Fate Grand Order celebrated its 7th anniversary last week, with the long running mobile game boasting some of the highest earnings in its lifetime.
According to data from Appmagic, Fate Grand Order has earned 3.9 billion USD across all platforms, putting it as one of the most profitable mobile games of all time alongside PUBG Mobile and Honor of Kings.
Considering its status as one of the progenitors of the anime gacha game, it’s no surprise that Fate Grand Order is the king of earnings among its contemporaries- the game launched when many common rules about gacha mechanics weren’t implemented, having a wildly aggressive monetization system for players who wanted to max out their favorite servants.
This included a lack of a pity rate (a maximum number of pulls before you get a certain reward), as well as laughably low drop rates for featured units, with a 1% for 5-star Servants on the regular banner and 0.8% for the limited banner, as per the Fate Grand Order wiki.
Combined with its strong head start, Fate Grand Order continues to trump titles like Genshin Impact in overall earnings, though in recent months its revenue has slowed down, being just shy of 50 million USD a month.
If nothing else, being behind PUBG Mobile and Honor of Kings is more a testament to just how wild the early days of mobile gaming were- Honor of Kings completely laps Fate with 8 billion USD in lifetime earnings, and PUBG Mobile, despite being 3 years late to the party maintained higher monthly revenue for most of the time between June 2019 and January 2022, with brief monthly blips where Tencent’s golden goose caught up.
That being said, the standards for meteoric growth have also changed in the 7 years- at the same point in the game’s lifespan as Genshin Impact is now, Fate Grand Order had earned over 924,000 USD- definitely phenomenon-worthy for its time. However, in this same 2-year window Genshin has walked away with 2.6 billion USD, without even accounting for the game’s console and PC purchases.
The Strength Of Fate
While it’s not nearly the powerhouse on the level of Honor of Kings, one thing Fate Grand Order can be commended on is its consistency. While many mobile games will have a surge of popularity before dipping Fate has largely avoided that, with large spikes for popular banners and a fairly regular monthly income otherwise giving it a fairly regular-looking graph, without too many dramatic dips.
It should be noted that it’s done this with a fairly limited release, too- while all the major moneymaking regions have access to the game, countries like the UK, Australia and Indonesia have been historically left out, with the first two only just being announced to get access to the game.
Couple that with the series longevity as an IP- branching into anime under the Fate Grand Order sub-brand as well as arcade games, and you have a series that’s far from being on its last legs.
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