Data digest: Meowdoku and Learnings’ sudden rise, Honor of Kings, Disney Emoji Blitz, Netflix Playground, more

Every Wednesday, we break down the latest data, research and financial results into digestible chunks.

Read on for the numbers you need to know about without the fluff.

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According to an AppMagic report, Chinese studio Learnings has generated over 40m downloads in a single month from just three games: Amaze Go, Meowdoku and Vita Mahjong.

The data firm notes that Vita Mahjong has now generated over 237m lifetime downloads, with Amaze Go on 68m+ and Meowdoku on 10m+ and counting.

It goes on to spotlight the growth of Mystery Town, noting that Learnings is expanding its reach into the merge puzzle category. In Q2, Mystery Town was close to overtaking one of the genre’s defining releases, Merge Mansion, by IAP revenue.

Continuing the Learnings theme, Sensor Tower says Meowdoku was June’s fastest-growing game by downloads with 8.9m new installs in June, way ahead of second-placed game Pokémon Champions, which generated 5.1m downloads.

The data firm also says Roblox saw the biggest growth in daily active users last month, up 17% month-on-month.

June’s highest revenue growth belongs to Whiteout Survival, which saw a month-on-month increase of 11%, increasing revenue by around $10.5m.

Learnings leads the way in ad creatives for June, too, with Tile Explorer and Zen Word leading SocialPeta’s ad creative charts for iOS and Android respectively.

On iOS, Learnings has the top four spots with Tile Explorer, Vita Mahjong, Amaze Go and Meowdoku, while Zen Word is in sixth and Jigsawscapes in 12th.

On Android, the Chinese firm is just as dominant, claiming the top three spots with Zen Word, Tile Explorer and Vita Mahjong, while Amaze Go is in fifth, Jigsawscapes is in sixth, Jigsawcard in eighth and Meowdoku in 14th.

New estimates from Sensor Tower suggest Tencent’s Honor of Kings retook its crown as the world’s top-grossing game across the first half of 2026, with revenue up 18% and downloads up 32%, bringing Tencent’s gross IAP to $5bn.

Supercell’s Brawl Stars similarly saw a boost in revenue, with Sensor Tower estimating a 59% increase in revenue in 2026 so far, but Clash Royale reportedly dropped 68%, leaving Supercell’s net result “essentially flat.”

The numbers places Century Games as 2026’s second-biggest publisher, with Kingshot revenue up 11% and Tasty Travels: Merge Game at +145% revenue and +127% downloads.

Microfun jumped four spots into the top 10 courtesy of a 34% boost in revenue for Gossip Harbor and 118% increase for Flambe: Merge & Cook.

Disney Emoji Blitz has been downloaded over 54m times, says Jam City. As the game reaches its 10th anniversary, making it one of the longest-running Disney mobile games, Jam City also said players have played more than 1tn rounds, and made Tinker Bell the most-played emoji.

A new report from Drakestar suggests investment in games hit an annual high in Q2 2026, fueled by gaming AI, adtech and hardware deals.

Standout transactions included funding rounds for AppsFlyer ($1bn), General Intuition ($320M), Decart, Tripo AI, and Palmer Luckey’s ModRetro and Liftoff Mobile’s IPO.

There were also 51 announced M&A transactions, primarily involving smaller to mid-sized platform and tools companies and PC/console and mobile game studios, including the acquisition of Playstack by TPG’s investment vehicle IMC and Supercell’s acquisition of Metacore.

Across Q2 2026, over $2.5bn was generated across 96 private financing rounds, making it the “strongest quarter by disclosed financing value in the past 12 months and the second-highest in the last three years,” said Drake Star.

Since its launch in April, Netflix Playground has tripled its daily player count, leading to a 600% increase in engagement with children year-on-year, says Netflix.

While the streaming giant admitted in its Q2 earnings report that this player base remains small compared to its overall games division, Netflix co-CEO Greg Peters said its overall games performance is “scratching the surface in terms of what we think the total potential the space offers for us.”

AppMagic estimates that over half of Netflix Playgrounds’ 2.4m downloads were made in the last 30 days, and 25% of all downloads happened in the US.