Golf Clash – the undoubted king of casual golf games. With the Manchester-based developer having increased in size to around 65 staff in recent years as a result.

Playdemic’s future isn’t just beautiful links and keen competition, though. Acquired in 2017 by Warner Bros subsidiary TT Games, it’s also been set to work on developing mobile titles using the LEGO IP. To that end it’s been involved in the soft-launched LEGO Star Wars Battle, which is being led by sibling studio TT Brighton.

Playrix

Playtika

Location: Dublin, Republic of Ireland

Location: Herzliya, Israel

Key titles: Township, Gardenscapes, Homescapes, Fishdom

Key titles: Slotomania

Founded in Russia, but headquartered in Dublin, Playrix is an incredible success story, with 18 offices around the world and over 2,000 employees. Its strength in depth is impressive, with four top earners in the last year: Township, Gardenscapes, Homescapes, Fishdom.

Its consistency in driving massive hits is incredible.

Most titles blend Match-3 gameplay with other activities.

The formula let the developer soar over 1bn downloads across its catalogue of titles last year.

Gardenscapes even pulled in more than Candy Crush Saga some months, the first time its been topped since 2012.

Headquartered in Herzliya, Israel, Playtika has now expanded to 4,000 employees in offices around the world.

It also has expanded into multiple genres, such as puzzle, hidden object and solitaire titles.

That said, the company’s biggest titles remain in the social casino genre, with titles such as Slotomania Free Slots: Casino Slot Machine Games, Bingo Blitz - Bingo games, and House of Fun - Casino Slots.

The company acquired Helsinki developer Seriously last year, creator of Best Fiends and Berlin-based Wooga (June’s Journey) the year before.

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100 Product Madness – Aristocrat Technologies

Psyonix

Location: London (UK) and Seattle (USA)

Location: San Diego , USA

Key titles: Cashman Casino Las Vegas Slots, Lightning Link Casino Slots

Key titles: Rocket League

Product Madness was acquired by Aristocrat back in 2012. The deal brought together an expert in the social casino genre with a manufacturer of real-world casino slot machines, and the combination has proved irresistible to fans of the genre.

Cashman Casino Las Vegas Slots, Lightning Link Casino Slots and Heart of Vegas Casino Slots, were all top 100 grossing apps according to Sensor Tower over the last year. To support its titles the developer now has key offices in London and Seattle, plus additional outposts in Vegas, Austin, Minsk and Lviv.

Founded in 2000, this studio is best known for its breakout hit, Rocket League. Launched in 2015, and free on Playstation Plus upon release, the game has had longlasting success, eventually going free to play in 2020.

The game is actually a sequel to Psyonix’s Supersonic Acrobatic Rocket-Powered Battle-Cars, but has far outshone its predecessor in terms of success.

Rocket League proved immediately popular, seeing 5m downloads and 179,000 concurrent players in its launch month of July 2015. As of September 2018, the game had seen 50 million players since launch.

PUBG Studio

Riot Games

Location: Seongnam, South Korea

Location: Los Angeles, USA

Key titles: PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds

Key titles: League of Legends, Valorant

After more than a few name changes, the Seoul-based developers of the ongoing PC phenomenon are now called PUBG Studio, a part of Krafton, which handles publishing duties. To date the PC title has sold over 70m copies and despite tough competition in the genre it created, the original retains a huge audience globally.

PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds continues to evolve, the recent Season 9 launch brought with it a new map, Paramo, with dynamic lava flows and locations, providing variation in every battle.

Now over ten years old, League of Legends continues to dominate the MOBA space on PC. Still the biggest competitive game around, last year’s World Championship was watched by over 100m viewers. The Tencentowned company is based in Los Angeles, amongst 24 offices worldwide. Recent news is split between two titles. Valorant is Riot’s effort to dethrone CS:GO with a competitivelyfocused shooter.

While League’s mobile spin-off Wild Rift, in soft launch, finally allows Riot to compete directly with the innumerable mobile League clones.

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100 Respawn Entertainment Location: Sherman Oaks, Los Angeles USA Key titles: Apex Legends, Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order

Respawn Entertainment was founded in 2010 by Jason West and Vince Zampella, who previously co-founded Infinity Ward (which also features on this list) and created the Call of Duty franchise. Now that’s a CV. The studios first effort was the Titanfall franchise, But today Respawn is primarily known as the creator of battle royale hit Apex Legends – which boasted 50 million players within its first month when launched in February 2019.

