It seems that we have had a spell cast upon us. Apparently, we love Harry Potter: Hogwarts Mystery so much that we’ve collectively handed over $300 million in revenue in the three years since it launched. It’s become one of the highest-grossing mobile titles on the app stores (thanks to its many microtransactions). It started off well, with an estimated $12 million gross in its first week. Nine months after its April 25 release date in 2018 it clocked the $100m mark, 25 months to hit $200m, and now just over three years to hit $300 million.
According to a report by Sensor Tower, revenue neared the $100m mark in its first year, then dipped to $74m in 2019. The pandemic has forced more people indoors with time to kill, so naturally, phone and game time has gone up. That’s the case with revenue too, as it went right back up to $95m, a rise of around 28% from the previous year.
As impressive as that figure seems, it isn’t even the best performing Harry Potter game. That honor goes to Harry Potter: Puzzles & Spells (pictured above). A match-three puzzle game in a similar vein to many other titles out there like Candy Crush and its many spinoffs, Puzzles & Spells outperformed Hogwarts Mystery in the last quarter, which makes a bit of sense, as those sorts of games are easier to pick up and spend time on than Hogwarts Mystery, which is a bit more full-featured by comparison. Both of them massively outperformed Wizards Unite, the AR game by Pokemon Go developers Niantic. Given the circumstances, however, what with a massive global pandemic going on, there’s not much incentive to go out and explore.
Hogwarts Mystery ranked above other highly successful titles such as Nintendo’s Animal Crossing Pocket Camp, EA’s The Simpsons Tapped Out and Disney’s Magic Kingdom.
It will be interesting to see if a future game will replicate that $300 million success. It is a different kettle of fish with non-mobile games, but the anticipated Harry Potter: Hogwarts Legacy has the potential to deliver a great console and PC experience that fans have wanted from Harry Potter for so long.
