Chinese mobile game publishers have grabbed six of the top 10 spots in the global grossing charts this year, led by Tencent's Honor of Kings and Century Games' Whiteout Survival, while American studios scramble to compete in a mobile gaming market forecast to hit $121.1 billion in 2026. The shift marks a striking turn for an industry long associated with US hits like Temple Run, Plants vs. Zombies, and Pokémon Go.
According to Bloomberg, whose business-section report was co-authored by Cecilia D'Anastasio and Vignesh Radhakrishnan, American game studios are losing ground to Chinese rivals who now make games quicker, cheaper, and more profitably. The report frames 2026 as the year the United States lost its grip on a mobile gaming sector it once dominated, with the US commanding a major slice of the global gaming industry as recently as 2020.
Honor of Kings and Whiteout Survival Lead the Charge
Honor of Kings hit a record-breaking monthly haul of around $194 million in January, according to estimates from AppMagic cited by mobilegamer.biz. The outlet notes that AppMagic's figures are based on publisher payout and do not include Apple or Google's 30% cut, ad revenue, webshop cash, or in-app purchases from China's fragmented Android ecosystem — meaning the real totals could run even higher. Still, AppMagic estimates that 98% of Honor of Kings' lifetime revenue has come from China itself, while Whiteout Survival has been pulling in roughly $110 million every month during the first half of 2026, the site reports.
Separately, awnchina.cn's first-half 2026 tally put Honor of Kings' global App Store and Google Play in-app purchase revenue at $1 billion, with Whiteout Survival close behind at $723 million. Chinese studios swept the top three spots among grossing mobile games in that period, with Whiteout Survival in second and LastWar in third, per mobilegamer.biz's reporting.
A Widening Export Pack Beyond the Household Names
The dominance isn't limited to a handful of blockbusters. Chinese-published games accounted for roughly four of every 10 titles in the global top 100 by revenue when offshore Chinese-founded studios are included, according to PocketGamer.biz. The outlet identifies survival and 4X strategy games, merge titles, and gacha-style RPGs as the genres leading China's export push.
PocketGamer.biz's breakdown of individual titles shows just how international some of these games have become. Honor of Kings topped the worldwide chart at $230 million in gross player spending, with about $227 million of that coming from China alone. Whiteout Survival, by contrast, earned $156.5 million worldwide with only about $45.6 million from China's App Store — close to 71% of its revenue earned overseas. Century Games' Kingshot ranked eighth globally at $130.8 million, with roughly 96% of that total coming from abroad, and the company placed three titles in the global top 30: Whiteout Survival, Kingshot, and Tasty Travels.
US Studios Try to Compete on a Leaner Budget
Against that backdrop, American studios are leaning into speed and scrappiness rather than scale. End Game Interactive, the studio behind the battle royale hit Zombs Royale — one of 2018's most Googled games in the United States, per TechCrunch — was co-founded by Yang Liu, who was born in China before his parents planted roots in suburban Michigan. Liu's company raised $3 million in seed funding back in 2020 in a round led by Makers Fund with participation from Supercell, and TechCrunch's report at the time said End Game's games had attracted more than 160 million players, with 1 million playing in a single day.
Liu has said the studio prides itself on rapid experimentation, and Forbes Africa's 2020 profile described a lean 20-person team focused on releasing simpler games faster — including an early multiplayer battle game built in just four weeks that drew 65 million players. The outlet also reported that investors including Unity Technologies cofounder David Helgason, Twitch cofounder Kevin Lin, and talent manager Scooter Braun backed the $3 million raise. Per the seed facts tied to this story, Liu's business now employs more than 40 people and he has been building it out in Latin America, even as high US operating costs weigh on the broader domestic industry.
A Market Still Growing, Even as the Balance of Power Shifts
None of this is happening in a shrinking market. Newzoo forecasts that global mobile-game revenue will reach $121.1 billion in 2026, up 6.8% year over year, as part of a broader games market the firm expects to generate $213.9 billion this year — a 6.1% increase. Newzoo notes that mobile downloads are actually declining, even as deeper monetization drives spending from an audience projected to reach 3.10 billion players in 2026, with emerging regions like the Middle East, Africa, and Latin America contributing an increasing share of global player growth.
That growth curve helps explain why the competition over who captures the spending is so fierce. With Chinese publishers now controlling six of the world's 10 highest-grossing mobile games and genre specialists in survival, merge, and gacha titles expanding their reach well beyond China's own borders, American studios are left looking for an edge in speed, cost, and niche experimentation rather than sheer scale.