Apex Legends has proved so popular that EA not only expects the game to hit $1 billion lifetime revenue in 2021, but based on its current trajectory the publisher

expects it to earn $1 billion a year. Now into its seventh season the game’s season pass model is flourishing More recently the studio was behind the November 2019 title Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order, which sold more than ten million copies by the end of March 2020. The game has proved remarkably popular in the states, where it’s one of the best selling games of the year – ranking second, beaten only by Call of Duty: Modern Warfare. The game cleverly blends mechanics from Uncharted and Dark Souls.

Roblox Corporation Location: California, United States Key titles: Roblox

Roblox Corporation is the creators of the multi-platform, free-to-play phenomenon Roblox.

Although the game was released all the way back in 2006, the game was relatively small until it found significant success in the 2010s, and now boasts over 164m monthly active users as of August 2020, and is played by over half of all children under 16 in the USA. For most of the game’s history, however, the game’s player base was relatively small due to co-founder David Baszucki being uninterested in press

coverage, and the game getting drowned out by other platforms released around the same time.

The game’s success lies not in simply attracting players, but in turning them into creators, its this community which generates the practically endless content that its player-base enjoys.

Roblox then spreads the wealth around, with creators on the platform being projected to have earned a combined $250m over the course of 2020.

Roblox Corporation is valued at $4 billion, with the iOS version of the game passing a lifetime revenue of $2 billion in October 2020. An upcoming IPO is being watched keenly.

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100 Rockstar Games

SciPlay

Location: New York, USA

Location: Las Vegas, Nevada, USA

Key titles: Red Dead Redemption II, Grand Theft Auto V

Key titles: Jackpot Party - Casino Slots

Established in 1998, Rockstar Games has gone on to become a titan in the games industry, thanks in no small part to its two biggest franchises: Grand Theft Auto and Red Dead Redemption.

Grand Theft Auto V is the fastest-selling entertainment product in history, earning $800 million in its first day and $1 billion in its first three days. Although its now the huge success of spin-off GTA Online that’s key.

Red Dead Redemption II saw the secondbiggest launch in the history of entertainment, generating over $725m in sales during the game’s opening weekend.

SciPlay is the social gaming arm of real-word slots manufacturer Scientific Games. With five studios and 400 staff, the subsidiary has grand plans following great success leading to an IPO last year.

The developer’s leading title is Jackpot Party - Casino Slots, which includes hundreds of slot games, many based on popular real-world models.

The rest of its slate consists of other slots-based games, including the licensed Monopoly Slots.

Small Giant Games – Zynga

Sports Interactive

Location: Helsinki, Finland

Location: London, United Kingdom

Key titles: Empires and Puzzles

Key titles: Football Manager 2021

Zynga acquired Small Giant Games back in 2018 for $560m in cash and shares. The small Helsinki-based studio remains known for its Empires and Puzzles Match-3 RPG title, which is one of Zynga’s largest grossing over the last year by Sensor Tower’s reckoning.

Small Giant has since softlaunched Puzzle Combat, a sibling title with many similar features and a colourful modern warfare setting.

Founded in 1994, Sports Interactive is best known for the hugely popular Football Manager series.

The simulation title has existed under its current name since 2005, although it dates way back to ‘92.

The unrivalled title in its space, it’s inspired multiple documentaries, and has even been used by football clubs for scouting potential players.

The most recent entry to the franchise, Football Manager 2021 – released on November 24th – marks a return to the Xbox platform, as well as PC, Mac, a Touch version is available for iOS, Android and Switch.

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100 Smilegate Entertainment Location: Pankyo, South Korea Key titles: Crossfire

Smilegate Entertainment is the studio behind the colossal free-to-play shooter hit Crossfire. Undeniably the leading shooter across the asian markets, the game boasts 8m concurrent players and 650m registered users. It’s also available in 80 countries worldwide.

The free-to-play military FPS had grossed over $10.8bn lifetime as of 2018 and has appeared consistently on the top-grossing PC games lists from Superdata since then.

