Want to know what the most profitable mobile MOBA is?

 

League of Legends: Wild Rift is, to put it mildly, swimming in dough. According to data from analytics website Sensor Tower, the League of Legends app game has raked in over $500 million in global player spending. And guess what, China accounts for over 70% of that spend. Diablo Immortal must be feeling pretty envious right about now. 

This veritable ocean of money was amassed over the course of 16 months and stands as Riot Games’ most successful app game offering. It is also the second most profitable mobile MOBA on the market, behind the indomitable Honor of Kings. And though the $218 million it generated in the first part of the year in 2022 is certainly nothing to sniff at, it barely holds a candle to Honor of Kings’ $1.4 billion generated in the same period. We’d say it’s not a competition, but it definitely is. 

Regardless, thanks to the generous contributions of Wild Rift, Riot Games is looking poised to break $1 billion in total revenue across its entire app gaming portfolio. Along with Wild Rift’s $500 million, its other LoL-based app games, Teamfight Tactics and Legends of Runeterra, have generated another $299 million and $24 million, respectively. 

 

most profitable mobile MOBA

 

And this success can be mostly attributed to Riot Games’ Chinese audience, which accounts for 72.2% of that $500 million total. By contrast, the USA accounts for a measly 6.8% in global lifetime revenue. Which helps highlight the stark difference in how both countries enjoy app games. 

Either way, we’d wager that Riot Games is thankful for its China-based audience – a market that was woefully denied to Diablo Immortal recently thanks to a Winnie the Pooh-based fumble. Blizzard and NetEase’s Diablo app game still managed to make nearly $50 million in its first month alone. But it must be painful for the developer to think just how much more that could have been if its release in China wasn’t indefinitely delayed. 

How soon Riot reaches that $1 billion mark will be no doubt spurred by the imminent release of its upcoming Valorant app game, which is in the later stages of development and already looks pretty impressive. 

Meanwhile, to help Wild Rift on its way to becoming the most profitable mobile MOBA, you can download it for free now via Google Play and the App Store.