Square Enix and MZ’s mobile game Final Fantasy XV: A New Empire made $375 million in 2018, according to mobile research firm Sensor Tower.
The strategy game launched in June 2017. The free-to-play title’s total revenues now sit at $518.4 million, with installs at 51 million. The average player spent about $10 on the game in 2018.
Final Fantasy has long focused on console-based role-playing games, but A New Empire shows how mobile games can make big bucks, too. The $375 million that A New Empire brought in for 2018 equates to about 6.2 million copies sold of a traditional $60 console game. Final Fantasy XV, which is out for PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC, has sold 8.1 million copies, for comparison. That does not include sales of the Pocket Edition, an abridged version of the RPG with cuter, less realistic graphics that is out for PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Switch, PC, and mobile.
The game was most popular in the U.S., which accounted for 44 percent of 2018’s revenues. Japan was at second with 27 percent.
MZ developed A New Empire. The studio also created the hit mobile strategy game Mobile Strike (you know, the one that had all of those Arnold Schwarzenegger commercials). That app has made more that $1.3 billion. MZ’s experience with mobile and strategy games and the name recognition of Final Fantasy likely helped make A New Empire a hit.
Square Enix has released a lot of Final Fantasy mobile games, doing things like porting over classics like Final Fantasy IX (at a premium price), making original RPGs like Brave Exvius, and creating crossover free-to-play mashups like Record Keeper.