Smilegate’s total revenues in 2018 were $703m, led by Crossfire’s earnings.

First released way back in 2007, the game now includes almost innumerable game

modes and maps, as well as characters and weapons – all of which are based around real-world guns and special forces units.

An Xbox-exclusive spin-off, CrossfireX is in the offing, with a campaign provided by no less than Remedy Entertainment. Although that title has been delayed until an undecided date in 2021. In addition, Smilegate Entertainment also launched VR title Rogan: The Thief in the Castle in 2019, which received an Epic Mega Grant.

Square Enix Creative Business Unit I Location: Tokyo, Japan Key titles: Final Fantasy VII Remake

Square Enix’s Creative Business Unit I, previously Business Division 1, is the area of Square Enix responsible for the Final Fantasy and Kingdom Hearts franchises.

The studio was formed in 2019, following a restructuring at the company which combined Business Division 1, (who handled the mainline Final Fantasy series), with Business Division 3 (Kingdom Hearts, Final Fantasy spin-offs and the SaGa series) and Business Division 4 (who handled the Final Fantasy spin-offs that are produced alongside external companies).

The unit is led by Yoshinori Kitase, who was the leader of Business Division 1 and acted

as director on some of Square Enix’s biggest titles, including the original Final Fantasy VII Most notably in 2020, Business Division 1 was responsible for the long, long anticipated release of Final Fantasy VII Remake, a recreation and re-imagining of one of Square Enix’s most beloved titles.

Upon its release,Final Fantasy VII Remake proved an instant sensation: selling 3.5m copies worldwide within three days, and being received warmly by critics. As of August 2020, the game has sold over five million copies worldwide.

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100 Sucker Punch Productions

Super Creative

Location: Bellevue, Washington, USA

Location: Seongnam, South Korea

Key titles: Ghost of Tsushima

Key titles: Epic 7

American studio Sucker Punch Productions, founded in 1997 and the creator of Sly Cooper and the Infamous franchises, exploded into yet greater prominence last year with the July 2020 release of Ghost of Tsushima.

Upon its release, the PS4-exclusive topped charts globally, selling over 2.4 million copies in its first three days after release.

That made Ghost of Tsushima the fastestselling new IP this generation, surpassing even the hugely popular Horizon Zero Dawn.

As of November 2020, the game had sold over 5m copies globally.

Part of the Smilegate group, since it was acquired in February 2019 for a reported $98m, Super Creative is based in Seongnam, just outside Seoul. The studio is responsible for the highly-successful RPG Epic 7, a top-earner in asian markets which has also received a global release.

Launched in early 2017 the RPG stands out from the crowd with its detailed 2D graphics and incredible animequality cutscenes. All the more impressive as Epic 7 is the studio’s debut title.

Supercell

Tactile Games

Location: Helsinki, Finland

Location: Copenhagen, Denmark

Key titles: Clash of Clans, Clash Royale

Key titles: Lily’s Garden

Founded in 2010, Supercell has long been a titan of the industry. In 2016, Tencent bought a 81.4% stake in the company, which valued Supercell at $10.2 billion.

What is perhaps the company’s most famous game, Clash of Clans, still holds a place in the top 50 grossing apps in both the Play Store and App Store, despite releasing eight years ago. The game has generated over $7 billion in revenue since January 1st, 2014, according to Sensor Tower.

Supercell’s second most popular title, Clash Royale, recently surpassed more than $3 billion in lifetime revenue since its release in 2016.

Tactile Games is a Danish game developer, located in the heart of Copenhagen.

The studio has developed a series of highly popular puzzle titles, such as Cookie Cats and Bee Brilliant, as well as a series of titles based on the animated cartoon and book series Simon’s Cat, namely Simon’s Cat: Crunch Time and Simon’s Cat: Pop Time.

The studio’s most popular title is Lily’s Garden, which generates much of the company’s revenue. For instance in February 2020, Lily’s Garden was downloaded 800k times, earning $3 million in revenue.

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100 Tencent Lightspeed & Quantum Location: Shenzhen, China Key titles: PUBG Mobile/Game For Peace

Arguably the biggest game in the world right now is PUBG Mobile, or Game For Peace as its modified Chinese sibling is known. The mobile version of the original title sticks pretty close to the formula, but is entirely re-engineered to work on mobile devices.

