The Uptodown application market publishes a study based on its traffic data, pointing out which Android games have been the most downloaded worldwide from each year of the last decade.
Established titles such as Angry Birds, Plants vs Zombies, Pou, My Talking Tom Cat and Pokémon GO are notable mentions upon reviewing this list, depicting how tastes regarding mobile games have changed over the past ten years.
Uptodown began distributing Android apps in 2011 and today has 130 million unique users per month from all around the world who use its store to download apps and games from the platform. Both the Android video game industry and the mobile ecosystem have generally experienced a constant evolution during the last decade. Ten years ago, Uptodown traffic on mobile devices did not exceed 2% of its total downloads, comprised of iOS, Android, Blackberry and Symbian. However currently, 85% of users use Uptodown from an Android device. This data corresponds to the shift of users from desktop computers and consoles towards smartphones, as well as the implementation of Android as the predominant mobile system (according to data from the IDC technology consultancy, in 2020 Android devices represented more than 84% of the units shipped in 2020 worldwide, the remaining 16% belongs to iOS).
Concerning games this decade, Android has had many great titles that have laid the foundations for many genres that would not make sense on other platforms, making mobile platforms currently the most widespread and used gaming system in the world, above even traditional consoles.
Even though the beginning of the decade saw the most played titles from across a variety of genres (from driving/racing to soccer, strategy or skill puzzles), recent years have seen a definitive shift towards games of the Battle Royale genre. On the other hand, we have also seen a re-emergence of genres that were first introduced on the PC or consoles such as real-time strategy, MOBAs and puzzle games.
How many of these titles have befriended you in recent years?
MOST DOWNLOADED ANDROID GAMES BY YEAR
2011
1- Need for Speed Shift
2- PES 2011
3- Talking Tom Cat
2012
1- Plants vs Zombies
2- Need for Speed Shift
3- Angry Birds
2013
1- Candy Crush Saga
2- Pou
3- Angry Birds
2014
1- Candy Crush Saga
2- Subway Surfers
3- Pou
2015
1- Plants vs Zombies 2
2- Subway Surfers
3- Geometry Dash
2016
1- Clash of Clans
2- Pokemon GO
3- Subway Surfers
2017
1- Clash of Clans
2- Clash Royale
3- Subway Surfers
2018
1- Free Fire
2- Fortnite
3- PUBG Mobile
2019
1- PUBG Mobile
2- Free Fire
3- Clash of Clans
2020
1- PUBG Mobile
2- PUBG Mobille Lite
3- Fortnite
2021
1- PUBG Mobile Lite
2- PUBG Mobile
3- PUBG Mobile (Korean version)
About Uptodown
Uptodown is an international platform for the digital distribution of applications specialized for Android, founded in 2002. Alternative and totally independent, this app store is based on the principle of respecting the privacy of the user, not being required to register and allowing software to be downloaded both from its own official app and through the web. It has a catalogue of more than 3.8 million apps, divided into thematic categories and hosted on its own servers, offering for each one an information sheet prepared by its team of editors and supplemented with the opinions of its users. Available in fifteen languages, it currently has 130 million active users worldwide, and facilitates more than 450 million downloads every month.