The Golden Age of Gaming has arrived, and it’s safe to say phone mobile earned the title of “America’s favorite pastime.” From waiting rooms to long road trips, and even staying up way past bedtime, mobile games make us lose track of time and question, “How did it get to be 1:00 am already?”
Google Play Store and Apple’s App Store are overflowing with different fun phone games—some we become addicted to, while others are a download of regret. Whether you quickly delete the game from your phone or tuck it away in case boredom strikes, which popular phone games are you searching for and which are you guilty of downloading?
Methodology
To find out which phone games over the years Americans are burying their face in, we analyzed Google Trends search volume for 95 of the most downloaded mobile games since 2008— the year the iPhone was born.
We started with finding the volume for each game during its release year. For example, the addictive Angry Birds game debuted in October 2010. Hence, the search interest reflects October 2010 to October 2011, whereas Pokemon Go was released in December 2016, so interest reflects then to December 2017.
The Most Popular Mobile Game in Every U.S. State
Mobile games have immense popularity in today’s world. While people across the country have access to entertainment wherever and whenever because of mobile phones, the phone game of choice over the years certainly varies state-to-state.
Two of the more popular mobile game franchises made an appearance in our research with different versions of Angry Birds and Candy Crush being the most popular mobile game in 12 out of 50 states. The cultural impact of these particular phone game franchises is interesting, but not altogether too surprising when you think about it. Is anyone you know not at least sort of familiar with Angry Birds or Candy Crush? We didn’t think so.
The Most Popular Mobile Games Overall
Overall, the most searched mobile game was Angry Birds, a simplistic puzzle game that was so culturally relevant it later extended to movies! The drag-and-aim game follows the story of hungry pigs stuck on a small island. The green pigs starved to the point they decided to eat some of the eggs they found, making the birds angry. Colorado, Georgia, Illinois, Minnesota, North Carolina, Ohio, and Pennsylvania were addicted to the frustrations of the hard-to-master game.
Florida, Michigan, Missouri, Tennessee, and Virginia prefer Guns of Boom, a competitive, 3-D multiplayer game. Like Angry Birds, the game is easy to play with simple controls. Instead of following a story, you run around an arena with other players utilizing different cunning tactics to win the battle.
World of Tanks is another online battle game where you drive and shoot other tanks while trying not to get shot yourself. There’s something about putting your tank together, mapping out a battle plan, when to rush in, and retreat that has Idaho, New Hampshire, and New Mexico hooked.
Reeses-ently in our study, we found out Alabama and South Carolina have a sweet tooth with a Candy Crush franchise favorite being their most popular phone game. The goal of the Candy Crush: Soda Saga is to clear as many rows and columns as possible in as few moves as possible. Candies clear when at least three in a row match, which is done by swapping pieces of candy. More than three in a row create special candies.
Louisiana and Rhode Island live life in luxury with Kim Kardashian: Hollywood at their fingertips. Choose your own story and dress up in designer clothes for an iconic celebrity look as you join Kim on different red-carpet adventures.
Although Roblox has been on PC since 2005, the game has exploded in popularity, especially in South Dakota and Wyoming. Similar to Minecraft, the game’s purpose is to imagine, socialize, chat, play, create, and have fun. Players can even create their own game or another world for friends and other virtual players to enjoy.
Select your robot and battle! The biggest game centered around giant robots is Arkansas and Maine’s guilty pleasure. Players have dozens of robots to choose from, all with their strengths, weaknesses, abilities, and various weapon options.
Wordle has captured the hearts of many Americans, but D.C. and Massachusetts hold it the closest. The daily word game is like a crossword puzzle. Every 24 hours, there’s a new word of the day; it’s up to the player to figure out what is. After each guess, the color of the tiles changes to show how close your guess is.
Mobile Game Popularity Over the Years
Since iPhones were first released in 2007, smartphones have revolutionized the way we communicate. As numbers of new mobile game releases continue to rise, new technology diversifies and stands out, as seen in games like Pokemon Go. Today, over 6 million phone games are available. Two years after the first iPhone release in 2009, the most dramatic spike occurred–around the same time Angry Birds and World of Tanks made their app store debuts.
Mobile games ebbed and flowed in popularity from 2012 to 2017 before seeing a pretty dramatic decrease through 2020 when the pandemic began. There’s no question that COVID-19 had a massive impact on businesses everywhere. Couple that with elongated development timelines for more immersive mobile games and you can see why there weren’t many popular releases from 2018 to 2020.
That changed with Wordle. The word game, recently purchased by the New York Times, gives users a new puzzle every day and has cajoled Americans from their mobile game malaise. It seems the key to creating popular mobile games in 2022 may be to give people a daily task and give them the opportunity to connect and share it with their friends!
Closing Thoughts
Who doesn’t love a fun phone game? The cycle of trendy mobile games sweeping through the nation is a never ending cycle. As popular phone games fade into obscurity, puzzles at Bits & Pieces remain timeless by never going out of style. Since 1983, millions of adults and kids have indulged in our puzzles and brain teaser puzzles. Shop our collection of original jigsaw puzzles online, or sign up for our catalog today!