Lightspeed & Quantum is responsible for that reworking. The studio was founded in 2008 and is a part of Tencent, which publishes both PUBG Mobile and Game For Peace.

The studio is also

behind PUBG Mobile Lite, a spin-off title running on Unreal Engine 4, which is then optimised to work on more modest handsets.

In a complete change of direction, the studio last year released The Everlasting Regret, a beautiful puzzle game based on a classic poem and rendered in a period-perfect Tang dynasty art style – one that won’t trouble the censors.

The studio also got a new sibling recently, with Lightspeed LA being launched back in July 2020. Led by Rockstar veteran Steve Martin, it promises to develop triple-A titles.

TiMi Studios Location: Shenzhen, China Key titles: Honor of Kings

Tencent subsidiary TiMi Studios is a Chinese studio with offices in Shenzhen, Los Angeles, Chengdu and Shanghai.

TiMi Studios was founded in 2008, and was originally named Jade Studio.

The studio changed its name back in 2014 after it merged with Wolong Studio and Tianmeiyiyou Studio – forming TiMi. The company is responsible for a number of titles, but is perhaps most famous for developing the mobile game Honor of Kings, adapted as Arena of Valor in western regions. Honor of Kings, released in 2015 on

Android and iOS devices, is one of the most popular and highestgrossing games in the world, and is the most downloaded app globally.

Honor of Kings has seen over 100 million daily active players, as of November 2020.

As of March 2019, the world’s most lucrative game had surpassed $4.5 billion in lifetime revenue, since its launch in October 2015.

The game has seen the lion’s share of its revenue generated in China, but has seen significant overseas success. According to Sensor Tower estimates, the game has generated over $200 million outside of China.

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100 Toys for Bob & Vicarious Visions

Ubisoft Paris

Location: Novato and Albany, USA

Location: Paris, France

Key titles: Crash Bandicoot 4: It’s About Time, Spyro Reignited Trilogy

Key titles: Just Dance 2021

A combined entry for two studios to recognise their huge success in remaking and continuing classic PS1 IPs Spyro and Crash Bandicoot for today’s consoles.

Vicarious Visions kicked things off with 2017’s Crash Bandicoot N. Sane Trilogy, which still sells well today, with Toys for Bob creating the Switch version. Toys for Bob then made 2018’s Spyro Reignited Trilogy, another big seller.

Most recently Toys for Bob got to create a new Crash game in Crash Bandicoot 4: It’s About Time. While Vicarious Visions undertook another successful Activision remake in the excellent Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 1 + 2.

Ubisoft Paris is the core developer of the Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon series and the Just Dance series.

The Just Dance franchise has been particularly successful for Ubisoft, on which Ubisoft Paris has collaborated with the likes of Ubisoft Pune, Ubisoft Shanghai and Ubisoft Bordeaux.

Just Dance 2020 was the last in the franchise to release on the Nintendo Wii – where it all began back in 2009. Despite that platform being 14 years old now, the Wii version accounted for 21 per cent of the game’s opening week sales.

Ubisoft Montreal Location: Montreal, Canada Key titles: Assassin’s Creed Valhalla

It’s been a busy year for Ubisoft Montreal, with the recent release of Assassin’s Creed Valhalla – the first in the series to launch on the new generation of consoles.

Ubisoft Montreal was founded in April 1997, as part of Ubisoft’s expansion into worldwide markets at the time.

The studio is one of the largest in the world, with over 3,500 employees.

Ubisoft Montreal is so influential that it is credited for helping to establish Montreal as a creative city, and cementing it as a local hub for the games industry.

No doubt boosted by releasing as a next-gen

launch title, Assassin’s Creed Valhalla sold more copies in the first week of release than any previous Assassin’s Creed title, with Ubisoft confirming it had over 1.8 million players on November 17th 2020.

Ubisoft Montreal has a long-standing relationship with the Assassin’s Creed franchise, having worked on the series since its inception in 2007.

The series’ back catalogue continues to perform, including Assassin’s Creed Origins, as well as Odyssey, on which Ubisoft Paris collaborated with sister studios Ubisoft Quebec, Ubisoft Singapore and Ubisoft Milan.

