Driving RPG Publishing Decisions with Sensor Tower Insights

Target High-Growth RPG Subgenres to Support Faster Market Entry

Analysis of growth trends across major markets highlights potential opportunities for RPG subgenres to refine their regional positioning. The data from January to October 2025 highlights the dominant genres based on download share and the rapidly growing genres based on download growth.

• Thailand’s Key Subgenres: Top RPG subgenres by download share include MMORPG, Idle RPG, and Squad RPG. For growth, the leaders are Puzzle RPG, Action RPG, and Turn-based RPG.

• Taiwan’s Key Subgenres: Similar to Thailand, MMORPG, Idle RPG, and Squad RPG hold the largest download share. However, the top growth subgenres are Survival, Action RPG, and Squad RPG.

Optimize Publishing ROI by Prioritizing High-Potential Titles

Publishing ROI can be optimized by aligning with established monetization models within high-potential subgenres. For example, for Survival and Squad RPG games, the data suggests specific trends in revenue generation:

• Survival Games: The top three game monetizations are Season Pass, Loot Box, and Subscription.

• Squad RPG Games: The top three game monetizations are Season Pass, Subscription, and Gacha.

Identify High-Performing Titles by Specific Subgenres (e.g. Action RPG)

Market entry dynamics can be captured by analyzing high-performing titles. In the Action RPG category in Thailand (Jan-Oct 2025), the game Crystal of Atlan showed significant market presence.

• Following its worldwide release on May 12, 2025, initial user acquisition was concentrated in Southeast Asian markets, including Indonesia and Thailand.

• Thailand showed strong early traction, with over 80% of downloads occurring within the first two weeks.

• Crystal of Atlan’s Performed strongly relative to other newly released titles  (e.g. Abyss of Dungeons, Axis Blade).

Leverage Ad Network Strategies Behind Top Performers (e.g. Crystal of Atlan)

Optimizing user acquisition is critical, and ad network strategies play a vital role. For a top performer like Crystal of Atlan, ad activity is shown to be associated with downloads, suggesting that digital ads play an important role in supporting user acquisition.

The data reveals the distribution of advertising effort and resulting downloads:

• Ad Network Distribution: Facebook accounts for 50% of the title's ad impressions in Thailand.

• Download Channel Breakdown: Paid marketing and organic discovery are both strong drivers:

  • Paid Display: 41%

  • Organic Browse: 40%

  • Paid Search: 9%

  • Organic Search: 8%

  • Web Browser: 2%

By analyzing the strategies of leading titles and leveraging Sensor Tower insights into expanding  subgenres, established monetization models, and regional ad network utilization, publishers can more effectively evaluate the competitive RPG market and refine their path to market entry.