War Robots, the mobile game from My.Games‘ Pixonic studio, has hit its 10th anniversary and generated more than $900 million in revenues and 270 million registered players to date.
About 20 million of those players have downloaded the game since August 2023, when the Amsterdam company announced it had 250 million players.
The mobile multiplayer shooter game launched in 2014, and it has seen consistent growth, blooming into a full-fledged franchise, and gathering a huge community across the globe.
“War Robots is a unique example of the game that not only successfully performs for 10 years in a
very competitive market, but continues to grow year to year,” said Elena Grigorian, CEO of My.Games, in a statement. “We are very pleased with these results and the fact that, even after years, we have been able to continue to unlock the potential of the project and enter new markets – China, for example.”
To celebrate the 10th Anniversary of War Robots, Pixonic team staged an in-game event with new content, cinematics with new lore, and new merch for fans.
The game started out as a conflict between huge metal war machines. Around the fifth year, the team added pilots who controlled the machines. It gave them human faces, and back stories. This proved to be very popular with the players, said Boris Burangulov, executive producer of War Robots, in an interview with GamesBeat.
“Everybody loves good stories,” Burangulov said.
War Robots by the numbers
As of today, War Robots attracted more than 270 million registered players and over $900 million in revenue. 2023 alone brought in more than 28 million installs across all platforms. Now, War Robots has up to 5 million monthly users, around 600,000 of whom log in every day.
War Robots is played all over the world and is consistently in the top five shooters by revenue in its key markets: the US, Japan, Germany, United Kingdom and Korea. As for the niche of tactical mobile shooters, Burangulov believes that the game is at No. 1 among the contenders.
North America is one of the biggest markets for War Robots. Players from the U.S. and Canada jumped into the game right after its release in 2014 and have been a big part of the community ever since.
In the U.S., War Robots ranked in the top five in revenue across all shooter games in 2023. And it was in the top three in Canada. Through the years, the U.S. has been the top region across the globe with 33 million registered accounts, or about 10% of the U.S. population. The region has generated more than $350 million in lifetime revenue.
In 2023, players from the US installed War Robots 2.4 million times, and around 600,000 of them played
every month.
Together, the U.S. and Canada account for more than 15% of all War Robots players across the globe and brought in more than 40% of the game’s lifetime revenue. In 2023, players from these two countries played around 150 million matches and destroyed around 500 million robots.
Burangulov said that a couple of thousand players have actually been playing for the whole 10 years, which is remarkable for a mobile game.
“It’s a very big day for them,” he said.
War Robots: from 2014 to 2024
Upon release, the game was called Walking War Robots – and the company later dropped the “Walking” part to make it War Robots. Its metrics weren’t the best by modern standards, but it quickly gathered a
loyal community of fans.
In the early days, there were technical problems. But the team stuck with it and made improvements and the game started to grow.
Constantly updating the game is a part of Pixonic’s modus operandi. The updates played a major role in
the development of War Robots. At the very beginning, the game had only six robots, nine weapons and one map. Flash forward to 2024: there are 83 robots and 15 Titans, 149 weapons, 106 Legendary Pilots, 14 unique maps, PvP and PvE game modes, leaderboards and many other important features.
Also, in 2020 War Robots received a massive and very ambitious remaster, during which the developers completely remade 80-plus robots, 100-plus weapons, maps, VFX, and added graphic setting. The game receives at least nine major updates every year, and the team plans to keep experimenting and delivering new things.
Another big step for War Robots was its release in China in 2024, for which the team worked hard
for five years. The game shows good results in a new market: it has already checked in at top five
shooters in the region, Burangulov said.
“I always say that War Robots is a unique game. And its continuous growth for 10 years is yet
another proof of that” said Burangulov. “There is only one way to develop and grow a unique game – gather unique people around it. All this success wouldn’t be possible without our team, their talent and passion.”
War Robots will have some competition soon from Kek Entertainment. Georgy Egorov and Oleg Poroshin, veterans from Pixonics, started the new company a couple of years ago.
More War Robots stats
Burangulov said the team has about 100 people on it. The team is scattered in places such as Amsterdam and Cyprus.
At first, War Robots’ metrics weren’t very impressive – in today’s highly competitive market, these would’ve led to the project being shut down. But it caught the attention of players and turned the situation around: a million installs a year after release, 100-plus million in three years.
War Robots is played in literally every country in the world, including Antarctica and Greenland. In 2020, the remaster of War Robots was highlighted at the Apple Event.
In War Robots’ 10-year history, more than 2.8 billion 6v6 battles were played. War Robots is one of 27 games that received ISBN license for releasing in China in 2023. The developers had been working towards it for five years. In January, the company formally launched the game in China and it was a big success.
“The game constantly evolving. If you played a game 10 years ago, five years ago, or even a year ago, it’s a little bit different every time because we are constantly developing it, adding features,” Burangulov said. “That’s very important because our world is evolving and changing the game makes sense. For example, in 2021, we made a complete overhaul of our graphics system. The game became much more beautiful than before.”
Pixonic is working on War Robots: Frontiers — a high-end third-person shooter developed with Unreal Engine 5. There is a separate team working on that title.
My.Games itself has more than a billion downloads to date for its games.
Burangulov said that the cells in the human body renew every seven years, though brain cells and heart cells mostly stay intact.
“With War Robots, our players will carry their emotions about this game for the rest of their lives, and our team will as well,” he said.