Esports and mobile gaming have witnessed massive growth over the past few years, and this is just the beginning.
With smartphones becoming as powerful as their console and desktop counterparts, mobile gaming has attracted a massive wave of casual gamers — granting them flexibility to play desktop-quality games anytime, anywhere.
In a recent report released by esports charts, it turns out that the top 3 mobile games downloaded in 2020 fell under 2 main categories: FPS and MOBA. They are as follows:
3rd Place: Mobile Legends: Bang Bang
Developed by China’s Moonton, Mobile Legends has become extremely popular in the recent years, especially in the Southeast Asian region.
In 2020, the game’s largest competition, MPL Indonesia Season 6 had a peak viewership of over 1.38 million people.
The MOBA game also clocked in over 106.1 million hours of total watch time on 3.18k hours of air time — a 262% growth in watch hours compared to the previous year.
2nd Place: Free Fire
Free Fire is one of the most popular first-person-shooter games by Garena — a leading game publisher in Southeast Asia.
In 2020, Free Fire had a peak viewership of 2.2 million viewers at the Free Fire Continental Series 2020 Asia, the game’s most popular tournament for the year.
The game clocked in a total of 132.2 million watch hours against a cumulative air time of 3.1k hours, and has enjoyed tremendous success in the Commonwealth Independent States and Brazilian region so far.
1st Place: PUBG Mobile
The most popular esports title in 2020 has been the even-popular battle royale game, PUBG Mobile by Tencent.
Despite being banned in India, the game became the world’s most watched mobile esports game in 2020, accumulating over 134.5 million hours in watch time on 7.8k hours of air time.
At the game’s most popular annual tournament, PUBG Mobile World League (PMWL), PUBG Mobile garnered over 1.1 million viewers watching live at its peak.