More than half of the gaming industry’s income comes from mobile games. Competitive mobile games are often free-to-play, but their popularity helps to increase in-game asset sales. Mobile gaming is a fast-growing industry supported by fan communities, esports teams, and video game conferences and events. The sphere attracts players who want to join esports, people who like to spend their time playing games, and brands looking for a platform to promote themselves.

What is a mobile multiplayer game?

Like multiplayer games for PC, competitive mobile games allow you to play online with different people worldwide. Mobile games are the best way to give your fighting spirit a real victory. There are many genres among which everyone can find a game that will suit them. Do you like first-person shooters? Try Shadowgun Legends or Modern Combat 5: Blackout. If you want to play with other players and defend your base, then Mobile Legends: Bang Bang or Arena of Valor is for you. There are many options, and almost any of them goes for free. Plus, mobile games do not take up physical space or require organization skills, like PC games. By the way, you can read the article Mastering your video game organization skills: a guide to find tips that help gamers keep their collections in check.

Top competitive mobile games

Just pick your mobile game and get started. There are an incredible number of mobile games, and almost every day, companies launch new apps on mobile platforms. In this article, we only describe a few examples of competitive games that are also esports disciplines.

Mobile Legends: Bang Bang

Mobile Legends is one of the most popular mobile games by Moonton Technology. Like other MOBA games, each player controls one hero and together with teammates tries to defeat the opposing team. In 2020, the competitive mobile game reached over 1 billion installs and 100 million monthly active users.

PUBG Mobile

PUBG Mobile is a real-time multiplayer battle royale mobile game developed by PUBG Corporation. In 2021 the game generated about $8 million in revenue per day, which was a huge success. The game developers made a well-established business model releasing a free-to-play mobile version, while the PC version cost about $30. The competitive game is available on iOS and Android, while its main competitor Fortnite can only be played on iOS.

Garena Free Fire

Garena Free Fire is an online multiplayer battle royale game. Like PUBG mobile, Free Fire is free of charge. In 2018, the game became one of the most downloaded games on the Google Play Store, gathering a huge community. Given that Free Fire didn’t become available until 2017, the game’s popularity is undeniable.

Call of Duty: Mobile

Call of Duty: Mobile is one of the most popular FPS competitive games. The mobile game provides three mods and can run as other multiplayer game genres, such as battle royale or a specific zombie mod. In total, the app has earned over $750 million since its release in 2019 on the mobile platform.

Clash of Clans

The mobile strategy video game Clash of Clans first appeared on iOS mobile devices, but only a year later, Supercell made the game available for the Android system. Players could partner up to accumulate powers and fight together, or play solo, based on their strategies. The game was downloaded over 500 million times. While Clash of Clans is free-to-play, its annual revenue goes above $1 billion.

Arena of Valor

Arena of Valor is another free MOBA game where two teams fight against each other. The game was first released as Honor of Kings in 2016 in Taiwan by Level Infinite, a subsidiary of Tencent. The gameplay is similar to the PC MOBA game League of Legends, released by another Tencent subsidiary, Riot Games. Game revenue exceeded $140 million in 2018, excluding data from China.

League of Legends: Wild Rift

In 2015, Riot Games refused to develop the mobile version of League of Legends. Therefore, its parent company Tencent released Arena of Valor. However, in 2020, the subsidiary created a new game League of Legends: Wild Rift for Android and iOS. In its first year on the market, the revenue of this breakthrough game reached $150 million.

Clash Royale

Clash Royale is a game released by Supercell, the developers of Clash of Clans. These games go by a single genre, but there is still a difference between them. Clash Royale is focused on shorter, fast-paced matches with card game elements. In other matters, both games are quite popular among users. In three years, Clash Royale made $2.5 billion in revenue.

Asphalt 9: Legends

If you’re looking for a racing game on a mobile phone but with sleek graphics and design, like PC games, your solution is Asphalt 9: Legends. The game quickly gained popularity and, in just a week after its release, amassed 1 million downloads. There are 149 cars in the game, differing from each other in characteristics.

Brawl Stars

Brawl Stars is another MOBA game by Supercell. The game offers different gameplay options. There is a traditional MOBA mod where you need to defend your base, a royal battle mod, and a third-person shooter. In general, you decide whether to play solo or with allies. Since Brawl Stars offers mods for every taste, the company generated a revenue of $275 million in just half a year.

Mobile gaming as a part of the esports world

While the vast majority of gamers play just for fun, other players join the competitive scene to fight for prize pools. Mobile esports isn’t as popular as traditional esports. In any case, the biggest games offer rewards ranging from thousands of dollars to several million.

For example, the total prize of the PUBG Global Championship 2021 is $4,340,000. In addition to winning, other achievements are rewarded too. The most impressive team got $20,000. The event lasts for about a month and involves 32 of the best teams.

As a competitive game, Arena of Valor provides regional tournaments for several continents and several world championships. The Arena of Valor International Championship 2021 gathered 16,473,220 hours watched with a prize pool of $1 million.

The Clash Royale League united the top players among five regions to participate in the world championship, named CRL World Finals. The Clash Royale tournament offers a solo player $200,000 for the victory, while the total prize pool surpasses $1 million.

There are a lot of other competitive games joining the esports scene and arranging tournaments, offering a rewarding system of any kind. Whether you want to compete in solo or team games, play in an esports FPS or MOBA genre, competitive mobile gaming offers all the options.

Mobile games are interesting for people who want to fight and join the competitive scene to win money, and also for companies — as yet another source of income obtained by developing new technological games, platforms for promotion, or even gathering a fan base.