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100 Visual Concepts Entertainment Location: Novato, California, USA Key titles: NBA 2K21

Visual Concepts Entertainment is an American developer based in Novato, California.

The studio specialises in sports games in the 2K franchise, particularly NBA 2K and WWE 2K. Visual Concepts was founded in 1988, before being acquired by Sega in 1999 and eventually being sold to Take-Two Interactive in January 2005.

It was this acquisition by Take-Two that led to the creation of the 2K label, of which the studio’s NBA 2K and WWE 2K franchises are both a part, alongside other franchises, such as the likes of Bioshock and Borderlands.

The NBA 2K franchise has been particularly successful – according to Take-Two Interactive, NBA 2K20 made over $1 billion in combined sales and microtransaction revenues in just its first year.

The followup, NBA 2K21 has sold 5 million copies to date, following its release in September 2020.

Things are looking less rosy for the WWE 2K franchise, however. The most recent entry, WWE 2K20 was roundly panned by fans and critics alike, due to releasing with a number of serious bugs. In turn, WWE 2K21 was cancelled, with the studio looking to jump to a next-gen version.

Valve

Vizor Interactive

Location: Bellevue, Washington, USA

Location: Minsk, Belarus

Key titles: Half Life: Alyx, DoTA 2

Key titles: Klondike Adventures

Although much of Valve’s attention has been focused on its Steam storefront in recent years, the company remains a household name in the industry, and continues to draw significant revenue from its back catalogue alone – Counterstrike and DoTA 2, in particular.

This year Valve made a surprise return to the Half Life franchise, after a 13 year hiatus. While Half Life: Alyx’s sales were likely limited by being a VR-only title, the game saw a total of 860,000 players in March, following its release on the 23rd, as well as being received warmly by critics.

Established in 2007, Vizor Interactive is a Minsk-based developer responsible for a number of mobile titles.

The most recent, and most popular of their games is Klondike Adventures.

Since its release in 2018, the game has been downloaded over 16 million times. In December of that year, the game earned $6.3m in monthly revenues.

Between Q1 and Q3 2020, Klondike Adventures was the third-highest grossing mobile simulation title in the United States, generating just over $80m.

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100 Wargaming Minsk

WB Games Boston

Location: Minsk, Belarus

Location: Boston, USA

Key titles: World of Tanks

Key titles: Game of Thrones: Conquest

Whilst Wargaming has seen success with various spin-offs, such as World of Warships, plus mobile and console takes on the formula, it’s the original World of Tanks on PC that continues to lead the charge.

Developed by the team at its Minsk office, the free-toplay title features a huge arsenal of over 600 real-world military vehicles, with a focus on PvP play – although PvE campaigns have been added in recent years.

Its success has allowed its parent to branch out into other genres and even set up studios in the US and UK to more directly target audiences in western territories.

Part of Warner Bros Interactive Entertainment, the Bostonbased studio leads development on strategy title Game of Thrones: Conquest.

The mobile title appears to have outlasted its source material in popularity – thankfully the game’s developers never had to tackle that tricky ending.

Launched in 2017 to take advantage of the GoT hysteria, the game has proven to be consistently successful, with more than 20m downloads to date.

Yostar Games

Yotta Games

Location: Shanghai & Tokyo, Japan

Location: Shanghai, China

Key titles: Azur Lane

Key titles: Mafia City

With offices in Shanghai and Tokyo, Yostar worked with developers Shanghai Manjuu and Xiamen Yongshi to create 2017’s Azur Lane, a side-scrolling shoot ‘em up with RPG elements.

The game anthropomorphises actual World War 2 battleships as female characters. It’s all bizarre as it sounds, with the predictable stylings you’d expect – a Dead or Alive beach volleyball crossover has just kicked off for instance. And that’s just one part of an ever growing empire around the title, which has proven incredibly popular in Japan and beyond.

Chinese studio Yotta Games is responsible for the simulation game Mafia City, which is available on iOS and Android devices.

Despite releasing in 2017, the game has maintained an impressive level of success, listing in the top 10 grossing games worldwide in March, April and May 2019, according to SuperData.

The game is hugely popular in Japan, where it frequently finds itself in the top 15 highestgrossing games. But it also has seen significant overseas success in the UK, US Germany and South Korea.

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